Kathy made my day today!  During a break in her lesson she told me she’s taken up walking at the mall.  Today she walked two miles.  More importantly, she confided, “I kept thinking about what we’ve been practicing in our riding lessons.  I keep reminding myself to breathe, and put on my cloak!” For people [...]

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The key to natural horsemanship and balanced seat riding is to be able to freely balance and control your various body parts.  A saddle can make that easy… or downright impossible. A saddler once measured my femurs and discovered they were 2 inches longer than they should be for a person of my height. That [...]

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Today’s horse training success story came in a trilogy.  No small wonder, God kinda favors threes Got the kind of call midday every trainer dreams of:  “you probably don’t remember me but…”  “Of COURSE I remember you, you’re Cassidy’s dad!”  Cassidy was our first student when we incorporated KinderRide into our lesson program:  offering horseback [...]

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Like any young horse in training, Wally the Warmblood has his good days. He has his not-so-good days and he has those frustrating, tear-out-your-hair days when he seems to forget how to put one foot in front of the other, much less do so with suppleness, impulsion and cheerful submission. Today was like no other. [...]

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Spring has sprung, the daffodils tell us. The horses agree as they gaze out over the hayfields that are growing so fast you can hear it. Riders’ thoughts are turning to, well, riding, and the increased freedom encouraged by good footing, beautiful weather and woods exploding back into life. Several of our boarders have new [...]

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An invisible barrier seems to exist in people’s minds between competitive and natural horsemanship. Natural horse trainers shatter that myth with increasing frequency in the worlds of dressage, reining, eventing, hunter-jumpers, and others. Natural horse trainer Stacy Westfall rocked the house with her winning bridleless freestyle run at Quarter Horse Congress in 2006.  This video [...]

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I bought this saddle this summer and after just a handful of rides realized the flaps are just too short for my looooong legs.  Remember that post about femurs 2 inches too long? So this wonderful, lightly used dressage saddle is for sale. I was really disappointed because the Wintec Isabell has some incredible features [...]

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Heads up all you natural hunter-jumper riders! This is a wonderful, classic style Crosby Prix des Nations close contact saddle. It is a 17 1/2 inch seat with a long flap and wide tree. I bought it used. It still has a nameplate from a previous owner on the back. You can easily remove it– [...]

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