Black Horse Hollow

25/03/2025

Jag and his cheek scratches 😂🖤

23/03/2025

This cutie visited us for a "job interview" as an addition to the lesson program 🖤

Meet tater 😊

23/03/2025

😱🖤

23/03/2025

The black horse greeting the newest geldings here for training. Big Buddy and Little Buddi 🖤

Buddy is a returning client, here for his pre-summer tune up. Buddi is here to be finished out for their owners grandkids along with the mini mares we posted recently

22/03/2025

Recent addition to the BHH team, Jag is coming along lovely as a future lesson horse. He made Skyler look like a pro riding around the arena yesterday, despite it being his second ride in years 🖤

As per usual, silkie rooster George is supervising the arena shenanigans 😂

21/03/2025

21/03/2025

Buckshot 🖤

21/03/2025

How to tell if your horse is moving well-

There are a lot of words thrown around with meanings that move from person to person: one persons collection may be deeper flexion in the hind legs and the raising of the forehand, but some people use collection to mean “head down and not pushing into the reins.”

Everyone has their own meter to describe feelings under saddle, and not everyone understands what they’re feeling or desires the same feeling. Some people are happy with a “zippiness” and electricity. Some like a heavier contact, some like a horse to not touch the contact at all. But each of these feelings create different types of mobility and different usage of the body. People often use all the right classical language, while riding a very bunched up, tight moving horse, which to me is just proof that feeling is very subjective.

So how can you tell if your horse is moving well?

I have some definitive markers:

-if they can go forward out of whatever you’re doing on a straight line in one step. This suggests the horse is carrying equally on both hind legs. If not, they will have to wiggle and squiggle their way out of the movement they were in and pull into the next movement with much assistance from the rider.

-they have an equal feeling in both reins. This assumes that both sides of the body are equal in length. That feeling depends on the riders preference for contact, but a horse who is using both sides of the body is not dumping into one rein and completley floppy in the other. They don’t feel like the second you let go of your reins they’ll fall apart either.

-they can lengthen, shorten, or change gaits with relative ease, without their head and neck height being affected too much- this is to say, without riders hands blocking the head. Meaning, if you let go of the reins and the head pops up, you were blocking the neck, and the hind leg wasn’t active. A well balanced horse can make changes with some ease (not always the same as prompt responses - because they can sometimes respond either promptly, or smoothly, and these are different). They are organized in their body and don’t require begging from the hand or nagging from the leg to get to the next gait. Their head is no longer being used as a lever so it does not pop up or thrust down, because they are using the hind legs well.

This last one takes some tactful understanding of your horses ability- it wouldn’t be fair to expect immediate responses, from halt to canter for example, on a green horse, with any fluidity. Maybe from walk to trot.

But the level of ability of the horse to transition from one gait to another with ease demonstrates their ability to carry.

So these are some ways to determine how your horse is going. These to me are free of discipline and useful for any horse to be able to do.

To recap
-can go forward after whatever you just did in one straight step
-equal in both reins
-can change gait with relative ease

20/03/2025

Chiro day at the hollow! 🖤

Thanks again to the wonderful Dr. Salewski! We have a barn full of happy, relaxed ponies snoozing after their appointment 😊

20/03/2025

19/03/2025

Thank you to all that have applied for our Ranch Hand Position! We should have a decision by the end of this week!

Send a message to learn more

19/03/2025

Tying safely or teaching the horse to pull?

A lot of people fear hard tying for good reasons in many ways : an unprepared or overfaced horse can be badly hurt in a tying incident.

If you scroll the internet for too long, you’ll believe tying is a cruel relic of an outdated world. But let’s get out of emptional manipulation and back to reality: horses need to be hauled to vets and you might not have a stall to put them in. In fires and hurricanes and other disasters, you’ll often find horses tied to porches and boats and all kinds of odd things.

Tying is handy. Helpful. And essential.

So if you’re afraid of your horse getting hurt by tying, your best bet is to educate them to tie well.

One of the biggest mistakes many well meaning people make is to loosely tie, or tie to slip or blocker ties. As the horse moves, the line lengthens - this kind of defeats the purpose of tying for one, but it also teaches them to pull the line to get where they want to go. So imagine what will happen when or if they are hard tied and this slipping line doesn’t slip? This is when horses get hurt.

Beyond pulling back, there is a risk to stepping over or on the line, people getting wound up in it and more. And as it goes to our riding, do we really want to teach the horse to pull with their neck to get slack?

This doesn’t mean we confine them or restrain them or hold them - it means we educate them, which requires nuance, it requires vigilance, it requires a sharp eye to detail.

It’s much easier to just say black and white nonsense like tying is bad, than to actually learn to use feel to educate.

Pictured is a young stallion who knows how to tie well. His line is just placed here, not tied - but he is as good as tied, because he never learned to pull the lead and wander around. His feet are where the line is - which is what it requires to tie safely.

18/03/2025

Another wonderful Tiny Trotters Tuesday in the books!

RSVP to join us to pet the livestock, feed the piggies and ride some ponies 😊🖤 open to all ages

18/03/2025

🐣The chicks have moved outside! We have some very sweet hens who are showing them the ropes ❤️

18/03/2025

Terrestrial (land) animals are poorly represented in the fossil record because their remains are often scavenged or transported long distances before burial. This results in preservation of only their most durable parts like teeth and bone fragments. Finding a nearly complete skeleton in life-position like this early horse (Protorohippus venticolum) is very uncommon. Such specimens are a boon to paleontologists allowing for a clearer understanding of their size, appearance and habits of movement. For more information about P. venticolum visit https://www.nps.gov/fobu/learn/nature/fossil-mammals.htm NPS/FOBU photo (Arvid Aase) of early three-toed horse from Fossil Lake deposits now on display in the National Museum of Natural History