W Spur Horsemanship

04/14/2025

Horse Problem Solving Clinic – May 17th
Featuring Sara Wedel & Mark Jenkins Horsemanship
As seen on RFD-TV, The Cowboy Channel, and Better Horses

Join us for a one-of-a-kind Horse Problem Solving Clinic on May 17th, featuring two seasoned clinicians dedicated to helping both horse and rider build trust, confidence, and communication.

Sara Wedel brings her deep-rooted experience from the rugged country of Eastern Oregon, where she’s spent years working on ranches and training untouched mustangs. Her grounded, empathetic approach creates lasting breakthroughs for horses with tough histories or handling issues.

Mark Jenkins, a respected traveling horseman, is known for his problem-solving expertise and gift for coaching others through even the most challenging horse behavior. Mark has been featured on RFD-TV, The Cowboy Channel, and Better Horses, and his calm, practical style resonates with riders of all disciplines.

This clinic will be filmed and broadcasted on the networks mentioned above – an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and be part of something special.

Date: May 17
Location: Aspen Creek Ranch in Cocolalla Idaho
Spots are limited!
Auditors welcome.

For registration and more info, contact:
Sara Wedel (208) 597-6712

04/07/2025

Don’t forget about our Problem Solving Clinic with Mark Jenkins Horsemanship coming May 17! Please contact Sara Jean Wedel to reserve a spot by Facebook messenger or call/ text (208)597-6712. There’s limited spots available so reserve yours today!

This clinic will be recorded for broadcast on RFD TV, Better Horses and The Cowboy Channel.

04/01/2025

03/30/2025

My employee of the month putting in the groundwork on the colts for me.

03/29/2025

Super excited to parter with Bridles and Bibles and Tri-State Ministies on this clinic! It’s a whole weekend filled with everything rodeo for anyone wanting to learn.

03/09/2025

Basic curry comb vs old rasp.

03/06/2025

Join us for our roping clinic this spring! Super excited for this clinic hosted by Embrace Equine Ministry - Wild Hope. If you’ve wanted to get into roping this is the clinic for you. Well go over all the fundamentals of roping to get you AND your horse started!

🐴 Upcoming Roping Skills Clinic for a Great Cause! 🤠

We're excited to announce a fundraiser clinic we're hosting coming up on May 3rd & 4th, 2025, provided by Sara Wedel. All proceeds go towards EMBRACE Equine Ministry’s mission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the hearts of North Idaho.

📅 Clinic Schedule: Day 1:

AM Session: Fundamentals of roping, preparation & tune-up for horse and rider.
PM Session: Utilize fundamentals under saddle, intro & tune-up for roping from horseback.

Day 2:

AM Session: Review skills.
PM Session: Horse handling, positioning & ranch roping maneuvers.

📅 Details:

Date: May 3rd & 4th, 2025
Maximum Participants: 15
Cost:
$400 for full weekend participation
$25 per day to audit
Deposit:
$150 non-refundable deposit required to secure your spot.

Note: This clinic is not suitable for green horses.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity to improve your roping skills while supporting Embrace Equine Ministry and its mission! Space is limited, so sign up early!

👉 To sign up or for more info, email: [email protected]
OR call (208) 352-0607.

02/21/2025

Fillinic has earned employee of the month. Giving lessons and participating in clinics. I adore her.

02/19/2025

Horses are herd animals. They thrive off confident leaders and a horse can tell what kind of leader you are before you ever step on them.

02/16/2025

CLINIC ANNOUNCEMENT!

Are you ready for an emergency evacuation?

If you can’t catch your horses, load them on a trailer and be on the road within 15 minutes you aren’t ready for an emergency evacuation. Being prepared for an emergency evacuation is the meaning of life or death for your horses. If you have a horse that’s hard to catch or hard to load you might have to set them free to survive at their own devices and head down the road praying it’s not the last time you ever see your horse again.

At our evacuation clinic we will go over all necessities that you need to have your horses ready to hit the road in a high stress situation among other essentials to be ready for an emergency evacuation.

Join Eddie Landry with Stache Ranch and Sara Jean Wedel with W Spur Horsemanship at Aspen Creek Ranch as we team up to give you the tools you need to save your horses life.

Clinic is limited to 15 participants with horses so get your slot now! Auditors are welcome. Everyone who attends will be going home with handouts that include evac essentials, local emergency service contact information, med kit list, and more!

02/14/2025

A horse can feel a fly land anywhere on its body, ride like you believe it.

01/16/2025

Would you let someone else ride your horse?

I see a lot in the horse industry people discussing other people letting someone ride their horses and there is a lot of people out there that are protective of their horses only allowing a select few ride their own horses. I can understand the mindset behind this as a lot can go wrong, but for me unless there is a safety issue with it I have no problem letting anyone ride my horses. Lots of people seem to think that a single person can ruin your horses progress or training, but the reality of the situation is if you’ve done a good job training your horse it’s going to take a lot more than a single ride to undo that training.

It can take years to undo a horses training if it’s done correctly and consistently. For example, my little red dun mustang Fillinic, I got her as a two year old and had her for a year. I started her under saddle and got all the fundamentals she needed and had a truly concrete solid foundation. I ended up selling Fillinic and she was ridden by a lot of beginners and inexperienced people over four years. I ended up buying her back after she had developed some dangerous behaviors like bolting, bucking and rearing. There was a little bit of time where Fillinic had tried to do some of these antics with me, but quickly remembered that I don’t scare so easily. The first ride even Fillinic was still showing the original training I had given her. It took a couple of weeks to get the softness back, but it was all still there and I was essentially able to pick up right where I left off in her training despite being ridden improperly for 4 years and only having a single year of solid training.

Another horse I had was Rusty a Hancock mare I had purchased from a family friend. Rusty hadn’t been touched let alone ridden in 15 years since she was 4 when we had gotten her. I put a few days groundwork on this mare before throwing a leg over and as soon as I stepped in that saddle I knew that she was started right and remembered all that training. She had a fantastic handle on her and seemed like she had been ridden routinely within the last 15 years despite not even being touched.

Both these mares have been go to horses for me to throw beginners and inexperienced riders on to ride because I knew that their training had been done right. Fillinic is now in the bridle and I give beginner lessons on her all of the time as well as let people who never ridden ride her before. She knows when I step in the saddle what I’m asking and she’ll do it without hesitation because I’ve been consistent and thorough with her training. Like I said the only reason I wouldn’t allow someone to ride my horses is due to safety issues. My mare Reba is one I let a select few ride because she’s sensitive and hot. If a rider is unbalanced on her she has a tendency to get stressed, but over the last few years I’m letting more and more people ride her so that she can be accustomed to other riders and learn to relax and go with the flow because it’s beneficial for her to have other riders and learn those things.

So if you’ve done right by your horse and been consistent and thorough with your training letting another person ride them won’t ruin them, in fact it can be very beneficial for your horse to be ridden by numerous people of all levels. The biggest mistake I’ve made with Reba is by being the only person to ride her for so long. I am a firm believer that the best thing you can do for your horses is train them well enough so that if anything happens to you, you’ll know they’ll end up in good hands. Which part of training your horses is then being able to be ridden

01/16/2025

What’s one of the biggest issues in the horse industry? OPINIONS!

We all know the saying “Opinions are like @**holes, everyone has one.” Where I truly do believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I also believe that an opinion based off feelings without education or real life experiences isn’t an opinion, it’s ignorance. Which the definition of ignorance is: lack of knowledge or information. In today’s day and age with social media these “opinions” spread like wildfire and like minded, uneducated individuals take over social media.

Every time I open social media I am bombarded by these cases. I see freeze branding videos and the comments are flooded with abuse allegations. I see pictures of spade bits and commenters loosing their minds in the comments. Heck it doesn’t take but 2 minutes to find something on Facebook where people are flooding the comments with pure ignorant comments based off how they feel and not facts. As I’ve said before and I’ll say time and time again “feelings aren’t facts and never will be”. No matter how much you feel things are or should be doesn’t make it the way it actually is, and too many people base opinions off feelings.

Where it is a good thing to have opinions on matters like training methods, equipment, care of horses, and just overall moral values and ethics of training and riding horses, it is a super dangerous thing to have an opinion that is based solely off feelings with no education on the subject. Strong opinions that are not educated are just gossip and gossip isn’t beneficial to the industry in any way. If anything all it does is break it apart and isolate people within it. Anyone in the horse industry can tell you an experience they have had that has turned their view of it sour and 9/10 those experiences are from people being ignorant either their opinions.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a public event with my horse and pulled out my spade bit and the uneducated lost their minds. One of the saddest parts too is that the uneducated have the loudest “opinions”. These opinions have actually caused a lot of the well educated and amazing horseman to isolate themselves and refrain from sharing their knowledge due to those blind with emotion refusing to have an open mind and unwilling to listen let alone learn.

The horseman out there that should be leading the way and helping others have given up and I’ve seen the horse industry take a turn because of it. Seeking respect from your horse is now abuse. Being a proper leader is abuse. Using a bit is abuse. Putting shoes on your horses is abuse. Because of this the standard for true horsemanship and being a great horseman bar is set so low. A well behaved horse that simply stands tied without pacing is considered an amazing accomplishment. A horse that loads in a trailer is well trained. A horse that hasn’t bucked you off is considered broke. Next time you start to have a strong opinion on something and have the need to express it think

Is it educated? Have I done research on this?

Is it experienced? Have I personally experienced this enough times to know how it works?

Is it helpful? Does it add knowledge and experience?

Is it based of experience and knowledge? or is it feelings?

Is it factual?