Isidro Espinoza Horsemanship

12/20/2024

Are you superstitious? 🫣

Isidro never ceases to fascinate me. He has old wives tales, traditions, whatever you want to call them…about almost everything.

One of them currently brought to mind given where the moon 🌖 is at, is that you put the first saddle on during the new moon. Apparently, the horse will not be afraid of the saddle if you do this 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I have no idea if this actually works or not but I am not one to want to try and see if it doesn’t!

I do believe there is something to all these old superstitions, sayings, 🪄 folklore, etc.

If things happened often enough that someone noticed, maybe it has some truth to it 🤔.

I know when I worked as a labor & deliver nurse 🫄 we feared the full moon. The craziest stuff happens in the hospital during a full moon. And for whatever reason, everyone’s water broke 💦 then too.

Have any good horse related superstitions, sayings or traditions you wanna share? We would love to hear them!

📷 Jaden Antal took this picture of the moon at our ranch in Northern AZ. The moon and stars are breathtaking here at night.

12/19/2024

Time ⏰ for this cutie to find his person!!

Frijol, our little pinto 🫘 bean, is almost done with his gentling training.

He has helped us film parts of our Mustang Gentling Blueprint (MGB) course, representing a more difficult, feely mustang to train with common problems people run into.

🐴He is a 2yo from Swayse, UT HMA who stands about 14-14.1hh. We think he has some curly genes in there too.

He needs someone who has experience with mustangs and time to be consistent everyday. He thrives on consistent work and he is not yet convinced people are a good thing (though his opinion is wavering!).

📝 Approved BLM application needed for reassignment. Easy to get on the online corral (happy to help with this).

He has learned:
✅ to be caught & haltered
✅ leads and lunges
✅ desensitized with rope
✅ +R started
✅ currently working on feet and will get first trim before leaving
✅ will be able to tie and load on a trailer before going to his new home

Currently located in Snowflake, AZ

Will post video link today on current training progress.

Please text 760-981-3018 or PM with questions/interest.

12/18/2024

Got holes?

It happens all the time.

We get a horse in training or at a clinic with “all the ground work done” and when we poke a little, all the holes show themselves and the foundation crumbles 🤯.

Here’s the thing. You don’t know what you don’t know. I mean, how can you?🤷‍♀️

We know because we have the bruises, scars and crippled 🤕bodies to show for those hard lessons. The mustang is the greatest teacher.

I had a fellow trainer tell me once “I have no ego, I would rather listen 👂to someone who knows than learn the hard way myself”. She was so right. Why make things harder for ourselves? If someone already made the path through the wilderness why do we need to make the same path right next to it?

Our gentling program is way more involved than most because we do everything with the end game in mind. The end game is to get a wild mustang 🐎to be a solid citizen and solid under saddle.

Every thing we do is to lay a foundation towards a well-adjusted, safe partner who will happily carry a rider🤠 down the trail and the next day down the center line. And we get judged for it ALL THE TIME by people who can't do it. Who never achieve the end goal and instead create horses that get passed around and end up in bad situations 😔.

Why?

Because we got the rope burns, broken bones and bruised egos to learn this is the way that works for the horse in the end.

👉I promise you, our Mustang Gentling Blueprint (MGB) program is not your typical gentling process. Ours is the big picture program because we learned the hard way so you don’t have to. PROVEN results over and over again.

Here is a quote from someone 🥰who adopted a mustang that went through our gentling program:

"I just picked up the sweetest little filly mustang from Amber and Isidro and truly feel like I won the lottery. This filly is confident, curious, and whip smart. She was clearly cared for extremely well during her time at their ranch. She is healthy with a gorgeous coat, mane and tail, and she loves people. The foundation on this filly is rock solid…..”
-Sharen

Picture of said lovely filly in her journey with us :)

If you want to learn how to lay the best foundation on your mustang, click the link in our bio to learn more (we also put link in comments).

12/16/2024

It’s Finally Here!!!!🥳🥳🥳🥳

Applications are OPEN 📝 for the one and only:

Mustang Gentling Blueprint (MGB) course!

🤩First of its kind guided course on how to gentle a wild mustang!

👀 See how to train a wild mustang in REAL TIME and get support from expert mustang trainers!!!

If you want to learn more about it type “wild” in the comments below 👇

12/14/2024

I wanted to take a minute to introduce this cutie patootie! This is our daughter Kira’s pick for the Spectacular Youth competition. She is an adorable yearling filly from the Moriah, USFS HA in NV. Kira has named her Sochuri. They will be competing together at the in June! Follow for more cute baby photo updates as they progress. This will be Kira’s 4th makeover horse. She is more well known for her training and competing of burros. All the animals she has trained turn into sweet, well adjusted, happy animals that love people. For those who have met Kira, they know what a gentle heart she has. We are always blown away by her. Added a few pictures of Kira’s other passion, her art work (with her permission) for y’all to see too.

12/12/2024

We Just Can’t Do It Anymore😔

~The evolution of wild mustang competitions~

A hundred wild mustangs in a 100 days with 100 trainers.

It was a brilliant idea🧐. Innovative, creative, exciting and challenging. Plus, the added bonus of showing the world just how trainable and amazing the American Mustang is.
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And it was amazing. It worked great for about the first 10 or so years. See back in the beginning you were a huge success if you got your horse around the courses. They were not too complicated. You could win your freestyle if you carried a tarp around and taught them to lay down.

Then the trainers got better.

The competitions got harder 😳and what we expected of the horses got to be monumental. In order to stay competitive you had to work your horse every.single.day. A lot of top trainers worked their horses all day. I know of some who didn’t take outside horses when they did the makeover so they could just concentrate on that one makeover horse.

🏆Winning was everything and we lost sight of the goal.

Horses were auctioned off who were dangerous but promised to be “solid, broke horse for anyone”. Some ended up in kill pens, some went from home to home to home. We lost sight of the why. The why we are doing this in the first place.

When horses are trained to win at a freestyle, many essential pieces are missing for a good transition to domestic life and a new home. They still need those holes filled.

A lot of wonderful trainers 🤠did all they could to encourage buyers to keep the horse in training and give them more time before taking them home. Many tried buying their horse back to keep training and have a say in placing them in the right home. This can be quite costly and let’s face it, mustang trainers aren’t exactly bringing in tons of money 💰training mustangs.

Good trainers got burnt out🥵. Good trainers heart’s 💔couldn’t take the grind and what was necessary to be competitive. Made no sense to put all that money into getting to the show if you couldn’t at least be competitive. Most do not have the bank accounts to be purely philanthropic yet got shamed by the public to simply want to survive financially.

A change was needed.

🥳A change is here.

The powers that be have taken notice. The new competitions offer more time ⏱. One of the reasons I have always loved the Magic. It gave 120 days rather than just 100 and those extra 20 days were huge.

But it still isn’t enough for most mustangs.

That is only enough time for a select few who can handle the stress of rapid training. Most mustangs are not like that and even then you are asking too much. They are generous and forgiving creatures, but it is too much 😞.

We are headed to the time of the majority of the competitions offering from 6mths to almost a year. This is incredible 🤩and the essential evolution of the mustang competition. It is more in-line with the rest of the equestrian show world as well. Check out what Mustang Heritage Foundation and Mustang Champions are doing breaking new ground and making huge changes.

These competitions are also allowing trainers the option to select the homes the mustangs they train go to. This helps the trainer as well as gives the mustang the best possible chance to not change homes or end up at a kill pen somewhere. That level of training, time invested, money invested and control of the person who knows the horse best (the trainer) helps push everything towards the best possible outcome for the horse.🐴

There is this domestic horse formula meme floating around FB right now:
📍Takes 1 year to get them broke
📍Takes 2 years to train one to a discipline
📍3-5yrs to season one
📍10yrs to truly finish one

Expecting wild mustangs to rise to a different time line is unfair and breeds for some rather unsavory 😬practices to result.
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We feel it takes 1-2yrs to get them even domesticated, then they can truly START on the timeline above. Sometimes they can do it concurrently.

We expect too much of them and then throw them away 🗑when they don’t meet that accredited timeline.

They deserve better from us. Let's treat them at least the same as we do domestic horses.

Give them time.

I recently pulled Sandia from the Mustang Magic - Ft Worth 2025 competition. She is a lovely mare but was not handling the stress of this timeline well. Her last video and why we pulled her from the competition was just posted to our YouTube channel.
Link in the comments.

Edited to add: To all those new to us. Isidro doesn’t do any of our social media. It’s me, the other half of IEH - Amber 🙂 though we do share sentiments and point of views on what’s posted here.

12/06/2024

🐴 Meet Khalua!

Khalua is a 5yo BLM mustang gelding from Four Mile, UT HMA.

He is a rare silver dapple color and stands 14.2hh.

Khalua was put into training with us two months ago and he has proven to be a higher energy horse than his owner is looking for.

Her loss is your gain!
She has paid for board and training through end of December. Khalua should be getting his first trim and first rides by end of the month.

Khalua would be well suited to working all day. He is sturdy, well-balanced, very intelligent and is really starting to soften and relax around people. He is a really nice mover and would also excel at endurance. He has also been started on +R and loves it. Not a first time mustang home or inexperienced home type of horse. This is a performance horse, he is not mean but he is hot. He learns fast and tries hard. He does need his teeth floated but is current on Coggins and vaccines.

🎥Message for current training status video.

📱 Please text 760-981-3018 or message here, DO NOT CALL 🙏.
Low four figures. Serious inquiries only.

🗺️ Located in Snowflake, AZ

12/04/2024

This post is for Luke Castro😈

The moment I saw these I knew I had to have them!

FYI, straw covers work fantastic on your 100X Equine supplement pumps! Now my and will stay fresh and contained!

12/03/2024

🙏🙏🙏🥰🥰🥰

12/03/2024

This is often one of the worst things horses do 😬.

Many times people do not even practice this or even know what it supposed to look or feel like.

🫣It’s the back up.

The back up is one of the most important things your horse needs to learn how to do and do well. It can be used to fix so many things plus help a horse learn many other things.

The back up is one of the foundation pieces 🧩 necessary to teach collection. Actual true collection and not that crank your horse’s head down with draw reins (martingale, neck stretcher or whatever other gimmick there is out there right now) crap 🤮.

You can’t have a good stop (whoa) without a good back up. The list 📝 goes on and on.

Right now there is a Mustang Makeover called the Mustang Magic 🪄 happening. One of the biggest problems we see when we go to these competitions is people didn’t spend enough time developing their back up. So when they get to the show their horses have no whoa. I promise, if they develop and work on the back up daily, their horse would show a lot differently. Breaks my heart 💔to see trainers make the same mistakes over and over again when it’s such a simple fix.

🎄 December’s new videos for the Perpetual Training Toolbox 🧰 are now live and ready to watch 👀 !

🎥Among the new videos is a video on the back up.

We use three different mustangs at different stages of learning the back up to show you how to do it. It’s a simple step by step 🦶🏼process and it will change how your horse responds to the bit (hackamore, side pull, whatever).

💰The Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale is still going on for the Toolbox! Use code BF2024 at checkout.

Sale ends at midnight!!!!

👉🏼Link in bio and comments.

12/01/2024

Cyber Monday is the last day to get the Perpetual Training Toolbox at its lowest price ever!!! Lock in this rate, it will never be offered again! Over 100 training videos to take you from completely wild and untouched to trail safe and everything in between. See our methods that get us winning at shows with happy, well adjusted horses. Link in bio and comments to sign up!

11/30/2024

We won best documentary!!!

11/29/2024

Showing in San Antonio, TX!

Saddle up, San Antonio! "Beyond the Herd" is making its Texas Premiere at the Animalis Fabula Film Festival this Friday, November 29th!

Looking for something fun to do after Thanksgiving? Bring the family and join us at 1:45 PM at the AMC Theatre RiverCenter Mall (Auditorium 7, Movie Block #2).

We’re so excited to share Amber and Isidro’s inspiring story and their deep bond with wild mustangs at this festival celebrating the magic of human-animal connections.

📅 When: Friday, Nov. 29th @ 1:45 PM
📍 Where: AMC Theatre RiverCenter Mall, Auditorium 7
🎟️ Tickets: https://www.goelevent.com/AnimalisFabula/e/MovieBlock2AniFab24

Let us know if you’ll be there—we’d love to see you!

11/28/2024

What are you thankful for today? ☺️

Here at IEH we have much to be thankful for this year.

We are incredibly blessed with some of the most amazing clients. We are grateful for all the people we were able to help in NY in our time there.

We are grateful for having some of the best mustangs we have ever worked with come through our doors this year.

We are grateful our family is together and happy. Northern Arizona is definitely our home and it feels good to know that deep in our souls.

We are grateful for having some of the most precious friends who step up and help us in our times of need and cheer us on in our successes.

We are especially grateful for working with these two lovely young trainers who are so hard working and talented. Expect big things from these two in the future! Eros Byrne and Canyon State Horsemanship, LLC

11/27/2024

If you are following Sandia's journey here is her Week 8 Update.

In this update we took Sandia to the EQUUS Film & Arts Fest in Albuquerque, NM. She was used in our demos plus in the demos of a fellow mustang trainer in NM.

☺️Pretty proud of her! After this event is when we started considering pulling her from the Mustang Magic - Ft Worth 2025. Stay tuned for next weeks video to see why!

I love watching 👀other people train and work with horses. You can always learn something from everyone. Picked up a useful tip from the gentleman from NM. Watch the video to see it!

Video link in comments

👉Don't forget to hit that subscribe button on our YouTube Channel to not miss any Sandia updates!

11/26/2024

🤨How To Pick A Horse Trainer😵‍💫

With all the information thrown at us how can we possibly wade through it all and not make a costly mistake by picking the wrong trainer?😱

There is hope!😍

👉🏼Here are some things to consider to limit risk and give you the best possible chance at success. These things work for finding an in person trainer as well as deciding who you want to follow on social media and who’s course or membership to join.

1️⃣First you need to know what it is you want done. Do you have a nice young horse you want a good start with? Do you have a wild mustang you are struggling to gentle? A horse who has developed a bucking problem or other behavioral issue? Are you seeking a deeper bond with your horse or more interested in performance? Really spend some time pondering these things and write them down. Being focused on your needs and end goal will help narrow your search and save you time and money in the long run.

2️⃣Start searching! You can use google, ask for recommendations on Facebook groups, ask your friends, ask people who you respect and like how their horses are (bet they are a wealth of knowledge). Get a good list of trainers going and then….

3️⃣Stalk them. Yeah, seriously. Look through all their social media. Sit on the fence and watch them at a show. What do their horses look like, act like? What do their customers say? What are their accomplishments? Some red flags to watch out for:

🚩 They only post short, highly edited content that doesn’t actually show any training. Getting on a horse ba****ck in a halter all relaxed in a short clip looks impressive but if your goal is to go on a relaxing trail ride over varied terrain and they have no proof they can train that, red flag. Seek trainers willing to put actual full length training videos out there.
🚩Their content is primarily criticizing what other trainers do. This shows a level of insecurity. Good, effective trainers are not insecure. They know they can get the job done 💪🏼and do not need to spend time discrediting others. It’s always the ones criticizing the ones who are actually doing the things they can’t do who are the biggest red flags.
🚩The horses they train go from home to home to home 🏠. This can happen to anyone but when it’s a pattern, this is not a good sign. A well trained horse is a treasure and people do not part with them easily.
🚩They are big talkers 🗣️. They have no actual proof they can do the things they say. Make sure the trainer you want to follow or send your horse to, can show real proof of horses they trained, not horses others trained they are claiming credit for. Do they have a show record with video proof? Client reviews with video and photo proof? Truly great horsemen let the horses speak for themselves.
🚩They can’t ride. No seriously, watch them ride. Do they fight with the horse, have poor form, bad seat and rough hands🖐🏼. Good trainers are beautiful to watch, they have feel, softness and their horses are aren’t swishing their tails like crazy or tossing their heads. Doesn’t mean things can’t get ugly from time to time when sorting out a problem but it shouldn’t be a regular occurrence and they still look damn good where you are thinking “man I wish I had a seat like that!”
🚩They have an excuse 🙄for everything. They blame how the horse showed, how the horse is going or where they are at in training on everything and anything. A well trained horse can go in any bit, bridle or saddle as long as it fits and doesn’t cause pain. A well trained horse can go in most situations and not completely fall apart. Look for patterns, it’s ok to have a bad day but if it’s a pattern - beware.

4️⃣ Does the trainer you want to follow or send your horse to actually train horses like yours? We specialize in mustangs and I can’t tell you how many mustangs we get in trained by other trainers who never trained mustangs before. They are accomplished at other breeds but a mustangs are very different. They end up meaning well but creating some really bad behaviors that can be costly to fix. There is a very popular trainer online whose online programs are referred on mustang pages all the time. However, they have never actually trained a mustang from wild before. Working with trained mustangs with some issues is not the same thing at all. Find a trainer with tons of experience and proof of what you want to do and the breeds you want to do it with.

5️⃣ Make sure the trainer you want will fulfill your expectations. Do you want to watch your horse worked in person? Will they allow that? Do they give regular updates? How often do you need to be updated to feel informed? Do you want to learn along with your horse or prefer to be fairly hands off? This is a relationship and you want to make sure you are compatible and you share the same expectations. Put it in writing ✍️ , that way no one can misunderstand what’s expected.

Last but not least - you usually get what you pay for 🤷🏻‍♀️

You want to be cheap and hire the cheapest trainer? There is a reason they are cheap 🤔. You will end up spending 💰 way more in the long run than just coughing up the money to have someone do it well the first time.

🖥️ You want to be cheap with your online learning? Then ask FB groups for training advice. You will get a ton of really bad advice that will likely get you hurt and have to send your horse to a trainer anyway.

Just pay the nominal fee and learn from those who already made all the mistakes and have proof they can do the things you dream 🛌 about.

📷 Picture is a mustang the BLM thought couldn’t be trained. Isidro trained him to be a 50mile endurance horse he could ride in a halter.

11/24/2024

🤔What Makes A Good Rider
or rather
What Makes A Good Horseman?

I want to thank 🥰 everyone’s response to my post yesterday. It is so insightful to see other’s perspectives and I greatly respect you taking the time to share yours.

☝️The biggest takeaway is that riding level is not the same as experience/expertise level. You can have someone who can no longer ride at an advance level, with the experience of an advanced rider or trainer.

To try and keep it fairly simple, this is how I would categorize it:

✅Beginner - knows very little about horses, how to manage or care for them and needs supervision to tack up and ride.

✅Advanced Beginner - is able to do most horse care activities unsupervised but needs some supervision while riding still.

✅Intermediate - this is where most horse owners/horse people are. They can ride at all three gaits, go on the trail and manage or care for a horse on their own. May even do some low level showing. Can do some minor training as needed.

✅Advanced Intermediate - can ride green horses that are good minded, can do some training, maybe even gentle mustang or start a horse under saddle. Able to show with some success and has independent seat, hands and legs. Can ride most spooks but probably not some serious bucking.

✅Advanced - this is someone who can ride just about anything. Do full gallop with no issues, very independent hand, seat and leg aids. This is where you will find most successful trainers. They can create a soft horse and c**t start. Can ride some bucks, rearing and hard spooks.

✅Master - this sort of speaks for itself. They have achieved the highest level of success in their discipline. They can ride just about anything but prefer to ride trained horses and put the finishing touches on them.

I 🙋🏻‍♀️would categorize myself as an Advanced Intermediate rider with some advanced knowledge. I cannot physically do the things (I also don’t want to) that an advanced rider needs to do. I prefer to put the finishing touches on a horse.

Isidro is definitely in the Advance Rider category and is a master at c**t starting, imo.

Why does this even matter? 🤷🏻‍♀️

It matters to be realistic with yourself, your abilities, your knowledge and skill level so that you can be the best possible partner for your horse. It helps to match you with the perfect horse when you are honest about these things.

Also, you should strive to move up the levels! 💪🏼 Acquiring more knowledge, skill and ability makes you a better horseman. The horses in your life deserve that. They deserve you putting that effort for them. They deserve you learning how they move, how best to feed them, how to manage them and how to train them. This all leads to a healthy, sound and meaningful life for the horse.

That is why we named our video training library the Perpetual Training Toolbox. You never stop learning 🕰️ if you are a horseman and you never should.

They have no choice in the matter, but you do. You can decide to grow and become a master. 🧘

🐴The horse will be forever grateful.☺️

If you would like to further your knowledge on your way to becoming the best version of yourself for your horse. We care having rare special Black Friday pricing on our 🧰Perpetual Training Toolbox. It’s over at the end of the week so if you have been wanting to try it, now is the time to lock that price in.

Let 2025 be your best year yet on your horsemanship journey!🥳

👉🏼Link in comments and bio.

11/23/2024

So you think you can ride? 🤨

I wish I had a dollar 💵 for every time someone told me they were an advanced rider. Or said they knew how to ride and then proceeded to prove themselves very wrong.

Why do we have such a poor ability to self assess?

Maybe it’s because we don’t actually know 🤔 what qualifies a rider to be beginner, intermediate and advanced.

I wanna hear 👂 from you!

What do you think qualifies for the following?

✅ Beginner
✅ Advanced Beginner
✅ Intermediate
✅ Advanced

I know what I think but I really want to know what you think.

Do you over or under estimate your level? What do you think you are?