Carpe Diem Training

12/12/2024

❤️❤️❤️❤️

12/07/2024

♥️Yes♥️

11/19/2024

A new Fun with Ground Poles exercise! How many different lines do you see??

11/02/2024

Fantastic lesson under the lights with the amazing ladies of Sun Fire Stables! So much fun to watch the lovely Clydesdales in such harmony. It is lessons like this that make me love my job.♥️

10/31/2024

Happy Halloween from Carpe Diem Training!🎃🐴🎃🐴

10/31/2024

Love it when my clients dress up for their lessons around Halloween!!🎃 Pirate Sarah and Ember!☠️

10/17/2024

It is a serious disorder!!

10/12/2024

True♥️

10/08/2024

Help your horse learn to carry themselves like a riding horse....don't force them.

Do you ride your horse in a tie down?

The next time you choose your equipment, remember this picture.
The next time you have to choose a "harsher" noseband because your horse is "running through" your current choice, remember this picture.

Consider the fact that you may be causing nerve damage.
Consider the fact that maybe your horse can't even feel their face anymore.

These are the images of a quarter horse ridden in a tie down with a wire noseband in their futurity year of barrel racing.
This horse is now 15.

Correct infrared imaging of the horse tells us more than just a story of anatomy, more than just a story of physiology.

10/06/2024

Here is another analogy I have used in Carpe Diem Training!

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS:🐴 To feel correct contact …

Imagine a fishing line. When the horse is behind the hand or “empty,” the contact feels like the fishing line is just hanging on the water (image on left), but once you get the horse pushing into the bit, the contact you feel is like a draw on your back, elbows, forearm and hand—just like a fish taking the line (image on right).
— Mica Mabragaña

08/18/2024

Proud trainer day! This young, beautiful Andalusian gelding was imported from Spain last Fall and his lucky owner has taken the time and had the patience to bring him along to be started under saddle. Learning different ground work exercises and lunging techniques, Galan has learned to have manners and proving to have a nice work ethnic. His owner, Mary had the exciting chance to be the first one on his back and he was a rockstar!! Great job Mary and Galan!!

08/11/2024

Always enjoy a Carpe Diem Training lesson with the Clydesdales of Sun Fire Stables!❤️

07/31/2024

This is disgraceful. We have to remember it is the rider wanting to win the metals not the horse. If you are going to ask an animal to help YOU achieve YOUR goals you need to do it with compassion and kindness while listening to your horse, understanding their limitations, respecting their natural abilities and carriage and always....I repeat always....put them first.

07/15/2024

It has been a hot, wet summer but we are already halfway through the year. The cold weather will be here before you know it which means being stuck in the four walls of the indoor, riding around in circles. Why not get a Fun with Ground Poles Clinic set up at your farm?? This clinic offers a way to get out of the winter rut while keeping both horse and rider active and learning. The clinic consists of 90-minute small group lessons where horse and rider teams learn how different exercises and patterns can benefit their riding. This clinic if for riders of all levels and disciplines. Carpe Diem Training supplies all the poles (50 to be exact!) Check out https://www.carpediemeqtraining.com/ground-poles for more details. Don't think you can fill a clinic but want to learn how ground poles can benefit your riding? Carpe Diem Training also offers "Mini Ground Pole Clinics" for smaller groups.
Contact Kelley Shetter-Ruiz at [email protected] or via Facebook Messenger. Limited dates available so schedule soon!!
Fun with Ground Poles is a clinic for everyone who just loves to ride!!

07/01/2024

Very well said!

When we work with horses we must first acknowledge that what we desire in a horse for behaviour is not what nature programmed them to do

When we think of spooky, flighty, wary, reactive horses we often see this as a challenge and while in the wild this horse would probably survive longer than the one that wasn't, in domestication these horses can often get a bit of bit of a raw deal

I watched a thing about horses that were working in the police force and they put heart monitors on them while going through training, now when faced with something they didn't like the horses that spooked actually began lowering their heart rate whereas the horses that quietly walked past kept the high heart rate, if we think of the sympathetic system hits a peak for the parasympathetic to overtake then the quiet horses were actually the more stressed horses

We often think of highly reactive as bad and super quiet as good. For me these are two extremes sides of the same coin and often if we force the horse We can see these two extremes in one session

Now horses do well to fit into our world it will shape their quality of life and often sadly the longevity of their life but I think we should have some admiration for them as the majority of the things we ask them to do goes against their natural instinct,

I always want somewhere in the middle if I am asking a horse to work I do not want a horse that has zoned out (this is not relaxation), neither do I want a horse that is so wired it is oblivious to me
Both of these reactions are extremes think of one that won't be eaten and the other doesn't care anymore

If your horse refuses to do something then we first have to ask the reason why and encourage the horse to be able to find the right answer without reprimand for getting it wrong for the horse will always remember the reprimand more than the task

Don't let ourselves mimic those two extremes we neither want to come across as a lion yet we don't want to come across as a sheep, we simply need to be someone who reassures their horse they won't die if they try

Don't hold your horse in some mystical reverence as you will put to much pressure on them to be something they might not want to be because if they don't meet your emotional needs they may always meet an owner in sadness which may reflect back on their mood, and while they can be a part of making us feel better it's not fair for us to continually dump all our own issues onto them

If we are in continual awe of what they will let us do then we may just be a little more considerate and understanding when they say no