Young Equestrian Florida

05/25/2026

I guess the cat is out of the bag! Congratulations to and the Anderson family on the purchase of Unguessable Von Axe! We can’t wait to see Zoe and this beautiful mare do big things!

05/22/2026

A 10-minute continuous shower prior to exercise helped prevent weight loss and body temperature elevation in exercising racehorses.

Details: https://paulickreport.com/horse-care-category/study-pre-exercise-cooling-limits-heat-stress-for-training-thoroughbreds

05/21/2026

Some years back, two undergrads came to ride with me. Now I watch them go out into the world as doctors. Congratulations Sophie and Lexi. I love you both. Please come visit! 💙

05/17/2026

Good advice !

As riding instructors we spend a lot of time managing the gap between what new students expect riding to be and what it actually is. Most of that gap could be narrowed significantly with one honest conversation before the first lesson ever happens. So here is everything I wish every new student and every new riding family walked in already knowing...

1. Riding is harder than it looks
This is the one that surprises people most. Watching a good rider looks effortless but it is not effortless. It is years of muscle memory, feel, balance, and body awareness built through consistent work over a long time. Your first lessons will feel awkward and uncoordinated and that is completely normal. Every rider you have ever admired felt exactly the way you feel right now when they were starting out.

2. The horse is not a bicycle
It is a living animal with its own personality, its own opinions, and its own good days and bad days. It does not always do what you ask the first time and that is not always your fault but it is always your responsibility to figure out the communication. Learning to work with a horse rather than on top of one is one of the most valuable things riding teaches and it starts from the very first lesson.

3. Progress is not linear
Some weeks you will feel like you have jumped forward three levels. Other weeks you will feel like you have forgotten everything you learned last month. Both are completely normal parts of learning to ride. The students who improve consistently are not the ones who never have bad lessons but they are the ones who show up anyway and keep working through the frustrating ones.

4. One lesson a week is a start but not a program
A single lesson per week gives you exposure to riding. Two lessons per week builds skill significantly faster. The riders who progress quickest are the ones who ride consistently and frequently enough that their muscles and nervous system have time to develop real memory around what correct feels like. If budget allows for more than one lesson per week it is worth it.

5. Your position will feel wrong before it feels right
Correct position in the saddle feels deeply unnatural to most people at first. Heels down feels like you are pushing your foot through the floor. Sitting tall feels like you are leaning back. An independent hand feels like you are doing nothing. Trust the process and trust your instructor. The things that feel strange now become automatic eventually but only if you commit to doing them correctly rather than defaulting back to what feels comfortable.

6. The time around the lesson matters as much as the lesson itself
Grooming your horse before you ride. Learning to tack up correctly. Understanding how to read your horse's body language in the cross ties. This is not the boring part before the real lesson begins. This is horsemanship and it makes you a better rider than an hour in the saddle alone ever will.

7. Bad rides happen to every rider at every level
Including the ones you look up to most. A bad lesson does not mean you are not cut out for this, it just means you are learning something hard and doing it on the back of a living animal that is also having a day. Come back next week and it will be different.
Your instructor is on your side.

8. Every correction we give is in service of your progress and your safety
We are not pointing out what is wrong to make you feel bad but we are pointing out what needs to change so you can get where you want to go faster and more safely. The students who improve fastest are the ones who hear a correction as information rather than criticism and apply it without taking it personally.

9. Riding changes you in ways you will not expect
The patience it builds, the confidence that comes from communicating with an animal ten times your size and being understood. The resilience that develops from falling short of a goal and coming back for it anyway. The community you find at the barn. None of that shows up in the first lesson or even the tenth but it will show up at one point. For most riders it becomes one of the most significant things in their life and not just what they do on Tuesday afternoons but part of who they are.

If you are a riding instructor share this with every new family who walks through your gate. If you are a new student or a parent of one - welcome. You picked something genuinely worth doing!

What do you wish someone had told you before your very first riding lesson?

05/17/2026

What a weekend for the team at SFHJA May II!
RESERVE CHAMPION .80 jumpers
BANDIET VAN HET HERENHOF and Alejandra
CLASS WINNER .80 jumpers
TAPATIA and Logan
I couldn’t be prouder!

05/15/2026

THE BEST first pony is coming off lease the end of May? Who needs the sweetest medium mare ?

05/15/2026

Everyone schooled like rockstars today !

05/15/2026

THIS.

In Part 1, I wrote about the version of the horse world mainstream media loves to cover: billionaire children, seven-figure horses, private planes, Wellington gates, luxury barns, and new leagues built for global entertainment. That world exists, but it is not the whole story.

In fact, for most horse people, it is not even the recognizable story.
Most of the horse world is not asking which winter circuit to attend next. Most of the horse world is asking whether board is going up again. Whether hay will be available. Whether the vet bill can wait until payday. Whether the lesson program can keep going. Whether the old horse can stay comfortable. Whether the truck will make it through another season. Whether loving horses is becoming financially impossible for ordinary people.

So yes, while the public image of horses is getting glossier, more exclusive, and more expensive, the real horse world is drowning in costs.

The mainstream story says: million-dollar horses.
The barn aisle story says: board went up again.

The mainstream story says: global league.
The barn aisle story says: the hay guy is short this year.

The mainstream story says: my private jet is late.
The barn aisle story says: the truck needs new tires.

The mainstream story says: elite sport is ready for its Netflix moment.
The barn aisle story says: the vet can come on Thursday, but it will be an emergency fee if he comes tonight.

These are not separate industries; they are the same horse world, narrated from opposite ends of the economic food chain.

In the 2025 American Horse Publications Equine Industry Survey, respondents selected the cost of horse-keeping as the top issue facing the U.S. horse industry for the first time in the survey’s history. Feed, including hay and concentrate, was the cost area most respondents said had increased the most, followed by veterinary services and animal health products. (American Horse Publications)

That is the reality most horse people are living inside.

Not “Which winter circuit should we do next?”
But “Can I afford the same care this year that I gave my horse last year?”

Not “Which horse should we buy to move up?”
But “Can I keep the horse I already love?”

Not “How do we turn this sport into premium entertainment?”
But “How do we keep ordinary people from leaving?”

That is the conversation the horse world keeps avoiding, because it is much easier to talk about growth at the top than fragility at the bottom.

But the bottom is not really the bottom. The so-called lower levels are the foundation. They are where people learn to love horses before they learn to chase prestige.

They are where the lesson ponies live. They are where volunteers come from. They are where future professionals start. They are where adult amateurs rediscover themselves after divorce, grief, motherhood, burnout, illness, or some private collapse that only a horse was quiet enough to witness.

They are where the sport still feels human.

Read part two of Noëlle's essay on Substack now: https://noellefloyd.substack.com/p/the-richest-version-of-riding-is