Willow Tree Equine Services

01/17/2025

🤍

We need more of those horse girls, the days are hard 🖤

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! ❤️🎄

12/07/2024

I strive to teach all of my students these very things. No they may not progress quite as quickly as others but they know how to pick up on things quicker than most. If nothing else I am able to teach them how to be soft quiet riders and to read their horses in a way that benefits both horse and rider. At the end of the day the horse comes first🐴

Some pondering on teaching riders, and the difference between a lesson program and a riding school -

I think one of the biggest issues with current riding instruction is we teach people how to control the horse before we teach them to FEEL and RIDE the horse. These are very different skill sets leading to very different outcomes.

Generally, a beginner horse is one who is safe enough to be ridden by a beginner. And often, they are stiff, likely halfway lame, and dull. So if you put these two together- a newbie rider, and a stiff and tolerant horse, people learn to over aid, squeeze, pull, and “make” horses do things. It’s pretty hard to learn subtle feelings and find the horses body underneath you when you have to kick to make them go and pull to make them turn.

Add to that normalizing the feeling of stiffness and half-lameness to riders, and they will really struggle to learn what a horse SHOULD feel like.

In clinics, I am often faced with the dilemma of teaching a rider and horse pair who have 99 problems but a seat ain’t one : I have to decide the most urgent problem- out of control horse brought to safety, or teaching a seat. If we had real riding SCHOOLS, riders could be taught a seat BEFORE learning how to control the out of control horse, and later, the seat would be one of those tools to help guide the horse with much more ease and significantly much less pulling, kicking, and bending horses heads up their butts to stop out of control forward motion.

What would a riding school look like?

It would have straight, supple well-trained horses for students of all levels to ride on

It would prioritize FEEL and the seat, giving students lessons in finding their seat until they could manage solo - then teach them AIDS.

It would not cater to the students wants or desires but instead stick to an understood progression of developing skill.

This reduces wear and tear on lesson horses dramatically, with no pulling and kicking on tolerant saints of lesson horses, while an instructor guides the horse to move well on the lunge for the student to memorize this feel. Of course, instructors would be riding them to maintain their fitness and responsiveness to aids, but these horses would not be repeatedly degraded for the sake of teaching beginners.

What’s the downside ? Who has a string of supple, straight horses for students to ride?
And who can afford to open this school?
And who has a list of clients begging to learn the hard way and get no immediate gratification who will stick to learning long enough to produce skill?

This may be an imaginary pipe dream anymore

11/19/2024

We have some VERY BIG EXCITING NEWS to share with you all soon! Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for a big announcement!!

10/12/2024

He said it not me! EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THESE. Stop wasting your time nit-picking your horses it does not help with your progress in any sort of way.

Never Do These Horrible Natural Horsemanship Exercises Again (If You Like Your Horse)In this video, we challenge natural horsemanship practices that harm bot...

07/16/2024

Thankful for the opportunities that these animals continue to bring. We had a fun filled, VERY hot weekend at the Maine Appaloosa Horse Club show! New experiences for both horses and riders, proud of both!! Especially thankful for our built in groom and horse show dad we appreciate you more than you know!🩷

06/27/2024

EXTREME PRICE DROP if sold within the next week!

06/04/2024

I would say our first show of the season was a success! I am so very proud of each one of these horses and riders and how far they’ve come in the past few months. They have all stayed dedicated to improving themselves and their horses and it has truly shown. You should be very proud of yourselves!! And thank you to everyone that helps make this all possible!

Especially proud of how much Petey has grown and matured. He brought us home 3 blues..so excited for our future together💙

05/20/2024

Due to no fault her own- Meet Indie 10 yr grade paint mare. This horse is beyond versatile, goes both English and western and thoroughly enjoys the trails. Only available to you due to owners major life changes. Has currently been in training throughout the winter as well as used in our lesson program on and off. She LOVES to work. Intermediate to advanced rider as she can forward. Baths, clips, ties and stands for both vet and farrier. Currently up to date on all vaccines, worming and farrier. PPE welcome at buyers expense. Video available upon request. PM for more info and 🥕 ☺️

02/10/2024

Many people pass through the system, but few stay-

Sometimes I feel like the horse world out there is like a shipwreck: people are flailing in the water, begging for help.

Then someone comes along with a life boat, and says I can help you- but you have to pull yourself in, and you have to row your own row -

This is where many people turn down the boat, because they don’t know what they’re looking at and have to be convinced it’s what they need

Or they choose to wait for a better looking one, or with someone in it with the right accent or hat-

Or they get in the boat but it gets hard after a little while, so they jump out and go back to floundering -

The few people rowing away in the lifeboat work hard and don’t see progress for their efforts for a while. Then they see land, and know where they’re headed, and the rowing starts to make sense

But the water is still full of floundering people, waiting for the perfect person to save them

I’ve had many people come in my boat, many more leave - and after all these years only a few core people have stayed long enough to see the shore.

02/05/2024

12/01/2023

Today is the last day for our Black Friday deal!! Don’t miss out!

11/24/2023

Black Friday deals are here!! Buy a month of lessons and receive 50% off your 5th lesson. Any new students will receive 10% off one month of lessons!

11/17/2023

We are running a black Friday deal! Stay tuned for details!! I am also looking to get our page up to 250 likes once we do I will be giving away a lesson!!🐴

10/04/2023

This is what I strive to do as instructor🙌🏻 if my students learn nothing else they have strong basic skills to help them succeed in their future with horses!! Basics are the foundation of a good horseman!

Holding the whip with good technique
Picking up the reins without pulling backwards
Regaining a stirrup without stopping the seat
Holding the lunge line without pulling the head off center
Re-organizing the lunge line without losing focus on the horse in movement
Walking beside the horse in a straight line without pulling the horses shoulder toward them
Saddling, girthing and mounting without tightening the horses back
Taking a horse through a gate with balance and calm

These are essential skills to being a good rider and horseman.
Where are these being taught? Do people still know or care about them?

Everywhere I go, I hear people talk about canter transitions, lateral work, improving a jump -

But I rarely see excellent basic skills

As a teacher, this is where my focus lies. Until you can get organized and balanced yourself, there’s no amount of progress your horse can gain that you can’t disorganize in short order -

Everyone wants to do the fancy stuff. Who wants to get really good at holding their equipment well, putting it on quietly without disturbing the horse, walking better, breathing better, and just being better to a horse in general?

09/21/2023

Leadership.

We hear a lot about this with our horses. And the word respect is thrown around a lot. “That we need to demand it.”

There are two types of leadership really… one being Fear Based Leadership, where as the other being Understanding/Trust Based Leadership.

I’ve seen both work to an extent, but the first has many limitations. You’re always amping up your cues, to ensure they still “respect” them. And the brace/anxiety that comes with it always comes out somewhere.

If we learn to truly communicate with the horse, understand their needs, and how to also regulate our own self, the possibilities with Understanding/Trust based Leadership are endless.

Just because you have an understanding doesn’t mean pressure is never applied, it just means it’s always done so in a predicable and fair manner that the horse understands. Much like the same way they apply it to each other in a herd.

The latter of the two takes longer, and a far better understanding of the horse (and yourself) but I promise you the reward in the product you get from your horse and yourself is truly worth it.

I have a lot of respect for a lot of people, but not one of them has ever come from them trying to demand it out of me. In that situation, they received quite the opposite, actually.