Simplicity Horsemanship

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Simplicity Horsemanship Lessons, boarding & training focused on simplifying the correct basics of:
- horsemanship
- dressage
- rider fitness

Saturday morning fun!
10/24/2026

Saturday morning fun!





Morgan moments
10/24/2026

Morgan moments





10/23/2026

Another rope on the ground

Another ground tied horse

A regulated horse

A horse whose processed his stressors

A horse who’s relaxing

A horse who doesn’t need me to be near him to have emotional security

That’s what good groundwork does

And that’s why ground tying is a precursor to tying in my opinion.





10/22/2026

Sunset rides working on connecting the riders body to the horse.





10/22/2026

Since the rope on the ground became the topic of yesterday’s post:

Here’s like 8 minutes later where we worked balance exercises at Liberty.

As you can see- no bolting out of control or disregulation.

This is her and my first Liberty session together.

She’s still learning to follow my hand for flexion. I started with some giravolta works- getting bend through the spine and mobilization the hind legs both directions to confirm that she’s going to follow me and my aids at the front and back of her body.

One thing she and I are always working on is to stay up off of the forehand. It’s been becoming easier since doing the balance work.

My priorities for this session for her were:
- stay off the forehand
- bring the hind end towards the center of gravity
- move the specific body part I’m indicating
- I’ll ask for the number of steps I want. Doing 1 slowly and waiting is harder than doing 4 quickly as she’ll have to pause and hold the posture - “stabilizing”
- stay soft in the body

When working on simple things, the goal is to do them perfectly.

Her last few steps where in real time she hovered the left front was a wonderful indicator of her understanding that I’m asking her to find diagonal balance, and that she needs to use her right front/left hind as a stabilizing pair, despite them being her non-dominant pair.

A little someone is starting to have some responsibilities in life.
10/21/2026

A little someone is starting to have some responsibilities in life.

10/21/2026

In my work with horses I now prioritize doing a few of a correct movement pattern rather than doing a lot of an incorrect movement pattern.

For Vanna, one of her big struggles is getting her high end activated. As you saw in the video, there was a difference in timing of her front end versus hind end.

Neuromuscular activation and recruitment is the process that allows your horses to find access to those muscle fibers that they don’t use. It’s important for younger horses, but in the older horses it’s crucial. That which you do not use, you will not activate by trying to go fast faster.

It is not practice that makes perfect.

Perfect practice that makes perfect.

You will get what you practice.

So if for instance, I attempted to just go straight to higher intensity trot work with Vanna I would see trot work with a slower hind end compared to the forehand.

I find that using correct movement patterns where the hind leg is coming under the center of gravity the horse has a much easier time maneuvering their front end. And I find that in older horses, you can’t fake it because their bodies are just no longer able to do so.

So one movement pattern I’ve worked on with Vanna is for her to bring her hind legs forward. It’s simple it’s boring and yet she still has challenge with it.

So we continue to practice it so she can stand with both hind legs loaded, so she can eventually load both hind legs evenly in her work.

In this video, you’ll see her weakness show up as a short buckling of the left stifle when I ask her to stabilize on it while moving the right hind forward. You then see me ask her to lift different legs so that she’s required to stabilize on different hind legs when the opposite front leg is missing.

You’ll quickly be able to see what’s easy and hard and what movement patterns I’ll have to fix in our work.

10/20/2026

While the world of young horses is immensely popular, important and where the large focus of horsemanship and training live, the majority of horses on my farm are old.

Not like a little old.

But like old old.

And the majority of my seniors are in work.

They often arrive here unsound and with some challenges in movement. Getting them sound is an art and a science.

Take a day off and they’re ok. Take two days off and they start to stiffen up. A week off and you’re almost back to the starting over.

My philosophy for getting an older horse back into work is: less is more.

Workouts are often short. Boring. Repetitive.

If you’re a person who’s older than 28 and have ever spent the time to get yourself into really good shape, you’ve probably learned that Short, Boring, Repetitive IS the strategy to keeping yourself from injury so you get to keep on, keeping on.

When you GET to that point of sustained fitness, where you can push yourself, you’ll know it.

One of my favorite movement philosophies to apply for bringing an older horse back into motion is the Feldenkrais method, which uses slow, gentle explorations of movement to help retrain the nervous system and increase kinesthetic awareness.

Going slow to go fast is shockingly effective.

I often use a backing balance to work on waking up the legs that the horse avoids using.

Backing is supposed to happen in diagonal pairs, so you get good diagonal activation as well as information on which parts of their body they can’t use as well.

You’ll notice that there’s a timing difference between her front and back legs moving. Now that timing difference is due to her hind end being weaker but also having less neuroactivation. When I do this exercise over a few days, this improves. This timing difference also appears in forward movement where the front end moves faster than the hind end. In order to not train heaviness on the forehand I have to break that movement pattern.

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25261 Veterans Memorial Parkway
Auburn, AL
36879

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+18145716971

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