04/08/2026
This, all of this. The amount of times I have had someone ask me what I teach, what I train and/or what I’m learning and my answer is almost always a good foundation, basics and then working on refining the basics. And then folks look at me sideways.
A couple months back I had someone make an observation that I must mostly teach beginners, I chuckled and said most of my students have been riding 10-20 years.
As a whole, in our industry good basics are missing and people are getting hurt, horses are getting passed around or worse, and folks are missing out on what connection and balanced riding can feel like. I still have a long ways to go but I know where Im heading and it always makes me a bit sad that so many have just never even been exposed to true horsemanship.
THE BASICS ARE NOT ACTUALLY BASIC.
A lot of people get this wrong right out of the gate.
They hear “the basics” and think beginner stuff. Entry level. The simple things you do before you move on to the real training.
That’s not what the basics are.
The basics are the real training.
I was at a clinic not long ago, and a rider came up to me during the lunch break. Nice person. Been riding a long time. She said, “I feel like I’ve outgrown the basics. I need something more advanced.”
Her horse was standing there behind her, crowding her space, checked out, not with her at all.
I didn’t point that out.
I just asked her to show me her lateral flexion.
It wasn’t really there.
The horse brought his nose around, but his feet stayed stuck and his mind was somewhere else. That’s not lateral flexion. That’s a head movement.
And that’s the problem.
A lot of people think they’ve got the basics because they can get a shape, a motion, or a maneuver.
But the basics were never about making the body do something.
They’re about getting the horse soft in his mind, clear in his feet, and responsive to the lightest suggestion.
You do not outgrow that.
You just keep finding a deeper level of it.
Every advanced maneuver, every refined cue, every soft, handy, broke horse you’ve ever admired came from the same place: solid fundamentals.
Lateral flexion. Moving the hindquarters. Moving the shoulders. Soft feet. Responsiveness. Attention. Feel.
That’s not beginner material.
That’s the whole deal.
I’ve been around some of the best horsemen in the world, and what separates them is not that they left the basics behind.
It’s that they went so deep into them that most people can’t even see what they’re doing.
The signal gets smaller.
The response gets better.
Everything gets quieter.
That’s what refinement is.
Not more tricks.
Not more steps.
Not more advanced exercises.
Just better basics.
So when your horse has a hole—and I don’t care whether it’s spooking, buddy sourness, trailer loading, bucking, brace, dullness, or anything else—I’d bet good money the answer is hiding somewhere in a basic piece that got skipped, rushed, or never really got solid.
Not because the basics are simple.
Because they matter that much.
So here’s what I’d do this week.
Go back to something foundational.
Slow it down.
Don’t run through it like a checklist.
Stay there longer than feels necessary.
Get it to where your horse is not just doing it, but understanding it. Where he’s sure. Where the feet are right. Where the mind is with you. Where the response is honest.
Then build from there.
It might feel like you’re going backwards.
You’re not.
That’s usually the exact spot where things start getting good.
The little things are the big things.
And the farther you go with horses, the more true that gets.
