Chasing Dreams Equestrian LLC.

10/13/2026

10/12/2026

TLDR- gallbladder got an eviction notice and didn’t go quietly. Patient is beyond thankful for everyone’s support and prayers!

As many of you know, I was just in the hospital with an unplanned organ eviction.

I had been having severe acute gastrointestinal attacks for a few months now. A week ago today I was hit with the worst bout yet and once again ended up in the ER.

Thankfully this trip was different, as they finally admitted me to start figuring out the cause. Tons of testing later, we discovered my gallbladder had chosen an early retirement and had cashed in the 401-k.

Seeing as I don’t support freeloaders (unless they’re 1,000lb prey animals hellbent on killing themselves), my gallbladder was issued the eviction.

Well, Mr. Gallbladder decid to fight the court’s decision and chose violence! They kidnapped and barricaded their neighbor, the liver!

After careful negotiations (including tear gas and probing) they were separated and the gallbladder was taken into custody. Unfortunately, they neighbors across the hall (stomach and esophagus) have suffered some PTSD and are both in therapy. We expect them to make a full recovery!

Throughout this whole ordeal, I was EXTREMELY humbled, honored, and touched by the outpouring of love and support from so many!! Messages, calls, and most importantly, help at the barn made me realize how amazing my circle is! Especially Jodi and Priscilla for handling everything at the barn for me! So many others offered their help and I have to admit very many a happy tear was shed!

To top it all off, our IEA Team absolutely KILLED it this weekend at the Wellspring Show! Competition was hard but Team CDE shined through! Giuliana did her first show and placed high, and Kerrington stepped into over fences this year! I couldn’t of done it without one of my main mentors and great friends, Kim!

The true OG this weekend was my perfect and beautiful sissy, Jenny. She was by my side all day every day, on top of taking care of Grammy, who had a bad fall Wednesday.

Anywho, I’m home recovering now! The pain is unreal but I’m very ready to get back to teaching tomorrow!

From my whole heart, thank you!

10/12/2026

Hunters were designed to mimic the challenges of the hunt field, testing style, brilliance, and natural ability. But according to Geoff Case, USEF R Judge, trainer, and clinician, today’s hunter ring has strayed far from those origins.

“Every time you change something and it makes something more difficult, it makes it harder for the horses to go around like that,” he said. “I feel like the hunters were creating dressage with jumps in the way. Essentially it’s the same eight-jump pattern everywhere you go.”

The result? A discipline that increasingly looks like performance art, polished, robotic, and predictable, rather than a sport designed to test horse and rider.

Case believes hunters have become overly rigid in penalizing anything that deviates from a narrow picture of perfection. Cross-cantering, missed lead changes, even headshaking are all faults that weigh heavily on a score. “It was supposed to mimic the hunt field,” he noted. “And now it’s something else entirely.”

That rigidity discourages brilliance. Horses are worked until they are flat and expressionless, their personality stripped away to avoid deductions. “To be crisp and jump their best, they need to be a bit fresh,” Case explained. “But we’ve worked the brilliance out of them. You take the personality out.”

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/10/01/art-or-sport-has-hunters-drifted-away-from-its-roots/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

10/10/2026

Things your riding instructor wants you to know:
1. This sport is hard. You don't get to bypass the hard…..every good rider has gone through it. You make progress, then you don't, and then you make progress again. Your riding instructor can coach you through it, but they cannot make it easy.

2. You're going to ride horses you don't want to ride. If you're teachable, you will learn from every horse you ride. Each horse in the barn can teach you if you let them. IF YOU LET THEM. Which leads me to…

3. You MUST be teachable to succeed in this sport. You must be teachable to succeed at anything, but that is another conversation. Being teachable often means going back to basics time and time and time again. If you find basics boring, then your not looking at them as an opportunity to learn. Which brings me to…..

4. This sport is a COMMITMENT. Read that, then read it again. Every sport is a commitment, but in this sport your teammate weighs 1200 lbs and speaks a different language. Good riders don't get good by riding every once in awhile….they improve because they make riding a priority and give themsevles opportunity to practice.

5. EVERY RIDE IS AN OPPORTUNITY. Even the walk ones. Even the hard ones. Every. Single. Ride. Remember when you just wished someone would lead you around on a horse? Find the happiness in just being able to RIDE. If you make every ride about what your AREN'T doing, you take the fun out of the experience for yourself, your horse, and your instructor. Just enjoy the process. Which brings me to...

6. Riding should be fun. It is work. and work isn't always fun.....but if you (or your rider) are consistently choosing other activities or find yourself not looking forward to lessons, it's time to take a break. The horses already know you don't want to be here, and you set yourself up for failure if you are already dreading the lesson before you get here.

7. You'll learn more about horses from the ground than you ever will while riding. That's why ground lessons are important, too. If you're skipping ground lessons (or the part of your lesson that takes place on the ground), you're missing out on the most important parts of the lesson. You spend far more time on the ground with horses than you do in the saddle.

8. Ask questions and communicate. If you're wondering why your coach is having you ride a particular horse or do an exercise, ask them. Then listen to their answer and refer to #3 above.

9. We are human beings. We make decisions (some of them life and death ones) every day. We balance learning for students with workloads for horses and carry the bulk of this business on our shoulders. A little courtesy goes a long way.

Of all the sports your child will try through their school years, riding is one of 3 that they may continue regularly as adults (golf and skiing are the others). People who coach riding spend the better part of their free time and much of their disposable income trying to improve their own riding and caring for the horses who help teach your child. They love this sport and teaching others…..but they all have their limits. Not all good riders are good coaches, but all good coaches will tell you that the process to get good is not an easy one.

*thank you to whoever wrote this! Not my words, but certainly a shared sentiment!

10/08/2026

Ask Dr. Holly Helbig what she worries most about for the future of the sport, and her answer isn’t about judging systems, prize money, or even veterinary shortages. It’s about kids.

“We’ve done this to them,” she said during a recent Plaidcast In Person event. “We’ve tacked up for them, been their grooms, enabled them. They aren’t getting the hours it takes to build intuition around horses.”

That loss of hands-on time—the small, daily habits that teach empathy and awareness—has become one of Helbig’s biggest concerns. And as both a veterinarian and professional trainer, she’s seen how taking those opportunities away doesn’t just change young riders; it changes the horses too.

Helbig describes herself as a “horse-crazy girl, not from a horse family.” She didn’t grow up surrounded by resources, but she found a way to make it work. “My parents went through bankruptcy,” she said. “Being a kid, not coming from a ton of money, I had to be scrappy.”

That scrappiness, she believes, is part of what shaped her success. “I didn’t have the money to pay a braider or a bunch of grooms,” she said. “You just jump in and do what you have to do. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade it. My relationship with that horse was stronger because of all the time I spent with him.”

Today, she worries that many young riders aren’t getting those same opportunities. “I think we’ve created a generation that can ride beautifully,” she said, “but hasn’t had the chance to really know horses.”

In her own training program, Helbig made sure her students stayed involved in every aspect of horse care. “My kids tacked for themselves at the horse show,” she said. “We had grooms, but they tacked for themselves.”

When something medical came up, she used it as a teaching moment. “Whenever anything happened in the barn, I’d scoop all the kids up and say, ‘Come look at this. What is it? Look at this ultrasound. Let’s look at this x-ray together.’”

Those experiences, she said, taught her students to see horses as living, breathing partners—not just show animals. “They learned to pay attention, to notice things, and to ask questions. That’s what builds confidence.”

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/10/22/let-the-kids-tack-up-why-the-next-generation-needs-more-time-in-the-barn/
📸 © The Plaid Horse