Angi's Riding Lessons

17/08/2025

Dear Rider,

When I coach you, my words are here to guide you. I might remind you to soften your hands… take a deep breath… follow the horse’s motion… or count out your strides. These verbal cues help you organize your body, focus your attention, and feel supported as you learn.
But there’s more going on beneath the surface.

As you learn to ride, coordinating aids is a complex challenge. It’s totally normal for things to get a little messy - and sometimes confusing for your horse.

That’s where it's critical for me to step in, to support you both.

When I walk alongside you and your horse, I’m not just there for safety or to guide you through the steps. It’s more than that. My energy, posture, placement, stride, and even where I direct my gaze all communicate with your horse.

Over the years, I’ve studied how horses communicate and respond. I’ve learned to subtly use my body to influence your horse through countless hours of groundwork:

I can match or adjust my stride to help set or regulate tempo.
I can position my body to encourage your horse forward when you’re stuck, or block the energy to help slow things down so you can rebalance.
I might adjust my posture, change my energy, or simply offer comfort when your or your horse feels unsure.

I can’t do it all for you, but I can support you both as a team.
This isn’t magic—it’s a conversation, spoken through presence, energy, and movement.

My hope is that, as you grow, you’ll become fluent in this language too. You’ll learn to feel and influence your horse’s attention, balance and rhythm - not just with your hands or legs, but with your whole body, both in and out of the saddle.

I share this as inspiration and insight into the magic these beautiful animals offer. As you continue to put the pieces together and grow in moments of present connection, I will gently fade away, and you’ll become one who carries this magical gift too.

Sincerely,

Heather Henken

13/08/2025

Calypso has graced us with a stunning c**t called Blanco.

10/08/2025

Did you know…🧐
Horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal! Each eye is about the size of a tennis ball, giving them almost a 360° field of vision. This means they can see nearly everything around them, except for two blind spots: right in front of their nose and directly behind their tail. So if you’ve ever wondered why a horse might spook when you suddenly appear in one of those zones… now you know! 🐴✨

04/08/2025

And we have an official name 🎉

Thanks to some very helpful name suggestions, we settled on Domero which is the name of one of the horses who played Shadowfax who was Gandalfs horse in lord of the rings.

28/07/2025

We have an exciting new addition to the farm 😍

Lovely spice has gifted us with a beautiful baby.

24/06/2025

Exciting changes for term 3 😁

As of the beginning of term 3 we will no longer be cancelling due to bad weather 🎉

In the case of rain or wind we will be holding group unmounted lessons for the day. They will be held undercover and will run for 45min.

18/06/2025

All camps are going ahead🎉
Be sure to pay invoices to secure your spot.

08/06/2025

24/05/2025

As some of you have noticed we have been busy welcoming new horses to the property 🤩

We would like to introduce Tilly, who is a cute grey lady ready to go riding with her new partners in crime and the stunningly handsome Billy who is ready to help his riders continue learning how to be the best horsemen and women they can be.

26/04/2025

Students (and parents of students) don’t always see the progress we see.

For example, it’s common in the beginning that the pony plods around, mostly ignoring the child on them, and glances over at the instructor regularly for confirmation that they are indeed supposed to keep trotting around the arena. Six months later things might not look very different, but now the child is actually steering and maintaining the tempo.

Down the road, the student learns about bending, and realizes there is more to steering than they thought! Sometimes when students become more aware, they almost feel like they’ve gone backwards because last month they thought they could steer just fine, but now they learn there’s way more to it than they knew! This makes them FEEL like they’ve regressed.
(By the way, the feeling that you know nothing never stops happening, unless you stop learning. I don’t care how good you are- you’re always one good lesson away from realizing that you are far from mastery! I used to have this realization every 1 to 5 years, but now it’s pretty much my normal operating state.)

Sometimes us instructors spend a lot of time setting students up for success, and the student might not recognize what we are doing. And then 10 rides later, we can pretty much just tell the student to go to the thing, and they can handle it on their own without us setting it up to make the stars align! The student can now set it up on their own- but it might feel like they’re still doing the same old thing.

I apologize on behalf of all us instructors that struggle to sometimes show you your progress. 🫣 we see it and we celebrate, but we sometimes forget that you don’t see what we see

Credit: Rudy Horsemanship

05/03/2025

Due to the weather forecasts I have decided to cancel lessons for the rest of the week.

I will be in contact to discuss make up lessons.

Everyone stay safe and dry.

18/01/2025

Welcome to the new year.

We hope everyone has had a fantastic holiday
We are so excited to see everyone at holiday camps this week 🥳

Lessons commence on the 27th. All Invoices have all been sent out. If you have not received one it means you aren't booked in for term one and if you would still like a spot, please contact us ASAP.