Heaven's Hoofbeats

08/09/2024

If you're looking for a horse, I'm almost positive there's something for you in the ATFO lineup! These horses have been paired with some very talented trainers from all over. Apply to adopt, today! 🖤

08/09/2024

I don't know who needs to see this, but this is the BEST shampoo ever.

08/08/2024

I'll start with mine in the comments! 🥰

07/30/2024

🩵💜✌️💜🩵

07/16/2024

This is going to be a blast! I am taking Cheyenne and Rutt Row for a weekend of fun and new things 😍💙

https://www.facebook.com/share/ujQjQABiAigeGpb3/?mibextid=xfxF2i

We have been working hard to get the arena set for the obstacle challenge on Saturday!
23 safe, challenging obstacles have been created to test your partnership with your horse. This course will be our best to date!
We will also be hosting our annual cookout following the obstacle challenge so come out and join us for good family fun!
For more information, the event link is posted on the club page!

07/09/2024

Watermelon and blueberry electrolyte frozen pony

06/23/2024

Good morning!

#

06/23/2024

From sunup to sundown. A successful day for sure.

06/22/2024

Awesome view this morning.

06/22/2024

A hot but very productive day. Trimmed 15 horses and donkeys 🥰 just under 200 miles, rocking and rolling again. 😎👍
A nice little break at the creek to cool off, munch on some crackers and rehydrate.
Picked blueberries and watched the sunset 🥰💙
The moon graced me with a lovely view on my drive home.
I'm gonna get some dinner in my belly and hit the bed, long day again tomorrow trying to get caught up.
Happy Summer Solstice! 💙🔥

06/19/2024

*She Flies Without Wings* by Mary Midkiff

"Horses are giant yet generous with their strength, their power, and their gentle affection. By their very nature, they embody and resolve the contradictions we all struggle with: They are strong and soft, calm and driven, wild and manageable, needy and independent. In the presence of horses, our impulses of nurturing and our urgent needs of support, strength, and confidence come together, live together, and express themselves together without the voices of intellectualism. We see that the horse lives its own life, speaks in its own way, moves where it needs to go. It's directness and simplicity offer a thousand-pound counterpoint to our own complicated and often less honest human interactions. The horse shows us how to be complete."

06/18/2024

Last year, I suffered from getting into ground hornets on my legs.
This year, I was taking some rugs down off the clothesline and something got me.
Please not a new tradition 🤦‍♀️😅
I didn't see it but it hurt immediately. I think wasp, but hopefully not a spider bite.
Trimming 12 horses and a donkey in this heat wave with my thumb this swollen was a bit uncomfortable.
I love my people though, appreciate y'all 💙🔥😅🥵 the ibuprofen, cold drinks and water hose spray downs are awesome. 😝😎😉

06/11/2024

Be in love with your life. Every moment of it.
The hard times build character and grit, allowing us to really savor it. 🖤

"Now if you are going
to win any battle you
have to do one thing.

You have to make the mind run the body.
Don't let the body tell the mind what to do.
The body will always give up. It is always tired in the morning, noon and night.
But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired."
George S. Patton

06/06/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/K5wtHPS15MkVHTeo/?mibextid=qi2Omg

Horses make us Happy.

And the parts about them that make the soul feel alive?

Well, that comes from touching and seeing them, mostly.

So often, we seek out horses with imaginations of riding being what we are looking for,

and the truth is,

We aren't looking to ride,

We are just look for horses.

Horses to see, to touch.

That is where their magic is.

This fella here isn't ridden, but you can see he still brings the magic.

Kids can see it. I wish adults could see it more than they do.

05/12/2024

When things aren't going right... take a swim.

That's a long haul down there and back, very therapeutic to use my muscles differently and relax my mind. This was first day of the season for my flippers.

04/30/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/VA765BmDs9u33BJi/?mibextid=xfxF2i

04/19/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/h7XVBXGPjAYC6kZN/?mibextid=xfxF2i

04/18/2024

The best post that I have seen on social media lately!!! 🩵💙🩵💙
This applies just as much with horses, if not more so.

04/16/2024

Clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, May 2025.
https://www.emotionalhorsemanship.com/nashville-tennessee-clinic-may2025

We are delighted to partner with a very trusted host for this event, held at a gorgeous private facility in the Nashville area.

While we wait a little longer until June 2024 to confirm dates, we welcome early bird applications for this event, via email to [email protected] OR by filling out the form on the website provided.

Payment plans are available, interest free, protecting you with a comprehensive booking and cancellation policy.

This clinic is a great way to road test Emotional Horsemanship as a legitmate way to train, or retrain you and your horse. We focus on a slow, patient, quiet, progressive methodology that insists that we are disciplined about being kind to our horses and ourselves.

Lockie is delighted to be coming to this region of the United States at the first time and acknowledges the rapport with our host and their family as instrumental in ensuring this will be a safe and enjoyable event for people and horses attending.

Thanking you!
https://www.emotionalhorsemanship.com/nashville-tennessee-clinic-may2025

04/16/2024

It's often got some bumps in the road.

The Rehab Rollercoaster

There was a time when my emotions were directly tied to how sound or lame my horse was that day.

When I was struggling with Vinnie’s navicular diagnosis and soft tissue tears, I used to drive to the barn sick to my stomach of what I would find that day. Would he be dead lame? Would he look okay? What was I going to find walking to his paddock? It became such a huge part of my day to day life and honestly was exhausting. I am glad for the journey it sent me on- the hoofcare certifications, travel around the world, the friends I’ve made- and I don’t regret any of it.

But man, in the moment, it was hard.

I am happy to say that Vinnie is doing well living on a track system here at home with a herd of geldings, comfortable, playful, and content. I no longer hold my breath when I go to feed in the morning.

But I remember the “Rehab Rollercoaster” that can control your emotions all too well.

When going through rehab for soundness issues, it can be easy to hyperfocus on what’s wrong. The wrong step, the head bob, the ouchy turn, the less than fluid movement, the joint that just doesn’t have the range of motion you want it too. And that’s where we start to spiral. That’s where we spend all our time watching and waiting for it to turn.

Now, owning a hoof rehab facility, I have realized that with every case being so unique, I had to shift my focus and perspective on its head.

Instead of focusing on the large glaring issues in the beginning of rehab, or throughout the process even, in order to assess progress I had to find the little changes.

I started seeing the small improvements….

The quality and angle of the wall at the hairline.
The more balanced wear patterns of the hoof.
The depth of the collateral grooves.
The firmness of the frog.
The texture of the sole.
The width of the back half of the foot.
The angle of the hairline at the heel bulbs.
The feeling when palpating the frog and digital cushion.
The tightness of the white line connection.

And slowly, I can start to notice some slightly bigger things.

The more extended stride length.
The willingness to weight the back half of the foot in movement.
The comfort over harder surfaces or gravel.
The willingness to move farther to find the next hay station.
The personality and playfulness returning.
The change in tension lines throughout the body.
The more comfortable posture at rest.

Sometimes, we don’t see a sound horse for months or even years (!) as the body unravels years of compensation and damage while also working to strengthen areas to compensate for internal pathology or heal past injury.

Sometimes, like as a bit of a cruel joke, we see rehab horses fall into two categories:

With some horses, we see soundness return quickly.

With some, consistent comfort is a journey where we see all the smaller changes as the body relearns proper ways to move to prevent reinjury.

If you have a horse you are rehabbing that falls in the first category- give them a hug and thank them for showing you that it can be done.

If you are rehabbing a horse that falls in the second category- this month, try to find one improvement in their hoof or body to know you are headed in the right direction. If you can’t find one, have another set of eyes to see if they can find any changes. If there truly isn’t any positive change, you may need to redirect your approach, whether that be diet, environment, bloodwork, hoofcare approach, etc.

The small changes are what are going to allow the large changes (soundness!) to stick around for the long haul. We need to develop strong structures to develop a sound horse.

Sometimes the Rehab Rollercoaster is unkind.
Sometimes it gets stuck or gets derailed.
Sometimes there are sudden drops or sharp turns.
So many of us have been there.
You can do this. You’re doing great.

04/16/2024

Wonderful! I will be registering for this one.
I enjoyed watching and learning so much when Tomas came to Kentucky a few years ago 🩵

An in-depth and close-up investigation into all the amazing parts and fascinating functions of the Equine lower limb - with Dr. Tomas G. Teskey, holistic equine veterinarian from Insight to Equus.

04/16/2024

The Malinda and the Moorewich are

04/16/2024

A very windswept day on the Fell yesterday - but that’s no problem for the hardy Fell pony. This is the aptly named Drybarrows Enigma - an extremely rare chestnut coloured Fell pony 🧡🐴. Chestnut/red is not a recognised colour in the Fell pony breed standard yet occasionally a few purebred chestnut Fell ponies appear. This is due to the recessive gene that produces chestnut colour - it can “hide” for generations seeming to appear out of nowhere, when in reality it has been there all this time. Chestnut is one of the 3 base colours of the horse species (bay and black being the other two), so it is very clear that this is not an introduced colour to the breed - it is an ancient gene and they most certainly had chestnut ancestors. Our understanding of colour genetics has come so far in the last decade, and as a result we know that some genes can remain invisible. This is very relevant to breed societies who may not allow registration of a pure bred foal due to it being the “wrong” colour - which reduces the breeding gene pool (not good for rare breeds) if the foal is not registered. However in the case of this magnificent mare, she is in Section X of the Fell pony studbook which means that her offspring can be registered in the main studbook if they meet the breed standard and have a registered and licensed sire 🥰🐴

Drybarrows Enigma is a very good example of a quality hill bred Fell pony, and her breeders are known for breeding some of the best. It would be wonderful to see more chestnut Fell ponies, and hopefully the days of “wrong” colour stigma are being put well into the past. The Fell Pony Society acknowledge that chestnut is possible within the breed and there have been many discussions about bringing the colour into the breed standard. However, understandable concerns over the colour becoming fashionable (and leading to people breeding just for the colour and not the breed quality, form, and function) have led to it remaining out of the breed standard for now. I would love to see the colour brought back in with a responsible breeding program - it seems such a shame that a pony such as this cannot attend shows and fly the flag for her breed 🐴🐴