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 who […]

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Breakthrough day for June!  This formerly stiff-as-a-board but quick-as-a-whip little mare learned to release to the pressure of the bit.  We’re not talking turn or tuck her head.  We are talking release negative tension throughout her entire body. This elementary lesson is June’s first step towards losgelassenheit.
…Before you say “gesundheit” let’s pull our dictionary!
The United […]

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“Horse Training Success” is running a training tips contest.  We just submitted this entry:
I love all the posts that include training with treats! Do you know they actually funded a study in France which “scientifically proved” that horses learn faster when they receive food rewards? Hahaha, horsemen since the dawn of time could […]

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The Horse Whisperer. Both history and the pop culture notion of natural horsemanship paint an image of the silent, mystical horseman whose mere presence calms the wildest equine outlaw. By using skills invisible to the average human, the horse whisperer inspires the most savage horse to willingly submit and perform any feat.
People attributed […]

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WOW! I would be speechless but the words tumble over each other in their hurry to get out. Stormy was AMAZING tonight. She could have been the poster pony for natural horsemanship!
Now what made that training session extraordinary in my mind was this: through no fault of her own, Stormy’s training […]

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I had the horse trailer hooked up and loaded by the time Mark got home from work. We grabbed the horses and a chilled bottle of Monavie and headed down the road to meet Scott and Noel at the Antietam battlefield for an afternoon trail ride.
I brought Lucy. We believe so firmly in […]

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Now, we know that natural horsemanship is based on common sense. Clinicians out there who claim their own Mysterious Mustang Mojo or promote their expensive, instant fix wunderproducts give natural horse training methods a bad rap. We found this hilarious spoof on just such a “trainer.”
Enjoy!
 
 

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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 […]

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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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