10/15/2026
This is exactly right !
I don't believe in “bad” horses. But now that I have your attention...
We start our students on the plow-rein horses. The kick rides. The ones that are absolute saints when the instructor gets on, but suddenly develop a whole lot of opinions when a kid climbs aboard.
And man do I love a tattletale horse. I love to see a horse pause, look at me, and be like "are you watching this?" 🤣
Because that horse will make them do it 100% correct or they aren't doing it at all. And that can create frustration, but it also creates instant feedback.
It tells us where they aren't using enough leg. When their hands aren't right. Where they're not paying attention. Where they haven't quite learned how to communicate what they're asking.
The kids don't always love these horses. But they are an integral part of our curriculum.
Put a brand-new rider on a finished, highly trained horse and that horse will cover up a LOT of mistakes. The rider thinks, “Wow, I'm pretty good at this,” when really the horse is just doing its job.
Eventually, even a really good horse won't keep covering for poor riding. The rider holes will begin to show up, and the horse will get ruined (training wise) over time.
That's where problems start.
There's a balance, of course. Students need to experience a good, broke horse so they can learn what correct feels like. But they also need to learn how to actually create that response themselves.
So we build them up.
They learn the basics on the horses that make them work. Then they graduate to horses that require more feel, more timing, and more skill.
And eventually, we put them back on that “bad” horse they used to complain about.
And suddenly... “Oh. This horse isn't so bad.”
Nope.
The horse didn't change. The rider did.
And that's how you know you're making progress.
