Pinedrop Ponies

08/18/2024

Safe to say we’ve got the verbal cue down on this one 🙂

08/17/2024

The horses know who to go to for the best scratches 😂 They seem to think I don’t scratch hard enough!

08/13/2024

08/12/2024

A perfect day at Pinedrop Ponies ❤️ Photos by Jennifer and Sebastian Raudebaugh

07/31/2024

A lovely session today with Cindi, Kaya, Gunnison, and some puppy snuggles with Hoss and Moki!

07/25/2024

Hi folks. Things have been SO busy in my world with the mid-summer work rush. I haven’t been accepting new students of late, but starting the second week of August, I can add a few to the roster!

I also offer c**t starting, tune-ups, exercise riding, and sale consignment.

If you’re interested in getting on the books for the second half of the year, shoot me a message on this page!

Here’s baby Hawk 🙂

07/09/2024

Sebastian and Charlie blazing the trail in our lesson last weekend! It’s so cool seeing their confidence and partnership bloom.

06/29/2024

A recent study, conducted in Japan, compared various methods for cooling horses after exercise in hot and humid conditions. Thoroughbreds were exercised until their pulmonary artery temperature reached 108°F. The time until the pulmonary artery temperature returned to

06/26/2024

Little man was two weeks premature, so he and his mama had to be on stall rest to let his bones develop. He just passed his radiograph checkup, and is now allowed to be on pasture! Welcome to horsehood, little dude!

06/22/2024

The hoof is an incredible mechanism!

06/20/2024

My nieces are some of my most dedicated students, and yesterday Margaret showed she can get on her pony all by herself!

06/17/2024

I’ll admit- I’m terrible at keeping my business pages up to date online! But, I wanted to introduce everyone to the sweet little guy born here at Pinedrop Ponies 9 days ago. ❤️

His mother, Mulan, has an amazing personality and his dad, Poco Dun In Silver, is said to be the same! I can’t wait to see the amazing horse he grows into. We all just love him to pieces!

Let me know if you have name ideas! We have some strong contenders, but maybe you do too 🙂

06/03/2024

Everything comes with a price

A sensitive horse is going to be sensitive to both light aids AND your accidental aids and mistakes

A quiet school horse is going to give you room to fumble with your hands and legs, and they are also likely to ignore them when you mean to use them.

It isn’t fair to want the reward without the price. It isn’t fair to take from a horse without giving- and it all comes down to working on ourselves: our expectations, riding abilities, mindset, and awareness. You can’t have a perfectly performing horse without putting in your own work. A horse is not a computer or a robot- they rise to, or fall to, the level of the horseman.

Photo by Melinda Yelvington

06/02/2024

I need to just go ahead and make Jennifer Raudebaugh the official photographer of Pinedrop Ponies! I always look forward to the pictures she sends after Sebastian’s lessons!

05/27/2024

Did you know:

Students in my program are welcome to come visit and groom our horses outside of their lesson times at no extra charge? One of the perks here at Pinedrop Ponies is that I encourage my students to develop a relationship with the horses they’re riding. Equine care and handling is deeply relationship-based. Being around horses outside of the saddle can be very therapeutic!

Here’s a photo of some playtime with client horse, Kaya 🐴

05/20/2024

Charlie watching the storm roll in after lessons yesterday morning ☁️

05/14/2024

Desensitization doesn’t need to be dramatic!

05/13/2024

Diesel was such a great pony horse today! It was his first time being involved in lessons. Way to earn your keep, big guy!

04/25/2024

“This is so basic I can’t believe it needs to be said”-

This is something frequently stated by commenters or auditors when I’m writing or teaching.

There’s a few things worthy of addressing here

1- I never assume anyone knows, or more, SHOULD know, anything.
You never know what someone’s background or education is, regardless of years of experience.

I learned plenty of not ideal things with horses growing up; and had to learn what I now consider very basic handling and facts as an adult. Should I have known better? Who’s to say? I had plenty of education, and I knew what I was presented with, until I was presented with better.

Should is irrelevant. You know what you know until you find better.

2- what’s considered basics to one is different for another. When people say something is a foundational skill, it’s all very relative.
My basics versus another persons basics may be completely different. So if someone doesn’t know MY basics, it doesn’t make them uneducated, it means they’re educated differently. I’m presenting a way of thinking along with a set of skills, but if you didn’t know them it is not a reflection of your ability - only a fact that you haven’t been presented with it yet.

3- just because someone thinks they know or are doing the “basics” well, does not mean they are actually doing them. Many of us need constant reminders or help doing our basics well, because bad habits are very easy to slip into. For example, I consider a basic skill being aware of your horse and surroundings, and yet, when I’m tired or in a bad mood or overwhelmed, this is the first thing to go. Do I know this basic skill? Yes. Am I doing it? No. Therefore I need reminders.

Those are just a few things to consider when presented with “basics” - it’s all relative, and we’re all human. Getting more aware of them and better at them will continue to pay dividends for years to come, and so it’s worth looking at reminders not as something “for other people,” but something to take to heart without judgement.

04/25/2024

This is my client horse, “Dapple,” who has been making leaps and bounds in her trust for humans lately! Her owner said she was able to get her hooves trimmed without me present the first time yesterday. Mustangs can be really tricky because even if one person earns their trust, other people may still be quite frightening. The fact that she was able to trust the farrier without my support just makes me heart sing!

04/23/2024

YES. So often, “behavior problems” with horses are rooted in what their lives are like OUTSIDE of training.

Management matters. There are times when horses have underlying pain that, while management might help, cannot resolve without treating the underlying problem.

However, very frequently horses are difficult in training simply because they are kept locked up, they don’t expend physical and mental energy interacting with other horses, or they are fed diets far from what they were designed to consume.

For example, my mare was keep at a very nice barn. As far as people are concerned it was beautiful in every way. But she was in a box stall, with no opportunity to put her head out of a window, for 18 hours a day.

She had turnout for 6 hours. Which sounds like a lot. Until you think about the other 18 hours.

Trying to exercise her was very difficult. Because she is a powerful, hot, sensitive horse. Well, yes, she is all those things. But that isn’t why she was hard to exercise. She was hard to exercise because of how she was being kept.

Nobody move! Don’t sneeze! Or she’ll explode! She doesn’t mean to but her underlying needs were so far from met.

It makes me so sad now to think of the horses who are so uncomfortable in their own skin simply because of how we house them.

So don’t underestimate the value in management changes when training struggles arise. You might not need to change a single thing about your training approach, but changing one thing about their management might change everything.

04/22/2024

Three proud gals!

04/13/2024

A mule's (or donkey's) saddle fitting needs are entirely different than a horse's.

Many people try to finagle a horse saddle into "working" on a mule and make a very big mess.

For one thing, mules and donkey scapulas go up and down. Horse scapulas go forward and backward.

Real, true, somebody knows what the heck they are doing, mule saddles are made for the up down.

For another the vertebrae towards the back of a saddle on a mule are almost always made differently than a horse. This is Why good mule saddles are split in the back, with no leather lacing bridge.

Riders try to fudge horse saddles on mules with the use of a crupper. With significant crupper use the tailbone often gets fractured, resulting in a mule in pain constantly.

Now there is a bucking or bolting mule, who gets labeled a rogue or bad.

Mules and donkeys also need their top lines developed properly, just as horses do and need to be.

We humans owe it to our creatures to educate ourselves about them or don't have them.