Johnson Equine

04/21/2025

04/19/2025

Perfect snowflakes on a perfect little Paco.

04/17/2025

What No One Tells You About Doing This For Real

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When I was younger, I knew this life was going to be hard.

But if I’m being honest… I didn’t know what “hard” really meant.

I thought it meant working hard. Showing up early. Staying late. Riding the green horses. Teaching the lessons. Doing the things nobody else wanted to do.

And to be fair — that is part of it.

But that’s not the hard part.

The hard part is realizing that work ethic alone isn’t the golden ticket.

The hard part is realizing that some people are going to get there faster than you — not because they worked harder or wanted it more — but because their timeline was built different from the start.

The hard part is realizing that sometimes the best rider doesn’t win — the best-funded one does.

The hard part is falling off the first two of six and still having to get on four more.

It’s taking your top horse to the vet in the morning and getting a career-ending diagnosis… and then teaching a lesson that afternoon like nothing happened.

It’s going home to your $400 horse while scrolling Instagram and watching someone else your age (or younger) cantering around a 4* on one they didn’t have to make themselves.

And it’s not bitterness. It’s not jealousy.

It’s just real.

It’s sitting in the reality that some people were given a map — and you had to build yours from scratch.

Nobody told me how lonely it would feel sometimes.

Nobody told me how weird it feels to want to be happy for everyone else’s success — and still have to sit with that ache in your chest that whispers, “When is it my turn?”

Nobody told me that loving horses wouldn’t be enough.

That I’d have to learn patience. Business. Communication. Marketing. Boundaries. Mental toughness. Money management. Self-awareness. And about a million other things that had nothing to do with riding.

But here’s the other thing nobody told me:

Staying power is a skill, too.

The people who stick around long enough — long enough to get good, long enough to figure it out, long enough to become undeniable — they find their way.

It might not look like I thought it would.

My life with horses might shift and change a thousand times.

But I know for sure — there’s nothing else for me but this life.

Hard doesn’t scare me anymore.

I just had to learn what real hard actually was.

And honestly?

I think I’m better for it.

04/15/2025

Coaching for you and your horse at your own barn or arena! I still have spots open for morning coaching sessions 😁

04/12/2025

Beautiful confirmation on these horses.

Their body type is the biggest difference between the breeds with the thoroughbred breed being tall and lean while quarter horses have a shorter and stockier build. Who is faster - thoroughbred horses or quarter horses? It depends on the length of the race.

Thoroughbreds are faster over longer distances while quarter horses are faster over shorter distances. Quarter horses are more known as western horses while thoroughbreds are english horses.

04/11/2025

ChickSaddlery.com - Saddle, Horse Tack and Horse Supply Warehouse. Western Saddles, English Saddles, saddlery, Tack, Horse and riding equipment at discount prices.

04/10/2025

Excellent 👇 Pumpkin pulls away from me often when I pet her on the face, she always prefers shoulder pets. Blanca likes all pets. Frosty only wants face pets when she hurts. How does your horse prefer engagement?

INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING

I'm reading an amazing book called Amphibious Soul by Craig Foster, the Academy award winning documentary film maker of "My Octopus Teacher".

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, it is simply profound.

In the book he says "As a rule, I never touch an animal unless they touch me first".

In my work building relationship with horses, I do this too. Most times a horse will touch you with their nose/muzzle first, and matching that greeting (versus labelling the horse as a biter) is a game changer.

But there's a phenomenon I have noticed going on with people trying to build relationship with their horses that I have labelled "inappropriate touching", and it looks a bit like the photo below.

This picture was taken at a horse expo in Pennsylvania recently, where I worked with a demo horse who has a "biting issue". He would reaching out in a way that his owner was termed as nipping, whereas I interpreted as him saying hello, similar to reaching out to shake hands with someone.

When he reached out I would greet him with a flat hand that he is able to to nuzzle, lick or even scrape his teeth on. After doing this a while his snappy acting motions got less so, and he was no longer needing to say "hey, pay attention" , but was more "hey, how's it going". I was explaining to the audience that I was meeting him in the way that he was meeting me (with his muzzle) and that it's not an invitation to touch other parts (yet).

I then said that it's many people's default to reach up and rub a horse between the eyes, whether that's what they are offering or not, and that if you do, it's inappropriate touching and it gets in the way of connection. It doesn't meet their needs, and is all about yours.

With the horse in the picture, he'd been engaging me with his muzzle, and I said to the audience "watch what happens when I try to rub him between the eyes". As you can see in the photo, he has raised his head up and is clearly indicating "No, not there, on my muzzle".

We had a Connection And Attunement retreat here at the Journey On Ranch a week ago, and I used my wife Robyn to illustrate this point to the participants. I said "imagine I'm at a gathering and meeting Robyn for the first time". We walked up to each other in that way people do when they see someone new and they can tell an introduction is shaping up, Robyn reached out with her hand to say hello and instead of me reaching out to shake her hand, I gently reached up and lightly brushed a wisp of hair from her cheekbone and tucked it behind her ear.

The participants all gasped and the ick factor was high.

Even though it was caring, and gentle, it was inappropriate at that moment.

Now Im not saying you can't rub your horse on the forehead. I'm saying if your horse has a disregulated nervous system around humans because they don't feel seen (and safe), try to meet their needs first, before trying get get yours met.

I recently saw an instagram post from a University in the UK, and the professor was explaining that they were doing studies on horses to determine levels of stress. In the background a horse was standing with his head out over a Dutch door. While he was explaining their investigations on stress, a female student (or maybe another professor, I don't know which) walked up to the horse. The horse reached out with his muzzle to greet her.

She ignored this and reached up to rub the horse between the eyes.

He turned his head 90 degrees to the left to communicate that wasn't what he was offering.

Her hand followed him and kept rubbing.

he then turned his head 180 degrees to the right, saying "No, not like that".

Smiled, gave him another pet between the eyes, and walked of camera.

While the professor was saying that they are doing experiments determining the amounts of stress horses are under, someone in the background was actually creating stress, without either of them even knowing it.

Once you understand how sentient horses are, and how subtle their communication, you can't unsee it.

04/09/2025

Yeaaaahhhh. I have.

04/05/2025

This is why you don’t leave halters on foals and weanlings. And please give this person a follow, she reveals incredible insights from dissection 📓📚💡

This is a deconstructed foal skull!

It makes sense that everything should be flexible for the birthing process but this is amazing!
It just kept coming apart.
Please consider this picture when strapping a halter on a foal and teaching to lead.
I always try to wait untill 3 months old to start halter training but ideally 6 months.

These are cranial bones not yet knitted together, a normal process for every foal.

Video on patreon going over the parts and also taking apart the cranium in part two of the video.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/first-look-at-93033704?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

04/04/2025

Yes. Show me more.

04/04/2025

I love this study - Blanca could tell you where a cookie is in a 100 acre field if shes stumbled upon it only once 😁

A recent study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science (Lesimple et al., 2025) investigated object permanence in horses, a key cognitive ability related to understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight.

The experiment, involving 63 horses, revealed that horses can locate a hidden treat even when the hiding process is not visible to them.

This suggests they reach at least Piaget's stage 4 of object permanence (where infants begin to understand that objects continue to exist even when hidden, and they will actively search for them.)

The researchers used a simple task where horses had to find a carrot hidden under a bucket and control groups were used to ensure that the horses weren't simply relying on their sense of smell to find the treat.

The experimental group achieved a success rate of 93.1%, while a control group that also familiarised with the task, but with no treat, had a 100% success rate in uncovering the location where the treat would theoretically be.

Another control group that did not go through familiarisation had a success rate of 60%, suggesting the bucket itself did not intrinsically drive exploration.

This study adds to the limited body of research on equine cognition, an area that has significant gaps, especially when compared to research on other species like primates or even domestic animals like dogs.

Brubaker and Udell (2016) pointed out that rat cognition studies outnumber those of horses by a factor of seven.

Study: To see or not to see: Horses’ ability to find the hidden treat: Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 285, 2025.

04/04/2025

Sophie - the student that sent me a video of riding with a stick to steady the arms 😁 the stick brought so many students steady hands and better position, thank you Sophie! https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AFZsmAwfT/?mibextid=wwXIfr

03/30/2025

🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

03/28/2025

A tale of two besties. Still art.
Blanca: 😁
Frosty: 👹
Blanca:…….👹
Frosty: 👹

03/28/2025

Blancas hair is now a stick holder.

03/27/2025

Using a stick to balance the hands and engage the core and shoulders. Excellent🤸‍♂️🏇