Decode Horsemanship

Decode Horsemanship Slow, soft, honest training | From fresh starts to forever homes | Focus on desensitized compananions

First photo: a young rider, leaning into Misty's neck with her whole heart, before getting on for the first time.Second ...
06/05/2026

First photo: a young rider, leaning into Misty's neck with her whole heart, before getting on for the first time.

Second and third: she's up. She sat. She breathed. She got off.

That was the whole goal for the day. Not a ride. Not a lesson. Just: someone got on Misty, and Misty was okay, and the rider was okay, and the moment ended on a good note.

Big things are made of small ones.

First photo: Glitch wearing tack for one of the first real times. Western saddle, watching everything, sorting through i...
06/03/2026

First photo: Glitch wearing tack for one of the first real times. Western saddle, watching everything, sorting through it.

Second photo: same horse a while later. Bridle on for the first time. Standing like she's done it a thousand times before.

She hasn't.

What she has done is pay attention. Mustangs who pay attention learn fast, because every piece of new information gets filed away instead of feared.

Watching her decide to trust the work — that's the part I do this for.
saddle

06/02/2026

First night with us. Camera caught what I couldn't see standing next to her.

Her foal is in there. Moving. Real. Check out near 18 seconds and 23 seconds.

I watched this clip twenty times before I went to bed.

Desensitization work doesn't always look like what people think it looks like.Sometimes it looks like a stud c**t standi...
06/01/2026

Desensitization work doesn't always look like what people think it looks like.

Sometimes it looks like a stud c**t standing patiently while bubbles drift past his face, his ears flicked half-forward in mild interest, his entire body saying "I do not understand what is happening but I have decided it's fine."

That last sentence is, honestly, the goal of most desensitization work.

This is BlackJack. He's getting better at the world.
**t

Look at the stripes.That's the view from Cali's back (which I have NOT been on yet!), and those tipped, striped ears are...
05/29/2026

Look at the stripes.

That's the view from Cali's back (which I have NOT been on yet!), and those tipped, striped ears are part of what makes the dun coloring so striking up close.

Learning about her for the first few times has felt like meeting someone whose company I want for a long, long time.

Two photos, one feeling.The first is the day she arrived. I sat by the fire and she stood behind me, and neither of us n...
05/27/2026

Two photos, one feeling.

The first is the day she arrived. I sat by the fire and she stood behind me, and neither of us needed to do anything more than that.

The second is a hot afternoon a few weeks later. She loves a cold rinse. She also loves attention, and being told she is good, and being told she is loved, which I do constantly and without restraint.

Some horses you have to earn. Cali decided about me on day one.

Some of you have been waiting for this announcement.This is Cali. Her registered name is Riverpointe Lucy in the Sky of ...
05/25/2026

Some of you have been waiting for this announcement.

This is Cali. Her registered name is Riverpointe Lucy in the Sky of GGR — a 2023 Gypsy Vanner filly, homozygous dun, bred by Gypsy Glory Ranch. She came to us from across the country, and she has changed our barn already.

Two more things you should know.

She's expecting a foal in July.

And the first photos here are her as a baby. The horse she'll grow into is built for the work we do at Decode — feathered legs, calm eyes, a body made for partnership.

I love her. That's the whole post.

Day starts with: "Hey, the truck is losing power while we tow these horses up a hill."Day continues with: "Looks like it...
05/22/2026

Day starts with: "Hey, the truck is losing power while we tow these horses up a hill."
Day continues with: "Looks like it's just low on transmission fluid."
Day ends with: "...the entire transmission is blown."

If you run a farm, you know there are two kinds of expenses: the ones you planned for, and the ones the truck plans for you.

We are now in the second kind.

Running a horse farm involves a surprising amount of engineering you don't learn in any horsemanship clinic.Slide 1: New...
05/20/2026

Running a horse farm involves a surprising amount of engineering you don't learn in any horsemanship clinic.

Slide 1: New electric fence on an old post. Day after install. Draft gelding has not yet questioned my authority.
Slide 2: Cinder blocks zip-tied to a chain harrow. Adds the weight you need to actually drag a field. Sometimes the fix is just heavy.
Slide 3: A fresh salt block.
Slide 4: The same salt block, after the horses got involved. That groove down the middle is from the frenulum — the underside of the tongue. They love it.

Half of horsemanship is observing animals. The other half is hardware store creativity.

05/19/2026

BlackJack is small. BlackJack is opinionated. BlackJack has, until this moment, never been in a herd of full-sized geldings.

Watch his confidence adjust in real time.

He'll be fine. They'll all be fine. But he just learned something today that no human could have taught him.
**t

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1120 Whippoorwill Lane
Chapel Hill, NC
27517

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