MNR Horsemanship

05/14/2026

Camille is so pretty sometimes she doesn’t even look real 🦄

05/14/2026

05/12/2026

Jewel following suit. She is also available for adoption from REIN Rescue 💎

05/12/2026

Getting close to sitting in the tack with mustang Honey from REIN Rescue. Honey is available for adoption as well! Joslynn Patten is doing a very good job preparing her to carry a rider confidently.

05/12/2026

"My dad always said they can learn more from a (tie) post than most people can teach them."

I read that in a buckaroo group the other day.

I can confirm it's incredibly humbling to realize this...

A few years ago, I experimented with doing a preliminary tie week with client horses, and found out it did more good than an extra week of groundwork.

Talk about an ego killer.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying tying fixes everything, or that tying is a replacement for correct training.

I'm saying I learned I was doing both too much, and not enough.

Tying gave them the time and experience I had been neglecting to.

The calm daily routine of standing tied with their hay bag gave them the time they needed to get comfortable with the sights and sounds of unfamiliar facilities, and to get some passive exposure watching me work other horses.

Starting out with a 'herd tie, they learned not to worry as buddies and strange horses came and went, and we built more duration and distance each day.

I don't think it's helpful to start working on relationship or training until we get this other stuff out of the way. Every time we have to contend against it, we inevitably become the bad guy.

***
Tying has become a bit of a lost art.
Some consider it to be something that's cruel or unfair.

It can be.

But horses already know how to stand around and just hang out and take a nap, so if we approach tying the right way, it can be the same.

And so much more.

- Circa 2023

I run into a lot of horses where people say, they won’t tie, but as long as they’re with me or we’re training, it’s fine.

To me, that’s not a self-regulated horse, that’s a horse who’s being distracted and micromanaged, or whose actual emotional state is being overshadowed.

With this guy, who had a lot of frustration from being an aggressive former stallion, it took him a couple weeks of routine tying for him to be able to just hang out and observe, and the incredible peace that came over him when he realized that he doesn’t need to be involved in every activity was moving.

05/11/2026

the best feeling in the world

I had ridden horses for fourteen years before I sat on a cutting horse for the first time. I thought that counted for something. It counted for approximately zero. The moment the trainer told me to drop my rein hand and let that horse work I understood immediately that everything I knew about riding had just become background noise. That horse dropped its hip and mirrored that cow with a lateral quickness that my body had never experienced from the back of a horse and I went to the left when the horse went right and I grabbed mane like a beginner on a carnival pony and I came that close to being on the ground in the first forty-five seconds. The trainer was gracious about it. He said that response is completely normal and it is just physics and it goes away. He was right. I came back the next morning and I came back the morning after that. Six months later I competed in my first novice cutting class. I did not win. I did not embarrass myself. I had a cow for the full time and my horse was honest and I dropped my hand like a person who had thought about it for six months and trusted it. Cutting is the most humbling and addictive thing I have ever sat on a horse to do. If you have not tried it I cannot recommend it strongly enough. Start ready to be humbled. It only gets better from there. 🐴

05/11/2026

Very interesting! There are so many reasons for behaviors

05/11/2026

Sweet little mustang Justin is getting soft 🩷
He is available for adoption from REIN Rescue! Has been on the trails as well
Located in Iva, SC

05/11/2026