Future Performance Horses

06/25/2026

Because Thursday leads to Friday! Running towards the weekend like NT down a line, lol! 🙌🦄❤️

06/23/2026

Trail riding in Terri Pines! 😆 Leave it to Tara and me to make these sweet mares traverse the roughest cut routes during her lesson this morning, only to eventually emerge smack dab in the middle of the neighborhood that immediately surrounds our adjacent golf course/country club… When you have to spend the summer training horses, but your heart belongs in Wellington, trust the universe to organically bring the two realties together, lol!

06/23/2026

This baby’s backend is unreal… 🤤🤩🙌 I have about fifty-leven other equally/even more elite stallions I still need to use on these mares to complete my little gray army of hoppy horses, lol, but I keep coming back to wanting more crosses with Chacoon Blue because of sweet Shep and his fantastic, elastic, limber, long legs! 😆❤️

06/11/2026

I bought this bridle for NT, but it turned out to be way too teenie for her stallion shaped skull, lol, so the itty bitty black beauty has officially become our baby Butet! 🥰 Luckily, for both the sake of my wallet and my sanity, she fit the two yearling WB colts’ and Tara’s three year old QH filly’s faces perfectly! 🙌😅 Toot tots!

05/13/2026

🤩… no notes, just… 🤩

There is nothinggggggg like a good, gorgeous, game QH. 🦄 Her and Tara’s 20 m lope circle work was even nicer! 👩‍🍳💋👌 I could watch this mare move all day. 🥰

05/12/2026

Too funny - in her lesson yesterday, Melissa just asked me about mouth and tongue position, building on a conversation from the previous week re. breathing, which ultimately led to my answer that involved the act of simply smiling.

I appreciate my (ironically militant) foundation in equitation conditioning me to always, always, alwayyyyyyys smile… BIG… regardless of how off the rails your pattern is going, your face better be able to convince the judge you’re having the time of your life. The habit has become my, oftentimes humorous, trademark… horse bucking ballistically - you can bet I’m STILL grinning, genuinely happy to be along for the ride, but also using it to control my emotions and subconscious connection to my situation.

Smiling has served me well over the decades, both personally and professionally, long before a formal education in neuroscience and sports psychology taught me why, and I’ll probably meet Jesus one day by the hoof of one of these dang horses, but you can bet I’ll arrive at the pearly gates on that little hellcat still cheesing like a big Cheshire Cat.

So, Melissa, to act as an adjunct to our warm-up chat from Monday, I give you: all the greats smile. And, as the ultra marathoner Andy Glaze says, “Smile or you’re doing it wrong.” 😉😁

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYHkK_1jeP4/?igsh=MXAxODhhZDJyZjZoaw==

05/11/2026

Mother’s Day project two: tire platforms finally filled solid - at this point, I’m not sure whose bodies (mine or the horses’) I’m actually attempting to make solid OR if my brain is even still in a solid state. 😅 Taylor was super helpful, MOST of the time… see if you can figure out when she unapologetically provided less than stellar service. 😜

05/11/2026

Mother’s Day project one: solid obstacles for solid brains and solid bodies. 💪🤓

05/07/2026

Cocodona is Shep’s namesake ultra marathon and a woman from Birmingham, AL won and set a new course record this year! 🥳

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HYPTp2kLj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

After 56 hours, 9 minutes, and 48 seconds of racing, Rachel Entrekin has made history as the first woman to win the Cocodona 250, shattering the overall course record.

The 34-year-old from Birmingham, Alabama took the lead around mile 50 and never looked back, taking advantage of cloudy, cool conditions to carry her momentum through two full days and nights of racing.

05/01/2026

We might need Maury Povich to break it to X that he’s not actually the father because I’m darn sure not going to be the one to burst his bubble. 😆🐣 He’s been hovering over her all day. 🤞🦄