Jaquima a Freno Morgan Stock Horses

04/02/2025

Well said, and oh-so-true.

🐴✨ Trail Riding: Where Confidence Goes to Die
(and how to do something about that😆)

Trail riding.
That romantic fantasy where you and your horse glide along in spiritual synchronicity—
they’re reading your mind,
you’re breathing deeply,
the scent of eucalyptus filling your lungs and aligning your chakras,
and not a single muscle in your body clenched in terror.

HAHAHA—no.😎

Here’s a common version for many lovely people😱:

Trail riding is a shared panic spiral.
You and your horse, locked in a feedback loop of fear, reacting to shadows, rustling leaves, and plastic bags possessed by demons.

Each of you nervously amplifying the other, like a badly tuned emotional guitar.

It’s not teamwork.
It’s co-dependent doom anticipation.
One of you is wearing a helmet.
The other has hooves and better faster reflexes.
Neither of you is helping.

If this is you—I see you. Once I was you....

Luckily, trail drama is highly treatable.👩‍⚕️

Spoiler: the horse is not necessarily the problem.🫣

I didn’t know how to help my horse—or how much I was making things worse.

I wanted them to be chill and brave... while I rode like a caffeinated meerkat at a fireworks show🎆.

Then somewhere between “I never want to do this again” and “Why is my Apple Watch registering this as a cardiac event💓?” I learned the secret:

👉 Look up. Ride somewhere.

Yes, really. That’s the whole thing.
Stop scanning for threats like a doomsday prepper.
Pick a direction. Ride with intention.
Your horse doesn’t need you to narrate the trail. They need you to act like you’ve got a plan and you’re not afraid of crunchy leaves.

But let’s be clear: this didn’t happen because I lit a candle and whispered affirmations into my saddle pad.

I trained for it.

I worked on myself.
I trained away from the trail, and on it.
On windy days. On weird days.
I built my seat. I built my horse’s understanding.
I stacked experience and skills like bricks—until we had a foundation we could ride out on.

Because confidence isn’t a vibe.
It’s a skillset with receipts.💪

🐴 Want to actually enjoy trail riding? Try this:

1️⃣ Expose your horse to nonsense.
Tarps, prams, balloon-wielding children.
Let them freak out in a controlled fashion somewhere safe, so they don’t do it at a canter near a cliff.
And yes—it’s as much about training you as it is them.

2️⃣ Ride with someone unbothered.
Find the trail boss whose horse would walk through a Bunnings calmly.
Study them. Channel their energy. Borrow their calm until you’ve built your own.

3️⃣ Start where you won’t die.
Stick to familiar tracks. Know where the monsters live (usually it's that one letterbox).
Then expand like a cautious amoeba.

4️⃣ Lead on the ground.
Yes, groundwork.
Be the bushland tour guide your horse didn’t ask for.
Confidence grows when you both experience the trail without pressure.

5️⃣ Learn what a freeze really means.
When your horse turns into a statue, they’re not plotting your demise.
They’re buffering. Investigating. It’s called the orienting reflex.
Don’t poke the buffering horse. Wait. Then look up and ride somewhere like the kind of human they’d follow into a dark alley.

6️⃣ Train your seat like it’s a seatbelt.
If you can’t sit a spook, fix that.
Balance isn’t about elegance. It’s about not eating gravel. Or at least get a saddle that gives you an advantage against physics!

7️⃣ Be less dramatic than your horse.
It’s not their job to keep you safe.❌
It’s your job to keep them safe.✅
Be the Wi-Fi they can plug into. Be the calm. Be the “we’re good” human.🦸‍♀️

Trail riding isn’t for the faint of heart. Or the unprepared.
And confidence? It’s not magic.

Confidence is like IKEA furniture.
There is a clear way to build it:
Start with instructions. Work on yourself. Build your skills. Prepare your horse.
It’s all there in the metaphorical Allen key of training.

But most people approach trail riding like they approach flat-pack furniture:
No prep. No tools. No plan.
Just blind optimism and a pretty photo in a catalogue.
Then they wonder why it’s wobbly, missing screws,
and held together by hope and the ramifications corner-cutting.

Confidence isn’t a gift.
It’s self-assembly—
built through repetition, strategy, and mildly uncomfortable effort.

Not because you’re broken.
But because you’re a detail-oriented control freak who really hates uncertainty.🤓

And honestly? That’s not a flaw.
It’s a superpower—
once you learn how to aim it properly.🎯

So if you want your horse to be calm,
be the one who stops feeding the panic loop.
Do the work. Ride forward. Ride like you’re in charge of this amazing two-headed organism called you and your horse.

They don’t need you to be fearless.
They need you to be competent.
And ideally…
not freaking out at every snapping twig.

If you're ready to stop white-knuckling trail rides and start riding like you mean it, come hang out with me. I teach this stuff.😉

IMAGE📸: A couple of trail bosses (Fiona & Mary-Anne) and the magnificent Clarence River in the background 😍

Please do hit the share button if this post sparked something for you. But don’t copy and paste it—I wrote this with my own brain cells and more emotional processing power than I usually admit to. Be a sharer, not a pirate. Respect the source code. 🤓

09/30/2024

For all my Morgan Horse loving friends - check this out!
https://www.amazon.com/MORGAN-HORSE-Smarter-License-Plate/dp/B00CL1R2UM/ref=sr_1_23?crid=2S5CDH4EZIWA9&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rCqRV45LK3MZ6Ksym4eNsA1MUOQz07PWs1EaiFqGB1KOo43_dgs7zOihbop5l99UX78H_mX3R6ChQlHkoQ4EKBKpj4N26QsfYlYjSf9JGFdKrdkIliT8STT7GnvG15uH5EJsjuOvczjGNHP_bEClSmP3PCVHgGJRCJp4Noc8E3GNevXXnGq9OZEytHSk8u2Op17crp1gwVRFjQ8TWAl19FXwE52nGz98BSB4bK9O-QOUAMljrhdNUSEjggbYjAB7vAQqVx8WOeM6S3TK-mt0GS-8FePLFsSvSPYVAS5POYw.LYowfxACtYvEhT2MH0gGrx8XBDpX2TIkcgs_FbMoOxM&dib_tag=se&keywords=morgan+horse+license+plate+frame&qid=1727658530&sprefix=morgan+horse+license+plate+frame%2Caps%2C237&sr=8-23&fbclid=IwY2xjawFm2gtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHd85P9THYALxJpdJcxHNzwe3dvxSnYn2aLR_M51DDv5Le3MGFmMTvlhO1Q_aem_IOWUl1K0vdKvxr1WLiWoXw

This single frame is made from recyclable, semi-flexible acrylic plastic. It is light weight, yet durable. It has two mounting holes at the top and two optional use holes at the bottom. Two tabs on the inside, bottom hold the license plate securely.

09/26/2024

Some video from yesterday's windstorm. A neighbor had just drilled his winter wheat in, which contributed to the dust. I had the windows cracked in my car, and came our to a quarter inch of pine needles inside!

08/22/2024

08/06/2024

“A general concept of horsemanship is, and I believe this real deeply, that it’s not necessarily what the horse can do for me, it’s what I can do for the horse.”

*Editor's note: This article was originally published in 2017 in issue No.93 of Eclectic Horseman. Gene Armstrong taught more than a generation of students with equine aspirations about farrier science and horsemanship at CalPoly (California Polytechnic State University) in San Luis Obispo, Californ...

05/04/2024

Here's a terrific video from my favorite magazine, Eclectic Horseman.
Helping an Unsure Horse with Trevor Carter.

"We have all had the experience of riding a horse in a place where he is unsure, or encounter things during a ride that he might be afraid of. Trevor Carter demonstrates some useful strategies to help build your horse’s confidence and ways to monitor whether you are helping or exacerbating the situation."

Ride into this lesson from The Horseman's Gazette   Helping an Unsure Horse with Trevor Carter We have all had the experience of riding a horse in a place where he is unsure, or encounter things during a ride that he might be afraid of. Trevor Carter demonstrates some useful strategies to help buil...

12/10/2023

“Horses are so expensive”
I agree, they cost me a lot every day
Horses cost you your selfishness.
Having horses means every day you are alive you must consider someone’s needs before your own,
multiple times a day. Even when you’re away from them arrangements must be made, this builds
character and gives us self-worth.
Horses cost you your ego.
Right when you think you have it figured out, you will undoubtedly be presented with a humbling
experience either in the arena or out. They will force you to reach out for help when your
expertise is maxed out. If you are wise, you will realize life is like this too. Maybe we should
reach out for help more frequently and we would get further.
Horses cost you your laziness.
You will never progress with an equine partner by leaving it turned out, just as you will never
progress by staying checked out. Do the work and you will get somewhere.
Horses cost you your heart.
They never fail to find a way to touch us deep within even (and especially) when we are feeling
cold to the ways of the world. There’s something special about getting to interact with a being
that becomes softer when we soften. We should learn to respond to one another similarly.
Yes, horses are so expensive. But everything they’ve ever cost me has also made me say
thank you to whoever wrote this!

Author unknown