Ariana Peters Horsemanship

08/31/2023

08/26/2023

Help! I think I broke my ponies 🤣🤣🤣

04/30/2023

It has taken me a long time to learn to listen to my body. We women are very good at pushing through, at promising ourselves that we will rest, or make the doctor’s appointment, once everything settles down. We can ignore pain and exhaustion that would drive most people to their knees. I have been no exception.

In the middle of being a typical ranch wife, raising three children, helping care for livestock, running a home-based tea room and antiques shop, driving school bus and teaching 4H horsemanship, I got sick. I was unwell for months on end, ignoring my body’s slowly ebbing strength.

This is how, at age 42, I had a full-blown stroke. My body was waving the white flag of surrender. I went from pedalling as fast as I could, to existing in a darkened room, relearning how to swallow and speak without slurring. I am not too proud to tell you that my recovery took not months, but years.

It was over a tearful heart-to-heart with my husband, that he asked what I would really like to do with my life. Out of nowhere, the image of simplifying my life and going solely back to my horses came to me. They had healed me as a teen, they had sustained me through life’s trials. Now, if I had the opportunity, I knew that they would again help me find my way. I decided that I would get back in the saddle and work my way towards being in the horse business.

Tentatively, shyly, I began to align myself with a group of people who are largely younger men. I was the butt of a few jokes, but I came to the industry with something that my cowboy counterparts could not match. These men—handier by far with a rope or a bucking horse than I would ever be—did not have my unique experience of being a woman with health, fear or confidence issues, nor the worry of ageing out. I soon realized that I was in a unique place to make the sort of horses and ponies that would safely serve riders who were just like me.

I called my business Keystone Equine, after our family’s century old cattle brand. In the same week that I brought in two unbroken ponies to train and eventually sell, I ordered my first set of business cards. I buckled on my old spurs and did my darnedest to bring my new dream to life. It was not all smooth sailing, of course.

For too many years, my business account had a lot more out go, than in come. Horses who showed early promise, ended up taking years to become safe to ride. Those who were almost ready to find new homes, sometimes became ill or injured. Family and friends began to voice their doubts about my enterprise. I was in my forties, for goodness’ sake! I was unwell!

I'd already had one very close call. What on earth was I trying to prove?

Back when I was a teenager, a working student in a serious riding program, my teacher urged me to keep a riding journal. Every night, after a day of wins, losses, bruises and heartbreak, I would sit at the kitchen table and write it all down. Forty-five years later, the habit has stuck. I now have a shelf of old journals and still, I come in, put the kettle on and write of what my horses have taught me that day.

My daughter eventually urged me to share my training ups and downs on a thing called Facebook. The first time I wrote a story and pressed ‘SEND’, my heart was beating and my throat was dry. Gosh, ten people responded and the next day, I did it again.

I went public over a decade ago. Today, Keystone is nearing 50,000 followers worldwide. Every day, these people and I share the fears and triumphs of time spent in the saddle.

Now, I no longer ride and write alone. I have had the opportunity to speak publicly, to teach other women at horsemanship clinics internationally and to make friends with complete strangers. I have learned to build and restore sidesaddles in my basement shop. I am now a published author. The first book, HORSE WOMAN was an Amazon bestseller for over three months in the categories of Horsemanship and surprisingly, Women’s Health. Now, LOVE & RULES: Life Lessons Learned with Horses, seems headed the same way.

I look back and can only thank the people who took a chance on me. I must nod to my detractors, as well as my supporters, for it is with both kinds of people that we build our resolve.

Life has shown me that there will be hills and vales, that we can’t avoid struggle, even if we are doing exactly what we were born to do. I have learned that there is no shame in what I have been, or done, in my past. That all my experiences have been necessary to shape me into who I am, today. Even my stroke and recovery were needed to make me look beyond my reality and allow myself to dream again. I was meant to heed my heart and to step boldly into something that didn’t, at first glance, make sense.

One little hunch paved the way for me to train many good horses and ponies who would go on to serve good people. It emboldened me to share my stories with others. I would become one of eight women to race, sidesaddle, at the world-famous Calgary Stampede. No, I didn’t win… but I didn’t fall off, either.

The memories I have made with my horses still make me smile. Some will always have the power to bring me to tears. What I have seen is that it is never too late. Our days, no matter where we are along the journey, should include exhilaration, a wee pinch of risk and the facing of old fears.

May real life allow each and every one of us to pursue a dream.

***

Written by Lee McLean, originally published in ‘Trailblazher’ magazine. Winter, 2022.

04/27/2023

The last time I was brave enough—or stupid enough—to post something about hobbling my horses, the outrage was such that I vowed never to do so, again.

I’ve stood by my word, until this morning.

I’ve got a road trip planned and as I walked out into the white winter wonderland—for it snowed again last night—to feed in the early dawn, I knew something wasn’t right. Tee was missing. I chucked out some hay for the others who are travelling with me and went in search of my old friend.

There he was, in a tight spot, where it seems he had discovered a coil of old wire in a hedgerow that is next to the yard. It’s a reality when one lives in an once-abandoned farmstead with decades and generations of old stuff. We clean up continually, but still. Like rocks in the fields, some forgotten treasure is always working its way up. The wire had slipped and bound his front pastern with two wraps, so tightly that I couldn’t at first see where he was caught.

Tee was standing, worried and shaking but sure that I would come and help. I eased in, said the W-word quietly and got to work. The manure pile behind my horse told the tale of a long and uncomfortable night, spent in stillness in the teeth of the storm. Thank goodness I was moved to go out unusually early and begin to get ready for my journey. Thank goodness none of the other horses had chased my submissive friend while he was caught by the front leg.

Thank goodness Tee knows how to hobble.

This is one of the skills he rocks, despite loud voices braying about learned helplessness and the cruelty of outdated methodology. Despite their knowing best, today, I am still going on a fun road trip with my horse and not, in a panic, hauling him to the vet.

In this time of all or nothing thinking—of absolutely knowing what's right and what's wrong—more than ever, I am seeking that beautiful thing called balance.

04/17/2023

He likes to make friends with the whole farm

04/15/2023

I get a lot of pictures of the boys laying down. Rest assured that they are healthy and happy with healthy feet. Our nighttime wildlife is very active around here and a mid morning nap is a regular part of their routine. I also think we all love a good soak in the sunshine this time of year.

04/14/2023

Sargent came from the pens in Kansas with Hatfield. Sargent stayed with the gal who brought them up, and Hatfield came home with us. A few weeks ago, Sargent came up to my place for some down time in a herd/pasture environment. These two are still buddies.

04/11/2023

04/02/2023

How our horses are to ‘catch’ is indicative of the underlying nature of our relationship. This can be a very hard pill to swallow!

Once upon a time, back in our younger years, the family had many a high-mileage ranch horse who was next-to-impossible to approach and halter, on foot. They were safe to ride but our interactions were on a need-to-know basis, only. There was a guarded self-preservation to these horses and they did not welcome man—or woman—kind into their lives. ‘Jingled’ in on horseback, some could only be caught by being run into a smaller corral or alleyway. Others actually needed to be roped first, before allowing themselves to be touched.

Those wonderful horses had a high work ethic and an unmatched skill level when on the job. They were safe and who you wanted to be on when the sh** was flying. Sadly, the soft relationship part was where we'd let them down, a common enough occurrence back in the hard-scrabble days. Man and beast, we were all just trying to stay alive.

From those early years, I am very aware of how my horses greet me into their days.

I no longer aim to ‘catch’ my horses but rather, I want to them to meet me, partway. This can be a hard thing to instill in horses and ponies with negative prior experience, or those who have had a great deal of round penning. Some of us have taught our horses to need to be trapped in corners. Many of us have unwittingly taught our horses to require pressure to keep moving until they are ‘ready to face up’.

I have purchased a number of hard-to-catch horses over the years. If they come to me this way, I do not accept it as a done deal. This relationship building becomes the first thing I am aiming to change, once they come into my lives. The horse or pony who is avoiding me… who is leery of being touched… who wheels away if I am carrying a halter… who needs grain as a bribe… who must be trapped in a corner… who cannot be approached in a huge, windswept pasture… has a problem.

The problem, most likely, is me.

OK. What am I going to do about this, going forward? Do I accept it? Do I chase the horse around until he is tired enough to stop? Or, do I wish that he was happy to see me and actually welcomed my touch? If so, how do I change his or her mind about who I am?

This is the slow, unexciting but deeply rewarding, part of day-to-day horsemanship.

This is where I get out there enough to make myself a regular part of my horses’ lives. I will be out among them, visiting and watching, maybe petting but often, just standing around with them… just as they do, themselves. The horses who are very reserved, whether aloof or frightened, will sometimes be offered a hand treat but I am old-fashioned in that I aim to build something with each of my horses that transcends food rewards.

I’ll spend quite a bit of time teaching my horses to reach into their halters, rather than my pulling their halters onto their heads. Seemingly small, this one little thing makes a big difference in how we begin each day.

Friendship is a private but meaningful foundation and I cannot stress its importance enough.

To build this thing with our horses—to see them become happy to see us and therefore, make them ‘easy to catch’—requires commitment and kindness without any sort of plans of seeing what they can do for us. Some folks will disagree and that is fine; their horsemanship is frankly none of my business.

What matters to me is that my own horses and ponies will see me coming, without feeling trapped. They will walk up to meet us without being pushy, with their ears up and eyes sparkling. They will be wanting to know what plans I have in store for them! My goal is a warm and happy welcome, as seen in the eyes and ears of Brown Betty... neither of us pushing in, neither of us pulling away.

"How d'you do? Are you well today?"

The benefits of solving this, if a troubled horse is in our lives, seeps into all areas of our relationship, on the ground and in the saddle.

I may buy horses who are hard to catch… but I don’t own horses who are hard to catch! This, however long it takes, my friends.

03/30/2023

How kids in the country learn how to ride vs. How kids in the rest of world learn to ride

03/24/2023

McCoy, Wellington, and Hatfield are all doing great!

03/20/2023

I need these types of posts. When we're reaching for our goals it's easy to get discouraged when things don't immediately work. I am very prone to equate struggle with failure. It takes faith and patience to be successful.

This guy and I struggled in the beginning. As I was working with him I realized something . I struggled. To some that is a negative thing but to me it’s a positive thing. Hear me out. If you’re struggling that means you’re still in the game. You still are aiming for your goal. The bigger the goal the bigger the struggle. Again it’s not the goal that’ll bring you joy it’s the journey to get their. Yes it’s hard and sometimes beyond belief. Everything in life worth having (even life itself) is going to be a struggle to obtain. The sooner you look at it as a positive rather than a negative the more your light will shine. Yes this horse and I struggled but oh man what a feeling when it clicked. Remember without a cause there is no struggle and with no struggle there’s no cause. Every struggle has the capability to teach you something about what your struggling with and about yourself. You must listen to the teachings so you can conquer one goal and it’s struggles to move onto greater goals and yes greater struggles. Don’t sell yourself short or just settle for what you have now set goals and go after them. Don’t worry about what people think. No one ever expected me to run my own business, I was told by a counselor in high school I’d never make it through college(proved her wrong) people said I couldn’t make it doing what I do(proved them wrong also). I’m not saying that to pat myself on the back but rather as an example of setting goals and accepting the struggles that come with them. I will be the first to tell you there were times I wanted to give up but by the grace of God I pushed on. Looking back some of the hardest times in my life turned out to be the very stones of which I built a solid foundation of knowledge, understanding, compassion and drive. And if I’m being honest I must say it, all the struggles were worth it. Cherish the struggle folks like I said it means you still have a cause to aim for, you just have to find the cause or goal to aim at!

03/16/2023

Gentle don’t mean broke and broke don’t mean gentle.

I keep an eye on the horse market. Bring in the horse business it’s important to know what the horse market is. So many times I see advertisements of horses of kid broke, husband broke, etc. I gotta tell you 90% of the horses I’ve ridden claimed to be broke are not actually broke. They are just gentle. People seem to get the terms “finished” and “broke” mixed up. A horse that is broke now days is a horse you can let sit for 5 months hop on and go down the trail and won’t buck or spook, but that’s not a broke horse that’s a gentle.

I’ll give examples of broke vs gentle using my own horses. Reba is a BROKE horse. She is my go to ranch horse for any job whether it be fun trail ride, branding, team roping, cutting, doctoring cattle, starting c**ts, clinics , etc. If I need a horse that will do the job and do it right she’s my first choice every time, but there’s a reason why there’s only been 5 people that have ever ridden Reba and I’ve been very selective of those who do ride her. She’ll do any job you ask her to, but only if you know how to ride a broke horse. If you don’t know how to push those buttons when riding her she WILL dump you into the dirt. She gets real hot and flustered with someone and starts acting up because you’re pushing buttons without knowing you’re pushing them and she wants to do what you ask and you are stopping her from doing it. Although Reba is the most solid horse I have I wouldn’t throw just anyone on her for their own safety and risk of ruining my horse.

Blue Duck was a horse we had for a few years. Hancock bred up and down. Blue was never a “broke” horse but he’s definitely a gentle one. He’s one that I could put anybody on to ride and he would take care of them. He never spooked any anything offered to buck or blow up. Gentle horses are the ones that are kid, husband and grandma sage that no matter how poorly they ride, hang on their faces or scream and flop around they take it all in stride. You could go down any trail and do almost any job on him, but when it came to doctoring cattle, branding, sorting, stuff that required a horse with a good handle Blue just didn’t have that push button touch that made a job easier. You could get those things done on him, but it was nothing like having a broke horse with a handle. He always did what you asked it just wasn’t quite as good of a handle that makes life easier.

Now Fillinic is one of the rare horses I’ve encountered over the years of training that was actually broke AND gentle. She is a horse I could put even the most beginner riders on and go and push cattle and she would take care of them even if they hung on her face, rode imbalanced, flipped on her like a sack of potatoes, screamed at water crossings etc. she took it all in stride, but she was also a horse I could go out and brand calves bridleless and go and do any ranch job with those push buttons for people who knew how to use them. Broke and gentle horses are extremely rare to find Because there’s not many horses that can “turn off” those buttons when someone isn’t using them properly. She knew when she had a snaffle bit in her mouth that it wasn’t the time to be doing slide stops and rollbacks with her riders, but when I put that hackamore or spade bit on she was ready for a job and to do it well.

There’s a huge misconception of broke and gentle these days. Lots of people labeling gentle horses as broke because they don’t buck or bolt. A broke horse isn’t a horse that just accepts a rider with no issues. A broke horse is a horse that has a handle on them and is light and responsive to their rider. A broke horse is a horse you can do any job on and not ever have to pull, jerk or fight with them every step of the way. You ask a broke horse when riding them. You tell a gentle horse.

Just because you can throw anyone on that horse doesn’t make them broke. If you have to pull more than 5 oz of pressure to get a horse to stop it, ain’t broke. If you can’t get control of the horses head, shoulders, ribs, hind end, feet it, ain’t broke. If you ask for the horse to “whoa” and it blows 15 feet through a stop, it ain’t broke. If you can’t ride that horse single handed and do a job, it ain’t broke. If the horse doesn’t know how to respond to seat and leg cues, it ain’t broke. I would say 90% of the horses I come across are gentle, not broke.

03/05/2023

What are nitrogen fixing plants, and why use them over nitrogen fertilizer? This video answers this question through an explanation of the nitrogen cycle.Sup...

02/13/2023

Good Mornin"
Wake up to the greatest day Ever!

01/15/2023

Fully saddled and not at all concerned. Hatfield had a bit of a buck, but didn't get worked up or worried. I'm so proud of how mentally balanced and good minded this little gelding is.

01/13/2023

Just a silly day with the horses. We kicked a soccer ball, drug a sled and threw a few things over Hatfield's back ( including a saddle). He didn't bat an eye.

12/13/2022

A couple buddies enjoying a nap together

10/31/2022

Someone wasn't ready to get up for work this morning...

10/06/2022

Written by Bryan Neubert “I don’t know about you, but for me I often had a lot of trouble leaving our yard for the first time on a c**t and taking them out for a ride by themselves. That first time, they would be twisting and squirming this way and that,” says Bryan Neubert. “I …

10/05/2022

We had a fantastic session with Bryan Neubert 😁

08/17/2022

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ce4CoSEqjoC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Amelia Newcomb shared a post on Instagram: "Here’s a really great trick for timing your canter aid so you’re striking off correctly every time. If you like it, share it! ". Follow their account to see 313 posts.

08/11/2022

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/jonathan-haidt-on-the-moral-roots-of-liberals-and-conversativesPsychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral...

08/05/2022

First bath is in the books. I took a slightly different approach today. He had already seen the other boys get baths a couple times and I had lightly sprayed his legs and around him. Today, I hung the hose on so it created a spray area about chest height. I left the water going and brought Hatfield in from the pasture. I let him follow me through the low spray and added some positive reinforcement with scratches and an occasional treat. He was unfazed, so I sprayed his legs off a bit, released the pressure and reinforced. It took about 5 minutes. He got a full spray down and didn't bat an eye.

07/31/2022

Here's a fun game for horsey (or other pet!) friends. What's your pet's love language and what tipped you off? McCoy's is most definitely words of affirmation. He likes attention and time, but he really takes what you say seriously (good or bad). Horses may not know the words, but they certainly understand meaning behind them.

07/20/2022

05/15/2022

It was so neat seeing Wellington and McCoy go out together for the first time. They displayed their incredible language and social behavior by establishing and respecting subtle boundary cues. I'm so glad I caught the moments where they established connection by syncing steps and body position.

Additionally, cocoa showed how horses "round pen" eachother (using circles and direction changes). Wellington was the perfect herd leader and brought calm to the whole thing by getting between them when cocoa pushed too much. It was an incredible quiet and easy introduction.

I am so unbelievably thankful for beautiful horses and a beautiful place for us all to call home.