Bella Luna Blu LLC

03/17/2026

Every word of this!! "LET me be the leader"

Respect for space.
When I talk about respect for space, I’m not trying to win an argument about dominance or prove I’m the “boss.” I’m talking about something far more practical: a horse cannot be the one making the decisions. Not because the horse is “bad,” and not because the horse is plotting against you—but because a thousand-pound animal making independent decisions in a human world is how people get hurt.

I’ve spent my life around horses, and I’ll tell you the truth as plainly as I can: a horse making the decisions is dangerous for the rider. It’s dangerous in the obvious ways—spooking, bolting, running over you—but it’s also dangerous in the subtle ways people excuse for years until something finally happens. The little decisions become bigger decisions. The small boundary becomes no boundary. Then one day the horse makes a decision at the wrong time, and it turns into a wreck.

So when I ask for a horse to respect my space, what I’m really doing is asking for one essential thing: let me be the leader. Not the bully. Not the dictator. The leader.

Because leadership is how the relationship works. Leadership is what makes the partnership safe. And safety is what allows both the rider and the horse to get what they want out of the relationship.

The Horse Doesn’t Get to Decide Where My Body Goes

Here’s the simplest way I can put it: if a horse can move my feet, that horse is already in charge.

A lot of people don’t realize that’s what’s happening. They call it “he’s just being friendly” or “she’s just a little pushy.” But in the horse’s world, movement equals control. If the horse crowds you and you step away, the horse just learned something. If the horse drags you to the gate and you go with him, he learned something. If the horse leans into you at the mounting block and you adjust to make it work, he learned something.

None of this is evil. It’s just horses being horses.

But if the horse is allowed to make those decisions on the ground, it becomes very likely that the horse will try to make decisions under saddle too—especially when the horse gets worried, excited, tired, frustrated, or distracted. And that’s when it gets dangerous.

So I don’t treat “respect for space” as a manners issue. I treat it as a leadership issue.

A Horse Making Decisions Looks Like This

Most folks think a horse “making decisions” is a big dramatic thing like bolting or bucking.

But the truth is, it starts long before that. It looks like:

stepping into you when you stop

pushing the shoulder into you when you lead

swinging the hip into you when you’re trying to move around them

walking past you instead of with you

drifting into your bubble while you saddle

crowding you at the mounting block

turning their head and leaving you mentally, even if their feet are still standing there

Those are all decisions. They’re small, but they’re real.

And here’s why they matter: a horse that believes it can decide where to put its body will eventually decide where to put its body when it counts. That might be into you, over you, away from you, or through you.

I’m not willing to gamble on that.

Leadership Isn’t About Being Mean—It’s About Taking Responsibility

This is where people get confused, because they hear “leader” and they picture somebody roughing a horse up to prove a point.

That’s not leadership. That’s insecurity.

Leadership is simple: I take responsibility for the decisions so the horse doesn’t have to.

A horse is always looking for someone to answer a question: “Where should I be? What should I do? Is this safe? Are we okay?” If I don’t answer those questions, the horse will. Not because the horse is disrespectful, but because the horse is wired to survive.

And the horse’s survival decisions don’t always match what keeps the rider safe.

A horse’s decision might be: “I’m leaving.”
A horse’s decision might be: “I’m running through this pressure.”
A horse’s decision might be: “I’m going back to the barn.”
A horse’s decision might be: “I’m crowding into you because I feel better close.”

All of those decisions make sense to a horse. None of them are what I want happening with my feet on the ground or my seat in the saddle.

So my job isn’t to punish the horse for being a horse. My job is to show the horse a better system:

You don’t have to make the decisions. I will. And if you follow my leadership, you’ll end up safer and more comfortable than you would on your own.

That’s what a partnership actually is.

Partnership Means Both Sides Get What They Want

A lot of people say they want a partnership, but what they really mean is they want the horse to cooperate while the horse is still in charge.

That’s not partnership. That’s negotiation.

Real partnership looks like this:

The rider gets safety, control, and reliability.

The horse gets clarity, fairness, and relief from having to guess.

That’s the deal.

When I’m consistent about space, what I’m really building is a horse that trusts leadership. Because a horse that trusts leadership will stop feeling like it has to manage everything.

And that changes everything under saddle.

A horse that is allowed to manage you on the ground often becomes a horse that tries to manage the ride: it chooses the speed, the direction, the distance from the gate, the amount of effort, the level of focus. It decides how much it wants to give. It decides when it wants to quit. It decides when it wants to argue.

That’s not a partnership. That’s a horse running the relationship.

A horse can’t run the relationship safely. The horse doesn’t have the same goals as you do. The horse doesn’t have the same understanding of risk. The horse doesn’t think like a human. And the horse should not have to.

“Respect for Space” Is Just the First Leadership Test

I like to keep it simple. Respect for space is the first place I check whether the horse accepts leadership.

If the horse won’t respect space, it’s usually not a training problem yet. It’s a leadership problem.

Because space is the easiest thing in the world to understand: “Don’t walk into me. Don’t push through me. Yield when I ask.”

If a horse can’t do that calmly and consistently, then I already know what I’m going to get later when the questions get harder.

And I’m not saying that to be dramatic. I’m saying it because I’ve watched the pattern a thousand times.

The horse that crowds on the ground becomes the horse that leans on the bridle.

The horse that drags you to the gate becomes the horse that sucks back to the barn.

The horse that won’t yield the shoulder becomes the horse that falls in on circles and ignores leg.

The horse that walks through you becomes the horse that walks through pressure.

It’s the same mindset—just different settings.

What It Looks Like When the Rider Is the Leader

When the rider is truly the leader, you can see it without anybody having to announce it.

It looks like:

The horse stays out of your space unless invited closer.

The horse matches your pace when you lead.

The horse yields the shoulder and hip when asked.

The horse stops when you stop and doesn’t step into you.

The horse waits at the mounting block instead of crawling into your lap.

The horse stays mentally with you, not scanning for its own plan.

And the horse doesn’t do those things because it’s afraid. It does them because it understands the system.

The horse understands: “If I follow this person, my life makes sense.”

That’s what leadership creates—a world that makes sense.

The Rider Being the Leader Doesn’t Mean the Horse Has No Opinion

This matters, because someone always hears “leader” and thinks it means the horse gets treated like a robot.

No.

A horse can have feelings. A horse can be unsure. A horse can be fresh. A horse can be opinionated.

But the horse doesn’t get to turn those feelings into decisions that put the rider at risk.

That’s the line.

I want the horse to be able to express itself within the relationship—without taking control of the relationship.

That’s why I correct space issues. Not because I hate the horse being close. But because I refuse to let closeness become control.

The Big Takeaway

If your horse is crowding you, pushing into you, leaning on you, or moving your feet around, I don’t want you to label your horse as “disrespectful” and get angry.

I want you to label it accurately:

Your horse is making decisions that you should be making.

And any time the horse is making those decisions, your risk goes up—on the ground and in the saddle.

So the goal isn’t dominance. The goal is leadership.

Leadership gives the rider what they want: safety, control, and progress.

Leadership gives the horse what it wants: clarity, fairness, and the comfort of not having to guess.

That’s how you build a partnership that works for both sides—because the rider leads, and the horse follows with confidence.

01/07/2026

Since it's come up quite a bit on when to start a horse, here is my take on trail horses.
As a trainer myself I believe people need to understand the current trend of waiting until horses are four or five years old to start them due to physical maturity concerns.
I start all two-year-olds with ponying, liberty work, groundwork, learning to lunge, and learning to ground drive. Without riding them more than a couple times at a walk until they are three years old. Its important to keep them very active 3-4 days a week as this helps them to become mentally mature to handle the work. This means do not just let them go and be a horse on their own. It also helps build muscle to get them ready to carry weight. At three years old I continue all of those activities and then start the riding workload, light riding, trail riding 2 to 3 times per week. As they reach 4 yrs old there has to be an evaluation, some horses are very mature at four years old some are very evidently still growing so their work should be less intense.
If a horse reaches four years old without being in some sort of program and then you start them, just know that they are much more resistant and then you have to be ready for them to be physically stronger and often times they need harder work as well as a longer training program and that is not the goal! Hope this helps ❤️

10/15/2025

The art of accepting “no”

My job as a teacher is to ensure the rider’s safety as a number one goal. The horse’s wellbeing is another very strong goal. And so when I work with people, these in my mind will always come above the rider’s fun, immediate wants, and sometimes even feelings.

It is never my intent to hurt anyone’s feelings or to make anyone feel bad. But an unfortunate side effect of keeping the rider and horse both safe and well is that feelings can and do come up.

In today’s world especially of immediate gratification, quick loss of interest and flipping between programs, many people can become disheartened or hurt when their desires or goals are shot down, because we lack so greatly a big picture goal. We don’t usually see training start to finish, and I rarely meet people who have been studying the same program and progressing for any real length of time: people bounce around enough that it is normal.

Dealing with plateaus, lack of progress or regression, and shut down of immediate desires becomes very hard to deal with.

In no way do I think riders should deal with teachers who never let them progress, or only tell them no - but in order to become a decent rider, a student has to develop the skill of hearing and accepting some degree of “no.” A teacher with a good education and strong principles will preserve the rider even in spite of themsleves.

I think it’s always great to ask why you got the no, to get an explanation and a plan for what it requires to get to a yes. But if you can’t handle hearing no, you aren’t going to make it far with a horse.

09/07/2025

Still have a couple spots open if anyone is interested in learning how to do equine sports massage!!

We still have spots available for this location! Come join us!

08/08/2025

We've got 2 open training spots and a couple open boarding spots before they fill up for winter board.

Bella Luna Blu offers boarding, training, and rehabilitation services. Boarding is in our fully heated facility with 14' x 14' premium stalls with the attached 200' x 70' arena. For training we specialize in groundwork, desensitization, c**t starting, and biomechanics. We want your horse moving at the best of their ability, no matter the discipline. With the horse moving their best, it's only right to include lessons for the rider to learn to move with the horse. Our rehabilitation services offered in house currently are massage, myofacsial release, accupressure, reiki, craniosacral, and red light. We also have access to a very knowledgeable team of vets, chiropractors, osteopaths, farriers, and body workers with other modalities.

Send a PM or text to 507-226-5119

08/06/2025

07/15/2025

07/13/2025

We still have spots available for this location! Come join us!

12/31/2024

"It’s the reason why trainers and bodyworkers have to be interlinked as they need to able to see the dysfunction and know that only correct movement can happen when the body is no longer in pain."

This is why I do what I do 🥰

Just got a couple last minute openings for January training or rehab. As most of you know, my training goes hand in hand with rehab- body work, correctness, relaxation, and strengthening.

Our job Is to lessen the repercussions of pain

There are times when we can only do as much as we can do, we are not looking for recovery we are just looking at giving the horse room to breathe.

We can lessen the overall compensation pattern so there are less areas that the horse has to focus on regarding pain. We basically give the body a break and maybe then they can move a little better, load a little more equal, breathe a little better and let their body down from the brace and lift they are held in.

Why is this important because when we get rid of the Richotte effect from pain then the body is more likely to recover better, for example if the horse is shifting weight on all four feet then to lessen the impact will lessen the shift and then the body has a window to recover, often we will have a let-down in the whole body the pectorals that are atrophied due to continued lift will once again become droopy, when we look at the core it will become more relaxed as the horse no longer lifts off the feet ( often a saggy back after bodywork can be a good thing as the horse lets go because it tells us that the lift was incorrect and usually through pain)

Basically, sometimes we are giving the body a break and room to adjust and improve, we cannot begin rehab until the body is ready, to rehab a body that is not holding itself together in the correct way will only feed into dysfunction. It’s the reason why trainers and bodyworkers have to be interlinked as they need to able to see the dysfunction and know that only correct movement can happen when the body is no longer in pain.

When we look underneath the story is clear to see a lifted undercarriage supporting a dysfunction that is often missed when we see the side or dorsal view

We are only giving the body a window of opportunity to heal the rest is up to the horse

09/20/2024

I love this perspective ❤️ and this is exactly why I started adding in REHABILITATION to everything we offer. Physically healing goes hand in hand with mentally healing. I'm very thankful for the many classes and certifications as well as modalities I'm able to apply every day to help speed up this process in getting these horses to where they need to be.

I used to think that somehow I had some sort of karma to work through, or maybe I was destined to learn many lessons through my animals, which I’m sure is true, but it’s not the whole story.

Recently, I was talking to my friend Donna about how I seem to attract animals who need a lot of physical help, and she said: “Isn’t it crazy how once animals feel safe, their bodies start to fall apart before they get better as they release all of the stress hormones, survival behaviors, and patterns that were keeping them safe?”

I can’t even explain how true that feels. I swear, I bring animals home and for the first couple of weeks or even the first couple of years sometimes they fall apart before they become healthy…. Every single time.

Puppies, rescues, purebreds, horses in the industry and those who aren’t, doesn’t matter who they are, they all meet me the same.

I used to think that I attracted animals who are unwell, and now I am learning that I just create a safe space for animals to show me exactly where they are in this moment in time without feeling like they have to be something they’re not in order to survive.

What a blessing. What an honor ♥️ I’m so grateful.

09/14/2024

BECOME MORE AWARE!!! Simple doesn't mean it doesn't take work 🥰

All good riding is made up of excellent habits and awareness. It is extremely simple- not easy. Good riding is often misunderstood to be about doing more, being stronger, being quicker or more talented, but the best riders know it’s about doing less and just becoming more aware of and perfecting their own habits in the daily mundane details.