The Basic Horse

12/21/2025

😂😂😂

11/23/2025

How do you like to start your training sessions?

Me: relaxed and connected ❤️

Let your horses speak to you. Listen in every single step. Don't take anything for granted. Take your time with them. It isn't a race. It's a relationship. Build it like it matters.

11/19/2025

How many separate things do you see in this short video? How many of those are actually much, much deeper in context when broken down?

Are the basics really basic, or are they a simplification of a life's worth of work, training and trust?

What do you think is the most important basic thing for your horse to know?

10/23/2025

❤️
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19TcAGeC2a/

One of the Most Offensive Things a Client Ever Told Me.

It is the hallmark of being professional that often times, you have to bite your tongue, or be calm and quiet in the face of inappropriate behaviour. Thankfully, for the last two years, the folks I have been lucky to work with and work for, have enabled me to be 100% myself. And even solicit my total honest, and unmasked self. They call THAT professional, not the masked politeness that often befalls us all in a working setting.

But before I got that lucky, I was once sitting on a zoom with someone who said something that for me- was wildly, wildly offensive -despite the fact they meant it with good intentions.

"I booked with you because I kept wondering why this guy who appeared to know so much about training, riding and biomechanics, chose to just trail ride."

Framed, of course, in the common mainstream assumption that those that can't do much with horses, trail ride. Or, that lower level horses trail ride. Or that preparing for a trail ride is somehow a lowly endeavour.

I spent about 12 years working in trail riding for the public environments. At various different levels. One employer I had used to only "rescue" horses, meaning not spend more than 1000€ on a horse which in Spain only buys you problem horses. Another would drop a minimum 8000€ on well bred youngsters. The latter once lamented that when they visited breeders and mentioned they run a trail riding outfit, would be shown the horses in the back, with weak spines, minimal bone, poor head set. And she would instead insist on the quality of breeding that they hold Dressage horses in regard for, because her horses work harder and in greater demand than any sport horse could dream of.

What this client said was offensive to me, because they were an intelligent, talented and kind-hearted person making an enormous difference in their local community with advanced, empathic training. And yet, they demonstrated a profound prejudice and ignorance about one of the most difficult jobs you can ever ask a horse to do.

Trail Riding a fit, properly prepared, happy and aware horse is one of the highest expressions of quality training in my humble opinion. Requiring them to be as fit as a sport horse. As calm as a paddock puff. Adaptable as a Police Horse. As agile as a Working Equitation mount. As powerful as an Eventer. As collected as a Dressage horse. Yet be able to do all this with both connection to their rider and independence in their skills, while their rider relaxes and takes in the scenery.

Some of the most impressive feats of training I have ever seen, have been out on the mountain, in the forest.

Not in the arena.

09/14/2025

Something interesting I've been able to study the past few years is red tips on the horses' mane.

When I first learned trimming, I was told it was due to iron:copper:zinc being out of balance. Specifically, iron being way too high. Being that I studied equine nutrition in college courses and also on my own, this made sense when looking at hay tests. Iron was usually 50x higher than copper and zinc. I was taught that it should be 10:1:3 OR in the case of metabolic horses 4:1:3 was even better. The tests I did on hay over the years always showed iron way up there with almost no copper or zinc.

Now, what I find interesting is that when you look at photos of feral horses (mustangs) they typically have super black manes. They aren't bleached out, fried and red. But no one is out there making sure they get their daily dose of copper and zinc to balance out that iron... I even found one study that followed a wild herd along the east coast. The tests on the forage they ate came back exactly the same and the study even said that they expected to see issues from the low copper and zinc, but there were none found.

Ok, back to domestics. Why are we seeing so many horses with red/orange, damaged hair?

I started trying to balance my horses diet and feed high quality minerals starting in May of 2014. Over the years I've tried nearly ALL of them out there that are good quality.

California Trace and Trace Plus
Vermont Blend
Arizona Copper Complete
Dynamite Specialty Products

I even made my own blend with everything others didn't have, perfectly balanced to their hay. It didnt change a darn thing with his hair.

His hair was orange from 2inches off the base of the mane all the way down for basically 10 years.

2 years after moving to Wyoming from Illinois, he now has a dark mane. When I moved here I stopped doing all the herbs, minerals, mixing feeds, etc. I threw out a Redmond salt block (they've always had this), white salt block, filtered water (they've also always had filtered water) and either pasture or grass hay. The hay I've tested here, tests exactly the same as Illinois. Same higher iron and really low copper and zinc. Yet, somehow, his mane has totally changed color. Finally.

I believe maybe it was the humidity, sweating and crazy high temps (lots of sun exposure) that actually cause the damage to the mane. NOT high iron- because that is the same in both locations. I also dont believe it's the uv rays alone, because I am at 6200' altitude here and the sun is much much stronger and burns things much faster here than in Illinois at 600' elevation.

Interesting right? What do you think? Have you seen these changes moving to or from a high humidity and heat area, causing them to sweat even when just standing around?

Check out the photos below to see what I mean!

Sidenote: his mane has also become thicker and longer in wyoming and his legs used to also bleach out to a brownish orange color, but now they stay coal black with zero supplementation. Crazy right?

07/12/2025

Barefoot or shod.... which foot is healthier (and why) and which do you think was shod versus barefoot?

Hint: It's the same hoof on the same horse at different times.

06/29/2025

Can you tell me which of these horses has a healthier chest?

You may be thinking what the heck does the chest have to do with anything??! Isn't it just genetic??

Yes and no. Its true we won't get a super wide chest on a Tennessee walker no matter how much work we do, but between two similarly built horses, there can be massive differences as seen here in these photos!

Who has the stronger chest? What else can a weak/strong chest affect?

06/20/2025

Good info!