AES Training & Sales

08/24/2026

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐏𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲

I am going to say this as a coach, and I already know some people will not like it, but it is not my job to entertain you. I am not there to make sure every single lesson contains jumping because that is the fun bit, or to keep changing exercises every five minutes because somebody is bored. I am there to teach you how to ride properly, and sometimes proper training is repetitive, frustrating and not particularly exciting to watch.

If I think you need polework, transitions, no stirrups or another half hour fixing your position, then that is what we are doing. If I put jumps up, they might be small, because I care far more about how you ride the line than how high the fence is. Simply making the jump bigger does not mean the riding underneath it has suddenly improved. Sometimes it just means the horse is carrying the same mistakes over a larger obstacle.

I taught some adults last night and we did very basic polework, transitions between the poles and work without stirrups. There was nothing flashy about it, but they actually felt the difference by the end. The joy when they got their stirrups back was hilarious, but that was exactly the point. They had to work properly, and then they could feel what had changed and add into the mix, my friends baby horse joined for its first ever group lesson so polework definitely was important! That is what coaching is supposed to be.

The problem now is that riding lessons seem to have drifted into this strange place where the person paying expects to decide what the lesson should contain, and the coach is somehow meant to keep everyone happy while quietly squeezing a bit of actual teaching in around the edges. That is not how training works.

If I tell you that you are not ready to jump higher, move up a group or do something more difficult, I am not being awkward. I am doing the job you are paying me to do. You are paying for my judgement, not for me to agree with you. And this matters far beyond whether somebody has a good lesson or not, because it becomes a horse welfare issue very quickly.

We are asking horses to compensate for more and more gaps in rider education. A good riding school horse can hide an unbelievable amount. They will forgive bad balance, bad timing, inconsistent hands and riders who are not quite sure what their legs are doing. Then that same rider eventually gets onto a younger, sharper or less forgiving horse and suddenly the horse is labelled difficult. Sometimes the horse has hairy moments . Sometimes the rider has simply never been properly taught. That is the uncomfortable bit nobody really wants to say out loud.

We spend a huge amount of time talking about producing better horses, better breeding and better welfare, but we do not talk enough about producing better riders. There is very little point breeding more athletic, more sensitive horses if the average rider is being rushed through the basics because everyone is terrified of boring them. You can jump a course and still have massive holes in your riding. You can compete every weekend and still need to go back to trot poles. You can own a very expensive horse and still need someone to tell you that your position is making the problem worse. That should not be insulting. That should be normal.

Good training has never been about making somebody feel brilliant every single week. Sometimes you need to hear that something is not good enough yet. Sometimes you need to repeat the same exercise until it finally clicks. Sometimes you need to go backwards before you actually move forwards. That is how riders are made.

So when people say there are no good trainers anymore, I am not convinced the trainers disappeared. I think we have created a system where coaches are expected to be entertainers, customer service staff and cheerleaders first, and trainers somewhere after that. Then we wonder why fewer people can genuinely produce a horse themselves. Maybe we need to get comfortable with being taught again. Maybe parents need to stop measuring progress by fence height. Maybe adult riders need to accept that paying for the lesson does not automatically make them the person who plans it. And maybe coaches need to be allowed to say, No, you are not ready without everybody behaving like they have just committed a crime against humanity.

Because my job is not to keep you entertained for forty-five minutes.

My job is to make you a better rider.

The horse deserves that much.

07/24/2026

06/18/2026

One of the quietest tragedies in the animal world is how often value gets mistaken for love.

A horse is valued because they can be ridden.

A dog is valued because they are obedient.

A cow is valued because she produces.

A person is valued because they perform.

And because value and love often arrive together, we can begin to confuse them.

We start believing that being useful is what makes us worthy of care.

But they are not the same thing.

Value depends on what you do.

Love depends on who you are.

An old horse who can no longer carry a rider has lost usefulness.

They have not lost worth.

A dog who becomes sick has lost abilities.

They have not lost worth.

A human who can no longer work, produce, achieve, or contribute in the ways they once did has not become less deserving of love.

And neither has any other living being.

I think this is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn.

Because our culture rewards usefulness.

Measures productivity.

Celebrates achievement.

But life itself seems to operate by a different set of rules.

A newborn foal is loved before they accomplish anything.

A mother horse does not ask her baby to prove their value.

The sunrise does not earn its beauty.

The old oak tree does not justify its existence.

The whale crossing an ocean is not trying to become worthy.

It already is.

Perhaps the deepest shift we can make is learning to see living beings not as resources, tools, assets, performers, or investments.

But as fellow travelers.

Each carrying a life that matters to them as much as ours matters to us.

And perhaps real compassion begins the moment we stop asking:

“What is this being worth?”

And start asking:

“What is it like to be them?”

Because a life does not become sacred when it becomes useful.

It was sacred all along.

O

If today’s post resonated with you, you’ll find much more in my book, Chosen, Not Obeyed. It’s an invitation to see horses—and perhaps yourself—through a different lens.

📖 Get your copy here: ⁠ https://a.co/d/0dPCSVyv

05/23/2026

Let’s Talk About…

Have Expectations in the Horse World Become Unrealistic?

Everyone wants the perfect horse. Safe, forgiving, uncomplicated, brave. Doesn’t spook, doesn’t buck, doesn’t react, doesn’t look at anything! I could go on and on.

But at what point did we stop expecting horses to behave like animals and start expecting them to behave like robots?

Somewhere along the way, the standard for what people consider “safe” has become almost impossible. A horse flicks an ear at something, he’s labeled as distracted. Has one playful buck, he’s dangerous. Spooks at a flower box? Well that’s unacceptable!

The reality is, horses are prey animals. They are living, breathing creatures with feelings. They have insecurities and they get nervous just like we do. Some days they are fresh and others lazy. Yet more and more, it feels like people expect horses to absorb every ounce of nerves, inconsistency, poor timing, lack of confidence and lack of bravery without ever putting a foot wrong themselves. And if the horse does react? Suddenly the horse is the problem.

The truth is, truly “safe” horses are incredibly rare. The horses that quietly tolerate mistakes and pack people around courses whilst forgiving bad distances and still show up every day trying their hearts out are worth their weight in gold. But even those horses are still horses. Horses are not machines. We shouldn’t be expecting them to be emotionless schoolmasters programmed to never look at anything or have an opinion.

And maybe the bigger conversation is this: Have riders lost some of their own responsibility to become braver, better, more understanding horsemen? Because to me, good riding has never been about finding a horse that never reacts. It’s about learning how to ride through the moments when they do. Not every horse is suitable for every rider and not every rider is suitable for every horse. And there’s nothing wrong with admitting that.

Because sometimes the best amateur horse isn’t the quietest one in the barn, it’s the one that teaches the rider to improve instead of expecting the horse to be an emotionless robot and do all the work.

01/10/2026

Need gone by end of month, all offers considered

12/25/2025

Merry merry!!