Seventh Heaven Stables

04/16/2025

💫 ENTRIES OPEN 💫

Entries are open for our May 18th Show on HorseShowOffice!

04/16/2025

Spring, where are you??? 👀 🌼 🌺 🐴

04/16/2025

👏🏼👏🏼

A reminder for the week ahead - ps: it’s not just about equestrian sports. It’s about life. Have a great week, horse girls 🖤🐴

04/10/2025

Mejor 🦄🦄

04/06/2025

Gloomy day not so gloomy with these pretty greys🤍🤍🤍 🌧️🌧️

04/03/2025

I was maybe 21 or 22 when I had a lesson that’s stayed with me ever since.

It was one of those early spring days when the arena was still cold, but the sun was shinning.

My horse, a spirited youngster, was tense, and so was I. We were both fighting each other, me trying to hold everything together, him trying to escape everything I was holding.

My trainer at the time was soft-spoken, but her feel in the saddle was sharper than any words. She called me into the middle with just a glance.

She didn’t say much. Just walked up, took the reins from my hands, and held them for a moment.

Then she looked at me and said,
"You’re holding your breath. And you’re holding the reins the same way."

I laughed awkwardly, because she wasn’t wrong.

“Okay,” I said. “Soften my hands. Try not to die. Breathe. Got it.”

But she shook her head.

“No, it’s more than that,” she said. “The reins are the breath of the ride. They should move like breath. Expand. Release. Flow.”

I don’t remember the rest of the ride. But I remember sitting in silence at the end of the day, thinking about what she said.

Back then, I didn’t fully get it. I was too focused on outline, on contact, on “getting it right.” But over time, the lesson kept echoing back to me. Especially in the harder rides, the ones where nothing seemed to click.

And I started to notice:

When I held my breath, I held the reins.
When I was soft and present, so were they.
And when the reins breathed, so did my horse.

The reins aren't tools of control.
They’re a shared inhale, a shared exhale.
A rhythm not made of sound, but of feel.

Now, years later, it’s one of the first things I feel for in every ride:

Are we breathing?
Are we listening?

Because that space, the space between pressure and release, between ask and allow,
that’s where the magic lives.

That’s the breath of dressage.

03/31/2025

✨ Rare Boarding Opportunity ✨

Starting mid May due to our winter boarders going home, Seventh Heaven Stables will have 2 stalls available for training with USDF gold medalist, Megan Tursi. Facility includes a full size dressage indoor arena, airy 12x12 stalls with in and out patios, individual grass turnouts. Our equines receive the best care and we enjoy developing horse & rider partnerships in our program along with hosting monthly clinics in a very fun & positive environment!

PM or email [email protected] for more information

03/28/2025

Happy Friday from Fuego 🔥❣️

📸LMC

03/24/2025

Oly boy ❤️
hanlon

📸 LMC

03/23/2025

Starting to feel like spring 🌞🌸🌼🌾🌿🌳

📸LMC

03/19/2025

Happy Wednesday!!

📸LMC

03/17/2025

Cantering into the week with Oly 🖤🖤

📸LMC

03/15/2025

Rox ❤️

📸 LMC

03/15/2025

An evening stroll to finish off the day💜✨

03/14/2025

The most gentle giant 🧡

📸 & 🐴LMC

03/11/2025

Thanks for all your help keeping our horses & riders happy in their tack! 🙏🏼

📸 LMC

03/01/2025

This message is for those who don't want to be normal. If you want to fit in, stay safe, be average, I understand and respect that, it's the normal thing to do. But then this email isn't for you.

Also note: This post is about dressage, but it's also not about dressage.

I was browsing the international rankings of the FEI CDI 1* and noticed that just over 400 riders participated at that level.

There are an estimated 175,000 dressage riders in the world today.

That means only 0.2% of the dressage riding world competes at the lowest level of the CDI ring.

I came to a couple of conclusions.

🔹Dressage is insanely hard. The odds are against you. If you're riding at PSG or above, you should pat yourself on the back, you've made it much further than most people ever will. Don't underestimate that accomplishment. It's huge.

🔹Getting to PSG or above is not the norm, in fact, it's statistically improbable. If you want to ride at that level too, you have to be willing to approach your entire life with a different mindset.

Doing what's normal or average, is doing what everyone else is doing. That makes up the very definition of normal. Normal people get normal results.

But, you can't stand out, achieve more, be more, do more, or succeed more, while doing what everyone else is doing.

You have to approach things differently. It's a fundamental necessity.

This is where things can get challenging. You can't always look to your peers because chances are they are normal too.

You have to be the one to break away, to forge your own path. It takes courage and strength, a vision. You have to believe it's possible or at the very least, worthy of the pursuit.

If you want to stand out, you can't fit in.

Big dreams take big risks, and having the courage to chase them isn't for everyone.

But if you want to push the boundaries of what you're capable of, you have to go all in.

And that....is far from normal.

02/26/2025

Enjoying these warmer days this week☀️