Misty Morning Farm

08/14/2020

It was a great week for MMF! Two students passed Pony Club testings and many more helped in the barn and jump ring.

09/14/2017

Good advice, for the slow ponies. The quick ponies need to walk well too, but that's a different challenge.

Best recent quote---(Heard on a GMHA trail ride)

"Make that horse walk so he will get home in time for supper. Don't sit on him like a sack of soggy pablum and let him amble like that."

Have you noticed how some riders have horses that swing along withe verve at the walk, while other riders---soggy sacks of pablum??---have horses that creep along like they are going to their own funerals, and don't want to get there?

Horses will go if you ride them to go, but if you just sit there, so will your horse.

Ride the horse, don't just sit there.

09/14/2017

Woohoo! Anyone want to go to NC with me in a year?

Mark your calendars to be first in line to purchase a variety of ticketing types and prices for the Tryon World Equestrian Games

01/16/2017

Yes, yes, and yes! I learned from some great schoolmasters, and also tried to "learn" with green horses. I was a much better rider for the green horses once I rode the schoolmasters, as I knew then what I was trying to achieve. Now, as an instructor, the older, wider horses are worth their weight in gold.

Here's another incidence of a horse who is older than the teen age rider "teaching" the youngster what it feels like to do various things that many kids never get to experience.

Yet many parents automatically turn down an older horse, thinking it isn't a good return on their money. They are right, if they think they can sell the horse later for a profit, or even for what they paid, but that is the wrong way to look at these "been there, done that" horses.

What the parents are buying is education.

Sure, a 15-20 year old horse may crump out soon, but so can a 7 year old horse. And in these days of better nutrition, hock injections, vet care, 15 is probably the new 10, and 20 may be the new 15.

So, given the choice of buying the kid some unschooled 4 year old, "so they can learn together" or an old wise one, it's probably better to pay for experience.

Yes, we all know of some cases where the young kid and the green horse worked out, but there are far more cases where it was a recipe for the kid getting discouraged, sometimes even hurt, and, too often, quitting riding.

11/15/2016

Have you ever wondered what it is like to work as a horse trainer? It is an incredibly rewarding, but difficult job. Find out more in this week's blog!

11/08/2016

I've seen this going around and finally took time to read it. Priceless & exactly

Recently, a trainer that I admire on Twitter asked me, “How much would you ask to be paid to set jumps?” I thought this was an odd question, but I followed up with one of my own. “Am I a barn kid, client, or just a random person at the barn?” She replied that in Continued

11/07/2016

09/01/2016

Great end to the summer with three days of day camp at MMF. Wonderful to have campers and their ponies back on the farm.

08/30/2016

MMF day camp day 1 is in the books. Five campers for 3 days before the dreaded start of school brings an end to summer.