Echo Ridge Show Jumping

12/13/2023

https://chng.it/2PGwQ7swjK

Help Save Orange County’s Horses!

07/12/2023

Salute To ALL Veterans and Native Veterans.
You Are Loved.
You Are Appreciated
You Are Honored.
You Are Respected
You Are Needed.
John Wallrapp Myself Chris C Finch Native American Music Family Salute You For Your Sacrifices To Protect Your Native Lands.
❤️ Thank you for reading and liking the article. If you're Native American, this is the store for you (t-shirts, blankets, jewelry, tumbler,bags..).
🔥 Visit the Native American store here: https://www.nativeculturestores.com/stores/best-selling

07/12/2023

I just got back from about an 8 day stint in the hospital, and since I was dealing with pain and was watching any number of others dealing with pain, it got me thinking about the difference between the way humans are able to express discomfort compared to the more stoic way that injured horses have to endure it.

Horses have all kinds of issues that are not created by humans, but they have ever so many which are.

It is so easy to assume that because horses are unable to verbally express discomfort and anxiety that they are not feeling those emotions and feelings.

Which leads me to these thoughts: we need to ask ourselves, since we all profess to love horses, whether what we are doing or failing to do Is causing pain that if it were happening to us would leave us begging for relief.

If we wouldn't want it done to ourselves we shouldn't ask it of our horses. In our daily riding are we demanding performances that our horses are not fit enough to accomplish without fatigue and stress? Are we doing sports or activities that take horses too far toward the outer limits of their abilities making it more likely that they will be injured? If we are, and we know it, are we getting involved in making positive changes to those sports or are we simply going along with the crowd and letting the horses take the hits?

Horses are completely vulnerable and powerless to escape what humans make them do. More and more I feel that the true definition of a good horseman, a good horse woman, is someone who puts the best interest of the horse as a number one priority. Competitive success is not a measure of being a good horse person. What is that measure is doing right by our horses.

Being in pain ourselves for a while lets us better appreciate how important it becomes to avoid doing it to creatures with limited abilities to let us know what they are feeling.

06/29/2023

06/29/2023

Jerry Lewis and Ed Sullivan grooving

06/29/2023

Sleep well little baby

06/22/2023

🥇 🥇 We want to take one last look back at Blenheim June Classic I before we start back up and give a heartfelt congratulations to Shauna Pennel aboard Oslo for putting in the highest score (90!) during the Riderzon United States Hunter Jumper Association - USHJA WCHR week! They took Champipn in the 3’6”/3’9” Green Hunters and also won the Overall Grand Champion for the week!🥇🥇

Congratulations Shauna and Oslo!! 🎉🎉🎉



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06/21/2023

06/11/2023

I have so dang many favorite photos from this magic week. 🐎

04/23/2023

04/22/2023

Are riders athletes?

Armand Leone has just indirectly asked this question in a Chronicle of the Horse article, read it there if interested.

(“Not A Bicycle:” Addressing Horse Welfare In Equitation - The Chronicle of the Horse (chronofhorse.com)

Athletes, by definition, are fit and strong and agile. A person does not become fit and strong and agile by sitting in front of a screen, by avoiding exercise that is less than comfortable, by avoiding the stress of muscular exertion.

Every unfit rider would be a better rider fitter.

So it becomes a choice---Ask yourself this simple question---“Do I think of myself as an athlete?”

If the answer is “yes,” then you are on one path. If the answer is “no, “ you are on a different path.

But don’t answer “no, “ and expect the same level of success as you would have expected had you thought of yourself, and treated yourself as an athlete.

04/09/2023

04/09/2023

04/09/2023

How old do you have to be to play the game, “Don’t try to jam the square peg into the round hole?”

Not very old. But with horses, we forget that lesson we learned in kindergarten. We take a horse with physical and emotional traits better suited for one pursuit and try to make the horse be something that goes against its natural abilities. To make it worse, when the horse struggles or resists, we punish the horse for “not doing what we want.”

Sure, not all of us do that in any consistent way, but most of us have, to some degree. I have.

Here’s a common example, the high spirited horse being jammed into being quiet and submissive. Think of the thousands, heck, hundreds of thousands of horses that are drilled, lunged half to death, drugged, crammed into harsh bits and leverage devices, all in the attempt to take that natural energy and make it go away so as to allow lesser riders a sense of control.

What terrible horsemanship is that?

Or think of the less than natural athletes who are pushed way beyond their capabilities in the human quest to win something, ribbons, fame or money. More terrible horsemanship.

When a foal is born, and as it develops that first couple of years, so much of its future potential is linked to genetics. That foal may have huge abilities in one direction, but perhaps not in some other, so finding its natural path just makes sense.

Everyone knows Secretariat. But what if he’d been aimed at, say, distance riding or pulling a carriage? His name would have vanished in the mists. We need to remember what we learned back when we were tiny kids. It was simple then and it could be simple now, but it gets easy to overlook.

04/08/2023

It takes a village! 🐩

04/08/2023

04/08/2023