Medicine Hat Equestrian LLC

06/11/2024

Quarter horses, women of color, and the fantastic world of US eventing ❤️

How a Former Hunter and Her Quarter Horse are Aiming for the 2024 USEA Young Event Horse Championships

06/03/2024

Teaching the cross training classes for the Joan Clay clinic this weekend was nothing short of a privilege. ☀️🏔🌼

05/27/2024

Easily the breeziest four year old I’ve ever started.
🎀🌸🩰

📸 ❤️

05/10/2024

Sans double bridle, no less.

05/04/2024

Fresh sand, fresh thoroughbreds, and fresh outta bad vibes 🍋🌸☀️

05/03/2024

This is our very focused teaching stance. 🌼🌸☀️

04/25/2024

04/25/2024

04/25/2024

The only one who fits this bill to me is Elisa Wallace.. maybeeee Boyd and Silva Martin too? Please name another, I’m interested.

I have come to realize rather late in life that the riders who are the most successful upper level competitors in most of the riding sports so often bring to the task a fierce and goal driven mentality.

Which can do two things---It makes them winners, but it can also make it not so great to be their horses.

Perhaps, every so often, a great competition rider can simultaneously be a great horse welfare advocate. But when the aim is to win, it becomes pretty darn hard to be both at once.

04/25/2024

Fence-By-Fence: The 2024 Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event Cross-Country Course Preview

04/21/2024

ISO:
12mm, 4 or 4.25 inch
Straight, Mullen Mouth bit.
Any hints would be greatly appreciated… as I’m beginning to wonder if this even exists 😅

04/20/2024

This has become such a visible trend. If you go back and look at some of the previous Olympic rides and correlating scores you’ll be asking yourself more questions than you’ll get answers for. And then we wonder how certain trainers *cough* Helgstrand *cough* got so far before they were exposed.

Klaus Balkenhol talking about problems in dressage judging:
'It is a worry, I see some horses that are really nice and relaxed, but they don't get the good score, and other horses are not always regular, especially in the passage, but still they score too much. The problem a lot of the time is the judges, and the judges' schooling is not good enough. We need one judge who can say 'this is correct', all the people coming to him asking what is the correct way - but now we have many many judges, and no leader."
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2022/06/klaus-balkenhol-which-way-for-dressage/

04/19/2024

I solemnly swear not to nail these words to my students’ doors like the 95 theses.

So here’s a question to ask ourselves before we get angry at our horse----“How much damage control do I want to have to do?”

Think about it---We have many reasons to lose our temper at horses because training horses is extremely time consuming and it requires the patience of a saint, which most of us are not.

So something that we want the horse to do, the horse is not doing to our satisfaction. Now the real reason might be all sorts of things, poor fitting tack, improper preparation, poor riding from us, whatever, but it doesn’t FEEL like that, not at this moment. It feels as though the horse is willfully being a pain in the ass.

And so the temptation is HUGE to respond by getting rough, by drilling, by getting frustrated, we have all been there, I suspect.

BUT---And here’s the gigantic “but”----But if we DO lose it with the horse, whatever the problem was that made us get annoyed or angry in the first place is going to get worse. Count on it. The “lesson” we think we are teaching our horse, not to be “bad” is absolutely going to backfire. The horse did not know why he was getting rammed around. All it will do is scare him and confuse him, so now we have to undo the harm we did to even get back to the place we were before we lost our temper.

We have to do damage control, and the worst thing about it is that WE did the damage.

Hard? You bet. One of the hardest things about riding horses is self control. It is the ONE vital piece that so often keeps an otherwise good trainer from reaching full potential---.

04/19/2024

14.2 hands of power is about to hit the Defender Kentucky 3-Day and prove that ponies are in it to win it.

04/16/2024

Young Event Horse Graduates Flock in Droves to the Defender Kentucky Three-Day Event

04/16/2024

Rule Refresher: Everything You Need to Know About Microchips

04/15/2024

Rear wheel drive? Front wheel drive? Or maybe all wheel drive? What do we want in our riding horses?

I think the obvious answer would be we want rear wheel drive. No one wants a horse who pulls, right?! But I would argue that we really want all wheel drive, with the ability to adjust the power more towards rear wheel drive in certain movements and through our half halts.

Most horses are naturally more front wheel drive. It’s an efficient way to move through space - pull with your shoulders forward and a little downward, and the hind end will come along because it’s attached 😜. Through good dressage training, we try to teach horses to *push* themselves more from behind, which is akin to rear wheel drive in a car. But in most movements, we want a combination - strong, pushing hind legs; a lifted, elastic back; and then a good, reliable connection in front that can provide a “positive pull” from the front that can help the horse keep the shoulders and withers lifted.

A horse who is 100% in front wheel drive is never the goal. That’s the image on the far right - downhill, pulling on the rider, and the rider turning into a water skier. And only certain highly collected movements are really 100% rear wheel drive.

I find this is a helpful way for some riders to understand connection and why we want a steady contact with the bit instead of flopping reins. In all wheel drive you have two engines - one in the back and one in the front. And when the front engine starts to take over, we help shift the balance, and make the rear engine do more.

Those of you who have ridden a horse who is too light and won’t take any contact can probably understand why that’s not the goal. Light contact is nice but no contact is very tricky to fix. And if you flip it around for your horse - a rider who won’t provide a steady, receiving seat and hand to push into - makes it quite hard for them to trust and improve their balance.

Aim for an all wheel drive horse, and work towards being able to adjust the power more to the back when you need it!

Illustration by

04/15/2024

🌙 OVER THE MOON 🌝 with how the XC clinic went down yesterday! Green bean babies and seasoned eventers alike, we had a leaping good time at Circle 3 Ranch!
Thank you, Nicole Rosa for putting it together! Can’t wait for next weekend’s dressage show down!

04/14/2024

🌼Who’s ready for XC lessons tomorrow?!🌸 Medicine Hat has a stellar little group put together and we’re ecstatic to be the first clinic at Circle 3’s new course development!! —Pictured is a couple years ago at Drifter’s very first cross country school EVER!! I know, I know… the knees are for days. ❤️

04/12/2024

Understanding the Way Adults Like to Learn, Both In and Out of the Saddle

04/12/2024

Are you freshly 4 and lack any clue of what’s going on? You may be entitled to compensation. 🌿🦋🌟

04/09/2024

Forever late for dinner plans because how do you willfully walk the other direction? 🫐🏵🐞

04/08/2024

Nope

ThinkTank Oupost

04/07/2024

Negative self talk doesn’t just hurt you- it affects everyone around you, and affects your horse too.

So often we think of self deprication as a harmless crime- something that only hurts us. But the energy you emit affects everything you touch- and your horse doesn’t logically reason that it’s you talking to you and not them. Think of it like being covered in a storm cloud- if doesn’t matter who it’s aimed at, nobody wants to stand under that.

Working on confidence to me doesn’t mean believing or pretending you’re the best, you’re not doing anything wrong etc- it means you stop focusing on yourself so much in general. It means you take in the moment and your place as part of it, but not the entirety of it.

Arrogance and self deprication are two sides of the same coin- excess focus on the self- and not enough in the moment. It adds nothing, and steals from everything around you.

Let go- blend in- be part of the environment. Breathe and take in the horse- then give to him from yourself.

04/06/2024

That moment when you realize your helmet is more voluptuous than your ass.

04/02/2024

No April Foolin’— Yesterday Medicine Hat Equestrian moved into new and beautiful digs! Not pictured are the arenas, wash bay, barn, tack and feed rooms, and generally most of the things we’ll be using everyday, but come on… who could get over GRASS in the desert?! 🌾🌱🌿