Northland Equine Lessons and Training

12/23/2024

It might be close to Christmas but our equestrians are working hard with their horses -under the watchful eyes of our furry assistants- nice job everyone. ❤️🐴🎄

12/21/2024

Hmmm there might be a moose in the herd of horses today. ❤️🐴

12/18/2024

Reminder that we will be closed for lessons December 24th and 25th
❤️🐴🎄🎅🏻

12/13/2024

Happy International Day of the Horse ❤️🐴
We celebrate our horses every day and are grateful for each one, meet some of them below.

12/13/2024

Meet our barn cat Johnny. If you can find him. Keeping Linus s blanket warm. That’s where Johnny is at or in someone’s lap or snoozing in the hay. Loving the barn cat life. 😉 ❤️🐱

12/12/2024

Meet June - our feed room mouser. She has everything under control in there - not a mouse to be found. ❤️🐱

12/07/2024

It’s starting to look a little like Christmas 🎅🏻 🎄🐴❤️

12/04/2024

It’s the season

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/g8jGQR3yWKRRSU2q/?mibextid=WC7FNe

🎅🍭 Homemade Christmas Horse Treats: Christmas Lollipops (no bake)

Bring some holiday cheer to your horse with these no-bake, peppermint lollipop treats! They’re easy to make, packed with nutritious ingredients, and fun to decorate.

🍪 Ingredients
Makes 10-12

Main Treats
- 2 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1/2 cup peppermint dust (can substitute banana or apple chips)
- ¼ cup chia seeds
-1/2 cup melted coconut oil 🥥
- 3 tbsp molasses 🍯

✨ Decorations
- Melting Chips: Red, Green, White ❤️💚🤍
- Small Pretzel Sticks 🥨
- Pull and Peel Licorice (optional)

Other Items:
- Small Mason Jar Lid


Prep - Instructions

1. Dip Pretzel Sticks
- Melt white chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl for 15-20 seconds, stirring in between, until smooth.
- Dip each pretzel stick about ¾ of the way in, letting excess drip off.
- Set it on parchment paper and let it harden in the fridge.

🎄 Horse Treat Instructions

1. Melt Coconut Oil
- Melt coconut oil in the microwave in 15-second intervals until liquid.

2. Combine Ingredients
- Mix oats, peppermint dust, chia seeds, melted coconut oil, and molasses in a large bowl. Use a pastry crust mixer (or hand-held mixer) to combine ingredients. Note: The mixture will be crumbly.

4. Form the Treats
- Firmly press the mixture into a mason jar lid.
- Flip over onto your cookie and push out of your mold.
- Use a pretzel end to make a small divot in the disc base of the lollipop. This is where your stick will attach.
- Place the tray in the fridge for 10 minutes to let the coconut oil set.

Decoration Treats:
Melt chips in the microwave as directed on the package instructions. Only do one color at a time, as chips might re-harden.

2. Remove treats from the fridge and cover the front side with the melted chips. Note: The front side is the one without the divot you made to attach the pretzel stick.

3. If you add any sprinkles (like peppermint dust) to your lollipops, do it immediately after you’ve covered them in the melting chips before it hardens.

4. Pipe and decorate the tops of the lollipops with melted chips. Adding some melted chips into a sandwich bag and sipping off the end make for a quick piping bag.

5. Pop decorated treats onto a cookie sheet and place in the fridge for about 5 minutes to set.

Attaching Sticks:

Remove treats from the fridge and flip them over on the cookie sheet, top down.

Pipe a dab of melted chips into the divot you made and place the pre-dipped pretzel stick in the divot. You will need to turn the treat back over while the dab is still liquefied so that it can set.

Place in the fridge for 5 minutes.

Optional Bows:

Pull off a strip of pull-n-peel licorice and tie it in a bow.
Attach to the bottom of your lollipop using a dab of melted chips.

These festive treats are now ready to share with your horse friends – or to gift to other equine pals for the holidays! 🎄🐴

🌟

11/30/2024

It’s a winter wonderland today. It’s pretty but the road conditions are terrible. We have canceled all lessons today. Stay warm. ❤️🐴❄️

11/27/2024

Wishing all of our friends and their families A Happy Thanksgiving. 🦃 ❤️🐴🍁

11/27/2024

Harley getting a little snooze in the sun - her favorite spot ❤️🐴

11/20/2024

Helping Horses Foundation is a Worthy Cause!

by Sara McConnell

I have donated to Helping Horses Foundation for several years now through Maggie Stonecipher. Maggie is a consistent sponsor of KCDS and for years donated her time by volunteering in KCDS. Now she organizes much needed schooling shows in our area, while running her real estate business.

Therefore, KCDS wanted to help her by educating our members about this worthy foundation in our area. If you are looking to donate items, money or your time this might be a cause you want to look into. It also is nice to be aware of in case you know of recipients that could benefit from their help. Here are some of the questions I asked Maggie:

⭐️What is the name?

The Helping Horses Foundation was launched in late 2015 with a mission to bring together unwanted horse related items and provide them to horse owners in need.

We are a stop-gap pantry resource for horse owners in need. Fire, storms, job loss, illness or any other situation that leaves a horse owner needing a little help to care for their horses. We are a Kansas Non-Profit and are 501c(3)
approved.

⭐️How did you come up with the idea?

The idea for Helping Horses started with myself as I saw items left behind or thrown away when people were buying or selling homes. Not a lot at any one property but it started the idea that if all the small amounts could be gathered, could a “pantry” be created to consolidate those items and help others that would benefit from those unwanted items.

With much support and encouragement, I launched the foundation just on the idea that the foundation could make a difference.

⭐️Who benefits from it?

Our goal is to provide support to those in temporary need. Responsible horse ownership is expensive and we want to support those experiencing a job loss, storm damage, fire, injury etc so that they and their horses can get through these events.

We are not a rescue but we can provide information should situations become more than a short term need.

⭐️Please share some success stories of people who you have helped get back on their feet.

Most of our recipients want to remain anonymous as most do not like asking for help, but some examples of who we have helped:

◦ Helped a horse owner properly bury her beloved pony following complications from gelding. In her final stages of cancer, the owner was responsibly placing her animals and was gelding her pony before he went to his new home. She was unable to pay for burial.

A neighbor called Helping Horses and we were able to arrange expeditiously to have the pony properly buried to ease her loss.

◦ Tornados May 2109 Lawrence through KCKS Provided support
▪ Handed out gift cards to TSC, Kansas Country Store and Orschlens
▪ Coordinated teams of volunteers to walk and clear pastures of debris
▪ Made payments to area vets for emergency services

◦ Family experienced two family deaths on top of a job loss in a very short period of time. Finances were so stretched that they were selling their two daughter’s horses. A neighbor contacted us for help. We were able to provide hay, grain, vet and farrier services to get them through this tough time so that their daughters did not have to also lose their beloved horses.

◦ Two area trainers experienced medical issues that kept them unable to teach or ride. We
provided each with $1000 to help them through their recovery

◦ Couple’s barn and home experience significant fire damage after a lightening strike. The barn burned to the ground. They lost one of their two horses and the other has serious burns. We were able to help with their vet bills as well as set up a $500 credit at Kansas Country Store so they could replace grain, hay, buckets and other critical items.

◦ Barn fire spared the horses but not the bunnies and goats, nor grain, hay, tack and all supplies. We were able to provide all those items - buckets, brushes, muck cart, halters, lead ropes, hay and more.

⭐️How long have you had Helping Horses and how can one help or volunteer with the non-profit?

Helping Horses Foundation was launched in 2015 and grew rapidly. We struggled with managing the inventory of donated items as well as having enough manpower to support the foundation.

COVID brought us to a pause as we all were in unknown territory. The focus was shifted from managing an inventory of items to generating cash reserves from donations. This simplified our model greatly.

Gift cards, credit accounts at area feed stores and payments to vets and farriers has been much more effective. But we also had some board members step aside and currently operate with just a skeleton crew.

Before exiting what we believe is a much needed resource for our equine community, we’d like to reach to that community to recruit new board members and volunteers.

If you are interested in finding out more, reach out to Maggie at 913-908-6992 or
[email protected] 🤗

11/19/2024

Good morning friends! We teased it earlier in the week, but we are thrilled to reveal our KCDS Sponsored Educational event for this fall!

Britta Pedersen RNZPT, PT, MNZSPT, CKTP of The Performance Refinery, based in Del Mar California, will be with us November 23 and 24th!

Britta will be with us and working with riders in all aspects of their seat and biomechanics. This is a superb educational opportunity for not only the riders, but the auditors as well!
​
Britta has spent years developing a sport specific 4 part ‘Equestrian RMBA’ (Ridden Muscle Balance Assessment) system. Her system consists of a series of strength, flexibility, and Range of Motion tests, performed to the upper & lower body, spine and core. The specific RMBA (both off & on your horse) is structured into 4 phases.
​

As a rider in the clinic you can expect:

Stage 1: Britta will look at your postural alignment & biomechanical systems during the warm-up phase on your horse.

Stage 2: She will see you put through a variety of specific tests from the ground, where we identify any possible muscular weaknesses, tightness, dysfunctions, joint hyper/hypo-mobility.

Stage 3: Britta comprehensively explain the biomechanics of ‘your’ seat in the saddle and closely guide you on how to make correct and effective changes. We work with you on the horse for the remainder of the session as this will help you to cement the “feel” of your alignment and achieve postural harmony between both you and your horse’s way of going.
​
Lunch will be provided. Please bring a folding chair if you have one!

** It is important to note: This clinic is extremely beneficial for ALL riders in ALL equestrian disciplines! Not just dressage and not just for those who show!

Clinic rider prices are as follows, per day:

$325 non-members
$300 KCDS members

Stalls are $25

Auditor prices:

$10 non-members
$5 KCDS members

Clinic Location:

Summit Ranch
25508 E 103rd St
Lee's Summit MO 6408
Owner: Katie Cumberford

Reserve your space TODAY as rider or auditor by emailing Cindy Burnett: [email protected]

AND by remitting payment online via
PayPal ([email protected]) or check.
Please make check out to KCDS.
Mail to: Cindy Burnett, KCDS Treasurer
9223 Shorewood Dr
DeSoto, KS 66018

For any more questions you may have, please contact KCDS Education Chair Lawson Duncan at [email protected].

​The deadline for this event is November 13th!
​
We can’t wait to see you all there! It’s going to be a tremendous weekend of learning! 🩵

11/17/2024

The benefits of riding without stirrups include strong legs, suppleness, and a more secure and independent seat. It’s also good to practice riding without stirrups so that you’ll be prepared in case you lose a stirrup while riding. If you’re ready to drop your stirrups this November, follow these tips and exercises for intermediate level exercises here here: bit.ly/no-stirrups-intermediate

11/16/2024

Enjoying a nice afternoon cooldown outside after lessons inside. ❤️🐴

11/01/2024

Happy Halloween ❤️🐴

10/28/2024

Another spooky Halloween party is in the books.
Thank you to the families for planning and executing a fabulous Halloween party for our students and families. Great fun was had by all. ❤️🐴

10/23/2024

It’s a beautiful Wednesday afternoon for a ride around the pond ❤️🐴