Forward Farm Dressage

09/30/2025

My friend Bonnie shared these two pics of Obrigada- left is summer 2025 and right is winter 2024. What a difference a year makes!

05/25/2025

•On keeping your horse•
(Especially if you are a trainer)

It's not just owners, but professional trainers that are rotating through personal horses.

They tell their audience that the more different horses they train, the more experience they get.
They also frequently say that they want to move up a level and their current horse isn't capable or suitable for that goal. It's a cycle every couple of years it looks like.

Both those things may be true, to a point. However these people are no longer seeing how their work matures, how it holds up over time and how it progresses through the life of that individual horse.

The horse industry prioritizes young prospects that can perform younger, sooner, and harder.
I would like to counter this with the idea that a program is only as good as the seniors it produces!

I want to see sound and content horses absolutely blooming between the ages of 18-28.
My mentors demonstrated this to me, as well as any other horseman I consider to be great. I hold teachers and professionals to a higher standard than regular owners.

When people move their horses on while they are still at the age of being profitable to sell, so they can move to the next young prospect they are robbing themselves of seeing their work through.

They are robbing themselves of the skills needed to bring out a horse to their full potential.

They are robbing themselves of the strength of feeling one's knowledge bottom out, and being able to work through that.

This kills off the opportunity to master feel.

Yes.
This is what is missing.
Seeing work through to the end.

I would like to say that in order to truly become advanced in training, it is important to keep your horse.
This is to witness the longevity and soundness of your work, to have a chance to watch it age and mature in front of your face.
I also believe it is vital to experience the depth of friendship that is possible with a horse that can only be forged over years.

Yes a variety of horses is excellent and necessary but we've taken that out of context.

This may not be feasible or realistic for everyone, and that is ok. Excellence is not feasible for everyone.

Yesterday I wrote about how the age at which we start horses to ride indicates what values we hold in our horsemanship.

I believe people would stop riding 2 year old horses if more of them witnessed how their horses aged instead of moving them through their program.

Today, I am following that up with writing about how keeping your horse may be the key to mastery.

The theme here is there are no shortcuts to honest, brilliant work.

Let's celebrate bringing a horse to their potential throughout their entire lifetime, instead of literally using them up before the age of 10.

And while we're at it, check out the health and happiness of your trainer's or programs senior horses to know what quality they bring to the table.

In this photo I am riding my first pony who has been in my life since I was 12. He is downhill built, post legged, had a neck injury that almost took his life, and yet him and I are still improving every single year over the last 10 years!!

I do not believe I've developed him to his full potential yet.

What are the people with significantly more expensive and talented horses going on about, when they say that they can't move up a level with the horse that they have?!

I will risk banishment by saying it may be more to do with a human skill issue than said horse's capacity 🤐🤐🤐
It does take extraordinary skill to bring out the best in an ordinary horse. There is no way around it.

I am a firm believer in slow burn, lifelong development for every horse. I start them with the intention of spending our life together.

Keep and develop the imperfect horse you have.
This may just be the gem we are missing right now.
Thank you for reading.

05/16/2025

I’m rereading Alois Podhajsky’s wonderful book “My Horses, My Teachers” and have been thinking about all the wonderful horses that have taught me so much over the years. I thought a good way to remember them might be to post a few pictures every few days. Sadly I don’t have photos of all the wonderful equine teachers I have had, but I do carry them in my heart.

Today’s pics are of the Lusitano mare Quelimane. I had the privilege of riding her for her owner Mary when I was a working student for Sylvia Loch in Scotland in 2003. She was a young horse at the time, around 4 years old.

04/17/2025

When you are short on time, but need to get a ride in- ba****ck and a halter it is! My sweet girl NonSuch and I having a play date this afternoon ❤️🐴❤️🐴

03/30/2025

Herding sheep with my dressage horse 🤣

03/18/2025

This! So important! This is why I run and do yoga.

This post has nothing to do with age or disability. It has everything to do with effort based on dividing abilities, life stages and physical abilities.

This post is not about targeting different ages or different body realities. This post is about putting effort into developing your body, if you are also trying to develop your horses, as an act of comparative fitness, empathy and fairness.

Horse riding is exceedingly dangerous. It is an extreme sport that is best done safely by folks who take care of their bodies as much as they take care of their horses bodies.

If you are asking a horse to trot, and you yourself have not jogged much, or engaged your body to its similar capacity according to your abilities, age and health, you’re asking the horse to do something your body is not doing. It will feel like disconnection to them.

Same with canter. Same with walk. Same with lateral work and fun detailed work. We need to be doing the same equivalent with our bodies that we ask the horse to do. This is empathy.

Not all riders are fully able bodied for a variety of reasons. But I’ve seen folks of various physical abilities do THEIR best to engage themselves in the best equivalent action that they ask of their horses.

For me, as an able bodied person, this means that I don’t expect a horse to canter, if I am unable to run or unwilling to run a distance. Gallop- I need to be able to sprint. Jump- I need to be able to jump. Trot, I need to be able to jog. Elevated movement- I need to be able to skip with height. Lateral work and dressage- I need to be able to dance or work my body in yoga or Pilates or something that asks for specific details.

Find your equivalent that’s healthy for your body. And have the ability to do it. Then your horse will feel that your joints, tissues and nervous system are in the condition to join the horse in that what you’re asking them to do. This will feel like connection to them.

I think horses are super accountability monitors for our human foibles. And demanding from ourselves the level of physical engagement we ask of our horses is not only fair and healthy for the relationship, but can keep you healthy and accountable.

The day I can no longer mount from the ground or a mounting block is the day I stop riding. The day I can’t jog or equivalent, is the day I stop trotting. Etc. There is a reason why horse people are fit into older age!

It’s also kind of creepy for me to watch fit horses work for people who are not investing in their fitness according to what their body is able to do. That’s a bit creepy for me!

What do you think?

02/05/2025

Dearest Guido always trying his best in his training followed by the best barn mom, Bonnie, letting him explore the balance pads.

01/24/2025

A few of my friends that keep me company during morning chores ❤️

12/05/2024

It was cold and blustery this morning, and it would have been easy to say “today we give the horses a day off”. Instead we used the opportunity to hand walk and do some Tristan Tucker style ground work to teach the horses to manage themselves and be calm even when it’s freezing cold and the wind is howling. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is show up.

09/24/2024

Almost exactly 20 years apart. The photo of me on the gray horse was when I was a working student for Sylvia Loch in Scotland. Sylvia taught me the importance of your seat and position in riding- first through her books and later in person. The other two photos are Roger again working on my position today in order to get better flying changes. The journey never ends and it is the constant working on ourselves that improves our horses.

09/05/2024

I had a fun ride on super pony Rio a couple of days ago. Aubrey has been doing a great job getting him fit and strong over the past few months. He’s like a fun little sports car. Love him! ❤️

08/30/2024

So true!

Working with young horses is tough.

And not just in the "hold on and hope you stay in the saddle" kind of way.

No one warns you how challenging it truly is. How often you'll doubt yourself, wondering: Am I doing this right? Am I moving too fast? Too slow? Is this too much? Not enough? You'll constantly be questioning your approach, trying to figure out the best way forward while tuning out the opinions of the trainer down the road or the livery next door, who throws judgmental glances every time you do groundwork.

No one tells you how, on some days, you'll feel like you're failing. You'll question if this horse would be better off with someone else, convincing yourself you're either wasting their potential or outright ruining them. After all, there are four-year-olds excelling in young horse classes while yours is still struggling to trot in a straight line.

No one tells you how attached you'll become. This horse is your baby, maybe one you helped bring into the world. Every setback feels personal, like a wound to your heart. You care so deeply about their well-being that it physically hurts when things go wrong. You’ll also become fiercely protective—God help anyone who dares to criticize your horse.

No one tells you how humbling, even brutal, these horses can be. They'll expose every weakness you have and practically shout it from the rooftops. While they are forgiving, they have a way of knocking you down a peg, reminding you there's always more work to be done.

No one tells you how these horses will change you. They'll force you to look inwards, to question everything you thought you knew. If you thought you had everything figured out, this horse will quickly show you that you don't. But they'll also ignite in you a fierce determination to prove everyone wrong and show them what you saw in this horse from the very beginning.

No one quite tells you how difficult young horses can be, but anyone who's been through it knows...

As tough as they are, they’re absolutely worth it.