Starlight Farm

05/06/2026

The jumps are only part of the test……..

29/04/2026

Balance and rhythm on the XC. So important to develop in horses of all levels.

29/04/2026

Read this before, worth reading again

I’ve told this story before, but it bears repeating---

Sid Shachnow, pictured with me a few years ago, had been the commanding general of all US Special Forces at Fort Bragg. He was also a rider and one time I was telling him about a mutual acquaintance who had a bad habit of jumping ahead of the motion.

“I can’t get him to stop doing it,” I said. “It’s so instinctual for him to do that.”

Sid said, “Denny---The most instinctual thing that a soldier can do if he is suddenly ambushed is to turn and run, which is the most likely to get him shot. We have to train our guys to run directly at their attackers and to fire their weapons at them, which gives them the best chance of survival.

Now Denny----If I can train my guys to run into live rifle fire, you can train your student not to jump up the neck.

TRAINING HAS TO OVERCOME INSTINCT.”

Which comes---finally---to the main point of this post, which is that old Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared.”

Preparedness comes through training and practice, and if YOU are a rider who has ambitions to become a better rider, those two words, training and practice, which lead to being prepared, are your go to words.

Don’t want to train and practice? Then be prepared for sub-par results, It IS that simple.

23/04/2026

This can be a life saving technique for anyone breeding.

23/04/2026

So true….how many of you know the feeling of getting ahead of the movement

10/04/2026

As the jumps got higher and the exercises more technical, Laura Kraut reminded today's clinic riders that any glitches were opportunities. “I think that sometimes we try so hard that they get panicked or claustrophobic,” she said of the horses feeling their riders’ energy.

“I like it when it's hard, because then you can learn from it,” Kraut continued. “If you don't do it right, you don't do it right. That happens to me every day!”

Read the full article at the link in our comments.
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📸 Lisa Slade/COTH