Hidden Creek Equestrian Center, LLC

10/18/2026

10/17/2026

Another beautiful day with perfect Colorado blue skies; this morning's riders enjoyed perfect conditions during their lessons. Trail obstacles are always a popular activity. This is Taylor and Poppy, showing the world how it should be done.

10/16/2026

A beautiful Fall day for lessons with our amazing lesson horses, Patsy and Poppy

10/07/2026

THIS!

Lesson horses forgive SO many mistakes made by the handler/rider. I can't count the amount of times I have put a lesson horse away at the end of the lesson, saying "thanks for saving their sorry @$$", sometimes followed by "they really didnt deserve it....."

“Confessions of a Riding School Saint”

Hello, human.
Yes, you — the one still trying to find the correct diagonal.

I’m the riding-school horse you meet once a week. You call me “steady,” “safe,” or, when I don’t immediately burst into extended trot, “lazy.” I’ve carried hundreds like you — some with bouncing enthusiasm, others with a death-grip on the reins and a look that says, “Please, not canter.”

Every rider brings their own style. Some kick like they’re starting a lawnmower. Some perch like a baby giraffe learning ballet. One even tried “natural horsemanship” by whispering at me for twenty minutes. (I admired the effort, but grass would have been more persuasive.)

I do my best to translate. But it’s tricky when one person wants me to go forward, the next to collect, and the next to “just feel the rhythm” while clamping both legs and pulling on my face. You’d be confused too.

Sometimes, when the messages get too loud or too mixed, I tune out. You call it “lazy.” I call it “self-preservation.” You see, my job isn’t easy — I must keep everyone safe while pretending your seat bones aren’t trying to send Morse code in three languages at once.

I’ve met every training philosophy going: “forward fixes everything,” “never use the leg,” “ride from the seat,” and my favorite — “just sit deeper!” (Usually shouted as the rider performs a mid-arena levitation.)

But I’ve also met kindness. The quiet rider who remembers to breathe, softens their hand, and says “good” when I try. That’s when I lift my back, stretch my neck, and remember what partnership feels like.

I don’t care about levels or ribbons. I care that you try to understand me. That you see me not as a piece of gym equipment but as a partner — one who has to process your nerves, your posture, and your Spotify playlist of contradictory aids.

So before you call a horse lazy, ask yourself: am I clear? Calm? Consistent?
Because the truth is, I’m not stubborn — I’m exhausted from reading mixed signals.

If you listen, I’ll listen. If you work on you, I’ll meet you halfway — maybe even with a flying change if I’m feeling fancy.

After all, I’m not just your ride. I’m your mirror, your teacher, and occasionally, your unpaid therapist.
Now, pat me. I’ve earned it.

Author: Gary A Diplock

10/03/2026

"Be the rider the horse would choose".

09/26/2026

Totally this!

From Amy Skinner Horsemanship

A Misrepresentation of Good Relationships, and Basic Safety

There can be a mystique out there from our heroes, who are so deeply in tune with nature and the horse, that they can cast aside safety protocols we know has kept our forefathers alive long enough to reproduce (hence our existence). They seem to be able to cast aside the basics of physics, the laws of nature, and reality itself at times. An adoring public can easily believe that their connection with horses is so great, they need no shoes and no shirt to be served up a healthy helping of equine love.

What people are up to in their personal lives is really none of my business. But what becomes concerning to me is the perception over time, from so many images of romanticized relationship projecting unsafe practices as superior, that the public comes to believe requiring safe measures as a failing of relationship. Should you need to hold your lead rope in a way that doesn't wrap around your neck, it means your horse doesn't love you. Wearing shoes in your pasture means you aren't grounded with nature and don't desire to connect into your horse's unique manure imprint. Not sticking your head between your horse's hind legs means they don't trust you and you don't trust them, and rejecting the notion of a moonlight ride on psychedelics means you must be a pretty poor rider and an unspiritual person at large.

Conversely, I say that loving your horse means respecting physics and the laws of nature, as a being governed by both. Loving your horse means being lucid enough to guide them. Desiring a good relationship with your horse means being a steward who sees things clearly, and that even the best, most loving relationship between man and horse includes the reality of stomping at flies and a large head swinging randomly toward an itch. Even the most idyllic situation can leave a foot crushed, a lead rope entangled, and a horse deeply frightened by what he should have never experienced.

It's all well and good to love your horse, and in fact, I highly reccomend it. But loving your horse should not put amateurs in peril by poor example, nor guilt people into removing barriers for safety between themselves and 1200 lb animals. They know we are humans and not horses - believing they think we're one of them simply by taking off our clothes and getting down on hands and knees to eat hay with them is a pretty dismal look at the intelligence of a horse, I'd say.

Love your horse. Trust your horse, if you've done your homework. But if you like your horse, don't traumatize them with the act of squashing your head between their hind legs. If it isn't important enough for you to keep your head out of places it shouldn't go, consider how it might ruin their day to do it.

09/26/2026

The quieter you become the more you are able to hear.

Your horse might appreciate that.