Mounted Ministries

03/28/2025

🤪🫣🤭🙄 yes, all these. 😂

03/28/2025

Lol

03/28/2025

03/26/2025

Sharing for horse owners in the evac areas.

03/16/2025

More pics from our fun day at Hagood Mill.

03/15/2025

Wonderful volunteers helping out on this beautiful day at KidsFest!

03/05/2025

Due to high winds there will be no lessons tomorrow.

Super windy tomorrow 🌪️ …we should experience 40 MPH winds

REMEMBER the burn ban 🔥🚫

03/02/2025

The little girls who loved horses and were labeled “too sensitive” are now the women in the arena teaching other horse girls about the power of empathy.

The little horse girls who were taught to please everyone around them are now choosing themselves and teaching other women to do the same.

The little horse girls who felt like they had to shrink to be loved… they are now women, taking up space in the arena, setting boundaries, and knowing their worth. Learn from them, and you will do the same.

The little girls who were always called “dramatic” for expressing their feelings… are now the women making it safe for you to express yours.

Learn from these horse women in your life, and learn from your younger self. They have a lot to teach you 🫶

03/02/2025

“Hairy” situation 😆

02/23/2025

Great illustration!

🐴DRESSAGE SOLUTIONS🐴 Understand How Crooked Riding Affects Your Horse ...

Load a wheelbarrow heavily to one side as in the center illustration. Now push the wheelbarrow, and feel how it pulls to the weighted side and how you are forced to lean in that direction to compensate. That’s how your horse feels when you sit unevenly in the saddle, as shown in the left image. When you sit evenly, the horse will be centered and balanced as shown in the illustration on the right.
— Sharon Sweet

02/21/2025

Very thought provoking and something I have become more aware of and changed over the years.

Horses are not born understanding what a pat, or even our petting, means. They have absolutely no idea that this is to bring them pleasure, or that it means we are pleased with them.

When we humans stop and think about this, it is something of a lightbulb moment.

We pat our horses for our own enjoyment, nothing more. Our love spills over and so, we reach for them. We pat.

I’ve learned that wild—or any highly-reactive—horses will be startled by such a thing and sadly, to get along in this world, they are expected to accept it. To submit. In nature, horses will understand a stroking, a little rub or a neck or tummy scratch, for they do this for themselves and with other horses.

They absolutely understand a little squeeze of comfort along the crest of the neck.

When they are fully relaxed, our horses will simply stand with their heads in a level position, exhaling with a sigh and then, breathing evenly. Knowing this, I’d venture to say that when we want to show our horses that we are pleased with their response to our demands, probably the kindest and sanest thing to do is to simply relieve them of the burden of our asking!

We might also relax, sigh and breathe evenly, ourselves to show the level of our relationship and understanding.

A little rub on the neck or a scratch, along with a kind word, will feel natural to a horse and therefore, is easily understood. I’m just saying that we might want to start choosing a touch that is not needing to be endured, or figured out.

The whole notion of kinship—of 'speaking' the equine language—is something to think about, the next time we yearn to say ‘thanks and well done’ to our good friend and teacher, the horse.

Here I was, once upon a time on the late, great Cisco, doing the very thing that no longer feels right. I'm not saying that I was in any way meaning to be thoughtless, or heavy-handed... patting her just feels cruder than I would now like to be. This good horse certainly deserved my sensitivity, in light of the quiet beauty of this shared moment.

I will always remember it.

But what is horsemanship, I ask, if not for allowing us the space to change our minds?

Photo: Bar U Ranch.