Indian summer weaves its way between cold snaps here in wild, wonderful West Virginia. I welcome the warm sunshine which glows through the foliage. I can take off my winter coat… but the horses can’t. As I wait for the wash bucket to fill to sponge off a very sweaty Bogey, I think about the [...]

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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 this [...]

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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 has been backburnered [...]

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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 building [...]

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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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When natural horsemen bring up vaccinations, controversy flares up. Some owners argue in favor of bucking the modern convention of vaccinating

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Today’s question is from Jeannie and Chris of Hedgesville, WV.  “If a horse isn’t a natural leader (on the trail), can you train him to be one?”

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Water. All horse trainers know water is not only natural, but necessary. Water is a source of life to all organisms–except when it carries death.

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