Schott In The Dark Farms

11/18/2025

🐴 MOTIVATIONAL MONDAY!🐴 As jumping courses become increasingly technical, Olympic show jumper Margie Engle says it's crucial that your horse is as rideable and adjustable as possible.

Many riders forget to back up their rein aids with leg to maintain power and impulsion in their horses' hind ends for a more collected and compressed stride. (This is something I've personally been working on!)

Click on the link in the Comments below for Engle's simple ground-rail exercises to help improve your horse's adjustability for better and more consistent jumping rounds.

11/10/2025

11/06/2025

Training Tip Tuesdays. A variation on the single loop to help the horse with the canter to walk transitions and the flying changes. This exercise encourages the suppleness and collection needed for the flying changes. It also gives the rider an opportunity to shape the canter for the transitions or changes before performing them by adding alternating 10 meter voltes. This exercise requires the horse to be properly balanced and collected throughout in order to achieve quality simple changes and/or flying changes.

Asking for the transitions or changes at the quarter line gives the rider time to balance the horse before the 10 meter volte. If performing the flying changes, the voltes can help to prevent the horse from bolting off or rushing after the change.

11/05/2025

The Student says: “My horse is tense.”
The Master says: “His body remembers storms I have not yet learned to calm.”

The Student says: “He’s behind the leg.”
The Master says: “The forward lives in him, I’m just remembering where the key fits.”

The Student says: “Half halt.”
The Master says: “A whisper that asks time to wait for us.”

The Student says: “He isn’t understanding.”
The Master says: “I’ve asked a question in a language I haven’t learned to pronounce.”

The Student says: “I need more softness.”
The Master says: “I’m trying to melt the armor I didn’t know I was wearing.”

The Student says : “He’s resisting.”
The Master says: “He’s handing me a map of where he hurts.”

The Student says: “We’re working through some issues.”
The Master says: “We’re untangling the knots we tied on days I wasn't listening.”

The Student says: “I need to be more patient.”
The Master says: “Time only opens its hands when I unclench mine.”

11/01/2025

10/30/2025

10/28/2025

My new friend

10/03/2025

The late Bettina Drummond once said, “I am the wrong person, at the wrong time and place in your horsemanship. You are going to be unable to hear me.”

I was listening to this wise woman on a podcast, the link to which you will find at the end of this post. Her words were an incredibly tactful way of saying, “Let me out. I am the wrong person for your job.”

Bettina was an otherworldly horsewoman, a goddess of the saddle whom too few of us had the opportunity to meet in real life. She had an amazing gift for reaching others by her example and her quiet surety, all the same.

It is so easy to want it more than your students do… and that never, ever works.

I listened raptly, thinking of all the times I have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I’ve been the wrong teacher for the pupil, who is perhaps still making excuses why her horse is shut down, or struggling. When I’ve been despairing of reaching another person who lacks the desire to strive for more feeling, or a more open mind…

When I've been asked to teach someone who wants something very different than what I offer, or believe in.

When people have been twisting my words, or deliberately misunderstanding my intentions. When I have been wronged, or made fun of, or found wanting. When I have beaten my head against a wall, whenever someone is committed to disagreeing with me, to just stop.

To resist the need to be heard, or be right. To back down with grace, before I am run over, or worse, grow any tougher. To not be hurt by those who are looking for my holes, whilst resolutely steering around their own. To let them be, whilst following my own north star.

To not live by trying to convince others to change their minds.

To humbly walk one’s path, keeping her eyes up, allowing her hands and heart to stay soft. Quietly inspiring those who are ready and open. This is the teacher’s goal.

***

What a beautiful message from a caring, giving mentor! Here’s the link to the whole conversation, “Talking About Horses” with host, Patrick King. This podcast is one to add to your library playlist, by the way. It never disappoints.

https://youtu.be/ziZkDmzd46M?si=erlZpTRp5AJmCxOI

Photo: Bettina Drummond riding her stallion Ilyad, by Mari Austad-Bourque.