Sleeping Fox Farm Eventing

05/06/2025

Tip from Ingrid !! love this

I regularly ride my dressage horses out on the trail.... You can use the energy and fresh air of the open country in your training to give your dressage horse motivation, strength, and expression when ridden in teh arena. Riding out will also benefit his composure and nerves. And riding on different surfaces—sand, grass; dry, muddy—will improve your horse’s balance and surefootedness. The hills undulations, hollows, and slopes can imrove your horse’s physical suppleness and use of his back.” Ingrid Klimke in her new book RIDING OUT, now available from TSB.​​ ❤️🐴📕






Sleeping Fox Farm Thoroughbred Rescue
Gary Angie Francart

PC: Queen and I explore
the new paddock 🦊

05/02/2025

Stolen and sharing as this is perfectly said even for us crazy eventers

Credit goes to Stephen Forbes, but this is so damn accurate. I will be crying in my truck because the wind changed directions. 😂

Dressage is absolutely, unequivocally dumb.

We spend decades and life savings trying to convince a horse, an animal that would rather nap or fart in a field, to perform controlled interpretive dance… while we wear white stretchy pants and pretend we’re not crying inside.

We argue online about nosebands and neck lengths.
We watch slow-motion trot videos like they’re Oscar-nominated films.
We talk about “feel” like it’s a sixth sense, and nod solemnly when someone says, “He wasn’t truly through in the right rein.”

Nobody knows what that means. We just say it so we don’t feel alone.

“Needs more schwung.”
Schwung????
Apparently it’s German for "make it fancy and pray".
We all pretend to know, then throw money at a new saddle pad hoping it comes with free schwung.

Special this month: Every new Solo bridle now ships with 3 ounces of authentic German schwung. Use responsibly.

And we obsess over the perfect halt.
THE. PERFECT. HALT.
As if a square halt will heal our childhood wounds.

We film our rides. Watch them back. Cry a little.
Zoom in. Rewind. Cry again.
"Why is my left leg doing that?!?"

We whisper sweet nothings to an animal that just tried to murder us because the wind changed direction.
We spend fortunes, literal fortunes, so a stranger in a box can frown at us and say: “Tension throughout.”
(You mean me or the horse?)

And speaking of showing.
There's you, before your class, sitting in the front seat of your Subaru, white breeches slightly transparent in the wrong places, eating a granola bar, listening to whale sounds to calm your nerves, and somehow believing this will help you nail that medium trot.
(It won’t. But you keep listening.)

And the wildest part? We take this seriously.
Like Olympic-level seriously.
Like, cry-in-the-stall-because-your-horse-has-a-poo-stain seriously.

But here’s the twist:

There’s something addictively beautiful about devoting your life to something this ridiculous.

To whispering with your body.
To the micro-conversations.
To trying to talk to your horse in French… with your seatbones.
It’s composing a symphony using only your spine, breath, and unresolved anxiety.

But that's just it, the best parts of life are kind of dumb.

Love is dumb.
Poetry is dumb.
Art is dumb.
Pursuing perfection you’ll never reach? Extra dumb.

But that’s what makes it holy.
So yeah, dressage is dumb.

Which makes it kind of genius.



PC: Lion Zang clinic
I was dying snd crying the same time. note: she made me carry 2 dressage whips😳



Gary Angie Francart
Harmony Hill Farm
Sleeping Fox Farm Eventing
Harmony Hill Farm
Devoucoux
Sleeping Fox Farm Thoroughbred Rescue
Blue Seal
USA Eventing
United States Eventing Association, Inc. (USEA)
Grand Impression Design Co.
FinStar Equestrian

03/31/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Z25KQjC4P/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Due to your horse's long neck and table-like body, when left to his own devices, your horse will use his head and neck for balance and carry the majority of your weight on his front legs and shoulders. This is known as your horse being "on the forehand" and is not desirable.

It is your job, as the rider, to teach your horse how to engage his hindquarters and lift and round his back so that he can carry your weight more on his stronger hindlegs. This brings your horse's balance back toward his center of gravity, taking his weight off his forehand, and allowing him to move in a more biomechanically friendly posture within a better balance.

The correct rider position (ear-shoulder-hip-heel) is correct for a reason; it allows you (the rider) to balance so that, in turn, you can improve the balance of your horse.

👉An unbalanced rider creates tension, which affects the communication between horse and rider because a tense horse cannot feel and respond to its rider, and a tense rider cannot feel and respond to their horse. This means that the aids can be misinterpreted or missed altogether.

👉A balanced rider creates enhanced communication. It allows the rider to use lighter and more accurate seat, leg, and rein aids, thereby promoting harmony and relaxation.

When horse and rider are both balanced together, their center of gravity is aligned.

Illustrations created and copyrighted by How To Dressage

Check out our latest book on Amazon
UK - https://amzn.to/4b7hwLf
US - https://amzn.to/3ybENgq

03/27/2025

What a great day Harmony Hill Farm for our Boyd Martin clinic. Baby horse Goose did his very first course and 3rd time off farm.

03/05/2025

love
this

Let’s get to getting! 🤠

03/05/2025

let’s get ready

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03/03/2025

Why Riding Instructors Crack

You know them.

Your favorite riders, your favorite riding instructors, your favorite horseman or woman.

They are tough. They drive themselves to the limit. They always put their horse first.

They are gifted and you look up to them.

Maybe you are them.

And it’s fueled by a deep love of horses and a lifelong dream to be the absolute best that you can be with horses.

But the realization of that dream starts to come at a price. Maybe the sacrifices are subtle at first- but eventually you don’t have the relationship with the spouse that you wish you did. You don’t have the time with the kids. You don’t have the relationship with your own sanity that you need- and therefore EVERYTHING- the business, the family, the friends crumble.

They stop working out. They don’t eat well. They don’t ride their own horse. They get physically injured- usually by something random not always from a horse. They gain weight. Their bodies begin to deteriorate.

Your biggest advocates, customers, and even team members turn on you. Former allies become frenemies that take all the suds out of the sport. And if you don’t have that family support system- even the toughest crack.

And you see them afterwards. With nothing financial to show for their efforts- shells of their former self- zest gone- burnt-out furnaces of energy.

Because you can’t run an entire career forever on horse skills and horse dreams alone. You can’t do it all by yourself. You can’t have bad pricing, no terms and conditions, no marketing, no software, and no real team you can count on. You want the kind of team that you would go to war with.

And when things go bad- you need that spouse in your corner that you go out to dinner with every week and laugh about it all.

Horse skills + Business Skills = Financial Success

And
Technology skills + Team Skills = Getting your Time Back

I have compiled all of the plays that my clients have run to rebuild their businesses and their lives - and I offer it to you for free.

All of the missing business skills that would otherwise spell doom can be found in this book.

Read it in an afternoon and change your life.

To Your Success,

Brian Wee, Founder of Next Level Horse Businesses

My coaching is individual and this program is tailored to bigger facilities. But wanted to share as it does touch on much of our challenges as coaches.

02/15/2025

Join all of us at fox farm eventing a bunch of celebrating
today Dillman


today is her birthday and she became an official eventer with a beautiful run on Buddy horse trials to give her third and best PINk turnout in her division.

02/05/2025

This!!!


Sleeping Fox Farm Thoroughbred Rescue
Sleeping Fox Farm Eventing
Gary Angie Francart

Please guys - this mentality that you can get a thoroughbred that’s been out and about, a true allrounder, that will hack down the motorway alone, with no vices lumps bumps or sarcoids and quiet enough to put your granny on for 1000 just because it’s a thoroughbred NEEDS to stop.
A sports horse the same would be costing you 15k+!
A TB is not a lesser breed. A TB should not be given away just because it’s a TB.
I’ve had fancy warmbloods, sports horses, Spanish, Connemara’s.. and I’ve gone back to TBs for a reason.
There’s no breed that is as versatile or will work as hard for you when you push the right buttons.
No they aren’t more prone to break down, every breed can break down! The only young retired horse I have with injury issues is a Connemara! Warmbloods and sport horses are just as prone to KS, tendon and suspensories, even more prone to OCD. Welshes and cobs are prone to PSSM, or CPL. Connies are prone to having hock issues.. they are horses! It’s not breed specific that TBs are the only ones that might get injuries!
I’ve never had a TB a fraction as sharp as some of the warmbloods I’ve sat on. (And don’t ask me to sit on a cob; I won’t! I’m terrified of them!)
Even if they are racehorses, someone still has or needs to put a lot of time money and energy into making the school master you are looking for.
I’ve not found one TB that can’t be turned round into a fantastic allrounder with patience!
Time is money!
Stop undervaluing these fantastic horses and start respecting their abilities!
Picture of my wonderful crystal tiger I had for nearly 10 years who came off the track a nappy moody mare and turned into a horse of a lifetime who would jump through fire for me.

01/31/2025

love this

‘I still want to be jumping when I’m 80’: no stopping horse and rider with combined age of 94 – read more via link below