New Vista Farm

06/11/2023

03/22/2023

03/11/2023

08/11/2022

I have two self serve stalls currrently available in our 6 stall barn. Board is $400 per month includes turnout paddock(s), arena use, wash rack, heated restroom area and much more. Boarder to provide their own hay, grain, supplements, bedding and feed their own horses. I can give pass through prices if boarder wants to feed the hay I am feeding my horses. I keep the arena conditioned and handle other farm maintenance. We may be able to trade out feeding if the boarder isn't able to care for their horses 7 days per week. Absolutely NO cribbers. PM me or call if you'd like more information. I'd love to welcome you to my farm.

06/16/2022

Especially true for dressage but absolutely applicable to other riding disciplines. Communitating properly with our horse is a skill that bears a significant role in every aspect of horsemanship (mounted or otherwise).

I was reflecting a bit the other day about this lifetime of learning that is dressage.

What other activity or sport teaches two beings to communicate through the most subtle signals?

Everything… literally everything you do on the back of a horse can mean something to your horse if you want it to and you are consistent with your signals.

A small vibration of your fingers or wrist can mean flex 1-2 degrees, listen for what’s next, or, yield your poll.

It made me think of all the things I do after I relax and neutralize myself that become the words and sentence structure of my riding.

For example,

Stretching up and lightening my seat and thighs means to my horses I am ready to ask you a question and I don’t want to be in the way of your answer.

Tightening and then releasing any part of myself independently means to my horse don’t make me sit against you. Find better balance.

My feet work independent of each other and the other parts of my leg or seat towards what I am asking.

If I change my shoulder angle it means something. The exact place I use my foot or leg means something.

Riding dressage well is like becoming a computer programmer but you have to teach the programming to your horse/computer.

However we must be sure our horse is paying attention, understands our requests, and can physically do them.

So yes it is hard, time consuming and incredibly difficult to master. Especially if we are trying to be fair to our equine partners along the way.

Take the time… learn the dance.
Cheers
Yvonne

05/06/2022

Important! The hip joint is actually more towards the front of the pelvis than the back.

04/08/2022

Truth! 🤣

No idea who wrote this-would love to credit the author.

THE REAL RULES OF DRESSAGE

1. If you really want to get better at dressage, take it up at an earlier age - and grow an extra 3 inches of leg.

2. A dressage test is a test of your skill against another competitor's luck.

3. Dressage is about achieving a harmonious working relationship with your horse, whose only idea of harmony is eating grass in a field with his buddies.

4. If you want to end a drought or dry spell, wear a new jacket and hat to an outdoor arena.

5. Untalented, difficult, aggressive horses have robust health, good hocks and long lives.

6. Talented tractable horses are accident prone and have OCD lesions.

7. You will ride the best test of your entire life just prior to being disqualified for not wearing your gloves.

8. Never keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your head before a test.

9. Never keep less than another 300 separate thoughts in your head during a test.

10. Horses do not improve their paces because you are wearing expensive German breeches.

11. If you chose a disco theme for your dressage to music test then the judge will be more than 90 years of age and Swiss.

12. The less skilled the rider, the more likely they are to share their critique of your test.

13. If you are considering the services of a horse clairvoyant to help you with training then you have reached the point of total desperation - try the German breeches.

14.Your horse has never heard of Podhajsky, let alone read the book.

15. No matter how badly you ride a test, it is always possible to ride a worse one.

16. If it ain't broke, try shifting your position and it will be.

17. Judges only suffer from temporary blindness (or kindness) when they are judging someone else's test.

18. If you fall off your horse in the arena you will have paid to have the test videoed.

19. If you are feeling confident before a show then three of the USET dressage team will turn up to give their young horses some "experience."

20. Your horse will perform its best piaffe ever when you ask for extended canter.

22. Since runs of bad competitions come in groups of three, the fourth competition is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

23. No one cheats at dressage because no one has worked out how to do it.

24. It is surprisingly easy to end a test with a perfect square halt once you have scored a four for every other movement.

25. The result of an expensive lesson from a top pro is that you will stop believing in that tiny piece of innate ability that was holding your riding together.

26. Remember when buying a dressage horse advertised as "needs experienced competitive rider" this really means "needs the skills of Isabelle Werth just to stay on board."

27. If you think your test was better than someone else's, it probably wasn't.

28. If you pay 60,000 for an imported WB, you will be beaten in First Level 4 by a Quarter Horse.

29. Clinics given by someone with an interesting accent are not necessarily superior to those given by the homegirl.

30. If you go to the expense of raising an expensive WB foal, he will have a talent for jumping and no walk worth talking about.

Photo credit Louise O'Brien Equestrian Photography

04/08/2022

03/28/2022

Charlie Mackesy

03/13/2022

Recent studies conducted by the Institute of HeartMath provide a clue to explain the bidirectional "healing" that happens when we are near horses. According to researchers, the heart has a larger electromagnetic field and higher level of intelligence than the brain: A magnetometer can measure the heart's energy field radiating up to 8 to 10 feet around the human body. While this is certainly significant it is perhaps more impressive that the electromagnetic field projected by the horse's heart is five times larger than the human one (imagine a sphere-shaped field that completely surrounds you). The horse's electromagnetic field is also stronger than ours and can actually directly influence our own heart rhythm!
Horses are also likely to have what science has identified as a "coherent" heart rhythm (heart rate pattern) which explains why we may "feel better" when we are around them. . . .studies have found that a coherent heart pattern or HRV is a robust measure of well-being and consistent with emotional states of calm and joy--that is, we exhibit such patterns when we feel positive emotions.
A coherent heart pattern is indicative of a system that can recover and adjust to stressful situations very efficiently. Often times, we only need to be in a horses presence to feel a sense of wellness and peace. In fact, research shows that people experience many physiological benefits while interacting with horses, including lowered blood pressure and heart rate, increased levels of beta-endorphins (neurotransmitters that serve as pain surppressors), decreased stress levels, reduced feelings of anger, hostility, tension and anxiety, improved social functioning; and increased feelings of empowerment, trust, patience and self-efficacy."

09/17/2021

I'm not natrually a brave or bold horseback rider. Sometimes it's tough to get out of my comfort zone. Here's how I push myself.

09/10/2021

Older horses have a lot to offer. Don't pass they by . . .

Why is everyone so quick to discount the slightly older horse? Nearly every “in search of” ad I’ve seen on Facebook or elsewhere sets ages 6-12, give or take a year or two on either end, as a parameter. I totally understand some of the hesitat...

06/15/2021

Good to know!

For this we wanted to share some myths regarding cooling your horses on hot days!

Dr. David Marlin
Thank you for saying it loud enough for everyone to hear! HORSES, HEAT, SWEATING, COLD-WATER, COOLING, SCRAPING

"At the risk of preaching to the converted, as a few people are still sending me articles, often written by lay people, sometimes from vets, and telling me how wrong I am, I thought I'd try a pictorial approach 🙂

Per litre, Ice-Cold water (0-5°C) removes heat faster than evaporation of 1 litre of water or sweat.

Per litre, the complete evaporation of 1 litre of sweat or water removes 13x more heat than 1 litre of ice-water BUT evaporation takes 10-15x longer to remove the heat.

So....

COLD WATER = QUICK COOLING, BUT WASTEFUL OF WATER (INEFFICIENT) - USE FOR RAPID COOLING

EVAPORATION OF WATER OR SWEAT = SLOW, BUT DOESNT WASTE WATER (EFFICIENT) - USE FOR KEEPING HORSES COOL

MYTHS

Myth 1 - “You should never put cold water on a hot horse"
Explanation - Ice-cold water(0-5°C) on hot horses does not cause shock, laminitis, kidney damage, muscle damage, tying-up or heart attacks!

Myth 2 - “Water left on a horse will heat up and insulate and make the horse hotter."
Explanation - Flawed physics! Water is a better conductor of heat than air. A wet horse will actually cool faster than a dry one, even if humidity is 100%.

Myth 3 - “Scraping is essential." Explanation - Scraping just wastes time that could be better used putting more water on to cool by conduction. Scraping also wastes water when water is in short supply. Water which could evaporate on the horse. Water evaporating on the ground doesn't cool horses down.

Myth 4 “Concentrate on large veins, arteries inside the back legs, large muscle groups"
Explanation - NO. Cooling by evaporation or conduction works by cooling the blood flowing through the small blood vessels in the skin. The more skin you cool, the quicker you cool the horse. Apply water all over.

(How does he know all this? 25 years working on equine thermoregulation. 20 plus scientific papers on equine thermoregulation. Working with endurance horses in the Gulf. Advising the racing industry on prevention and management of heat-stroke. Working with Governments on heat legislation. Working with charities on thermal stress. Working on the 1996 Atlanta, 2004 Athens, 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. 2018 Tryon World Equestrian Games and Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Author of the FEI Guidelines for National Federations on the management of horses in thermally challenging conditions. )
https://inside.fei.org/sites/default/files/Session_6_Optimising_performance_in_a_challenging_climate_SUPPORTING_DOC.pdf

05/31/2021

Something to consider:

After I posted the risk list of horse sports---and others added their thoughts---I got an email asking what I thought was the best way to avoid as much risk as possible, and my reply is what it has been for some years now:

"Ride a horse that fits your abilities, and do with that horse things that are within your abilities and within your comfort zone."

What else can you say? Ride the mechanical horse at Walmart?

If you ride too much horse doing things above your head, and you get hurt, what did you expect?

And even if you do it right, there's no guarantee of safety, any more than there is a guarantee of safety any time you get in a car to drive a mile down a familiar road to get a cup of coffee.

05/26/2021

Gerd Heuschmann, German vet and author tells us:
“In my opinion a dressage saddle on a three-year-old’s back is nonsense, like a driver’s license for a five-year-old kid. Keep the back free, let them go forward, let’s develop the muscle systems. What we are usually doing is making a good looking outline, we produce that by using our hands, and with our new better bred horses with better conformation, this makes it easier. The dressage trainer of the Klimke family, General Paul Stecken said to me, ‘Gerd it is nice what you say, but how can you explain to our young riders that they can’t accept the wonderful necks we are producing on our young horses these days. They are not allowed to put them up and make them beautiful – they must first make them long and unspectacular…’ This is one of our biggest problems.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2017/02/gerd-heuschmann-in-australia/