http://www.twinpinesequestrian.com/

Twin Pines Performance Horses, NA, Sisters, OR (2026)

09/02/2026

Are we accidentally making our horses fragile?

Not just physically, but emotionally.

We talk a lot about keeping horses comfortable. Keeping them calm. Keeping them from getting stressed, scared, tired, frustrated or overwhelmed.

And obviously, good horsemanship should never be about intentionally putting a horse in a bad situation just to see what happens.

But I do think there’s a difference between protecting a horse and preparing one.

A horse that never experiences pressure doesn’t learn how to work through pressure.

A horse that’s never allowed to be briefly frustrated doesn’t learn how to regulate frustration.

A horse that’s always removed from something the moment they’re uncomfortable can start to learn that discomfort means something is wrong or that their only option is to escape it.

And I think physically, we sometimes do the same thing.

We want perfect footing. Perfect conditions. Perfect surfaces. We worry about hills, rocks, uneven ground, longer rides and different environments.

Of course there are legitimate physical limitations and injuries that need to be respected. But a healthy horse’s body also adapts to appropriate, progressive stress. Balance, coordination, strength and sure footedness aren’t developed by avoiding every physical challenge.

Maybe good training isn’t creating a life where our horses never experience discomfort.

Maybe it’s giving them manageable doses of the real world and teaching them, “You’re safe. Take a second, think your way through it”.

Because the reality is, we can’t predict or control every environment our horses are going to encounter.

We can’t control everything that happens at a show. We can’t guarantee what they’ll see when they step off the trailer somewhere new. We can’t make every trail quiet or every piece of footing perfect.

We can’t even control everything at home.

Sometimes the neighbor’s tarp comes flying over the fence. A dog appears where it shouldn’t. Something falls over. A tractor starts up. A horse gets loose. Something happens that we never would’ve thought to specifically prepare for.

It’s near impossible to train a horse for every thing they may encounter in life.

But I want to teach them what to do with themselves when they encounter a thing they’ve never seen before.

Because eventually they’re going to encounter something we couldn’t manufacture perfectly for them.

And when that happens, I don’t want my horses to think the world is ending.

I want them to know how to pause, think, regulate even when neither of us saw it coming.

08/26/2026

“But it worked” is not the flex people think it is.

You can get a horse across the water by making everywhere except the water uncomfortable.

You can get one to stand still by making moving a very bad idea.

You can stop a horse from reacting by correcting every reaction until they quit offering one.

Yep. It worked.

So does turning the radio up when your truck starts making a weird noise. 😂

The question isn’t always “Did it work?”

Sometimes the better question is:

What did the horse actually learn?

Pressure isn’t bad. Discomfort isn’t always bad. Horses absolutely need to learn how to work through hard things.

But good horsemanship is knowing the difference between helping a horse through something and simply making resistance too expensive.

There are a lot of ways to get a horse to do something.

Knowing one way really well doesn’t mean it’s the only way.

Good trainers don’t just know how to get the answer.

They know how to change the question when the horse clearly isn’t understanding it.

Because sometimes “try harder” is appropriate.

And sometimes we need to try smarter.

08/25/2026

People ask me after 13 years, why I left the dressage world.

There were a few reasons, but a big one was that somewhere along the way I felt like we got really good at manufacturing movements instead of developing horses.

Dressage was always supposed to benefit the horse. Not the rider. Not the score. Not the picture.

The movements were supposed to be a product of a horse becoming stronger, softer, more balanced and more capable of carrying themselves.

Not something we put the horse into and then try to hold together.

That’s probably one of the biggest things dressage taught me that I still use every single day, just maybe not always in a dressage saddle.

If something isn’t working, I don’t want to drill it 47 more times and hope for the best.

I want to know why it isn’t working.

Can I move the shoulder?
Can I move the hip?
Can I control the feet?
Can the horse rebalance without me holding them there?
Can they stay soft while doing it?

Because usually when the “big” movement isn’t working, there’s a much smaller piece missing somewhere.

I don’t really care anymore what discipline we want to call it.

Some days we’re working lateral movements.

Some days we’re moving shoulders and hips in a halter.

Some days we’re working a cow, crossing water, dragging something weird or climbing over logs.

It all comes back to the same thing.

Develop the horse. Don’t manufacture the movement.

I didn’t leave dressage because I stopped believing in it.

If anything, I think I left because I believed pretty strongly in what it was supposed to be in the first place.

Training for the benefit of the horse. The fancy stuff is just what happens when you get the little stuff right.

08/21/2026

Tully is a 5 year old, 14.1hh BLM Mustang (Four Mile HMA) who apparently identifies as a Sport Pony! She LOVES to jump, and I really think she’d be a blast for someone wanting to take her in that direction. She also has a nice foundation and could do well in dressage. She rides Western too, but I have a feeling she prefers the English side of life.

I think she’d be a really fun step up horse for a tactful handy youth or junior, but she takes up enough leg and has enough substance that an adult won’t feel under-horsed on her either. She’s best suited to a confident, balanced rider with an independent seat. She’s sensitive to an unbalanced or overly busy rider and can get a little goosey about it, so she wouldn’t be appropriate for a beginner. But doesn’t get quick, no buck, bolt, rear.

She’s still young and green, so she needs a capable rider to continue bringing her along, but the foundation is there she just needs someone to give her a job and take her in a direction. Not a complicated ride.

Serious inquiries only! Full sale video to come but have a few clips I can send until then!
📍 Sisters, Oregon
High 🥕🥕🥕🥕

08/21/2026

We expect a lot of emotional maturity from an animal that thinks a Walmart bag might be a mountain lion.

But here’s the funnier part…

We expect horses to regulate their emotions while half the humans riding them can’t regulate theirs.

Horse gets nervous → rider gets nervous because the horse is nervous → horse gets more nervous because the rider is nervous → rider says “WHY WON’T YOU JUST RELAX?!”

Ma’am. Neither of you are relaxed.

Calm horses start by being understood first.

Not excused.
Not babied.
Not protected from every uncomfortable situation for the rest of their lives.

Understood.

Before I ask a horse to calm down, I want to know why they aren’t calm.

Are they afraid? Confused? Overstimulated? Uncomfortable? Or have they simply never been taught what to do with that pressure?

Understanding the reason doesn’t mean excusing the behavior. It tells you how to train through it.

Sometimes the biggest thing we can teach a horse is:

“I hear you. I’m still going to ask this of you, but I’ll help you figure out how to handle it.”

That’s training.

Good training isn’t removing every hard thing. It’s teaching a horse what to do when things get hard.

Pressure comes on.
They search for an answer.
They find it.
Pressure goes away.
Confidence grows.

Eventually, instead of immediately reacting, they learn how to regulate.

But here’s where we humans have to hold up our end of the deal too.

You cannot white knuckle the reins, clamp your legs on, stop breathing, mentally write your own obituary and then wonder why Trigger has also concluded that everyone is about to die.

Your horse is reading you too.

Calm isn’t something you install by demanding “RELAX!”

Understand them first.

Then teach them how to handle the world.

08/20/2026

If you could pick on which would I t be?

🐴 Ground Driving Clinic
Learn the basics of ground driving, improve communication and body control, and use it as a tool for young horses, problem solving and preparation for under saddle work.

✨ Liberty Clinic
Building connection, communication and responsiveness without relying on ropes or equipment and learning how to make liberty useful beyond just the fun tricks.

🌵 Obstacle & Confidence Clinic
Helping your horse become more confident and thoughtful through obstacles, pressure and unfamiliar situations — while giving you better tools for when things get a little western.

Which one are you picking? 👇

And if there’s something else you’d love to see offered, throw it in the comments!

08/19/2026

Maybe the reason it feels like good horse trainers are getting harder to find is because somewhere along the way… we stopped letting trainers actually train horses.

We want young horses started, but preferably without them ever being confused.

We want problem behaviors fixed, but nobody’s feelings can be hurt in the process.

We want confident, safe horses, but we’d rather they never have to experience anything mildly inconvenient on their journey there.

And naturally, we’d like all of the above accomplished in 30 days. 😂

Good training isn’t about picking fights with horses or seeing how much pressure they can take. It’s knowing when to ask a little more, when to back off, when to correct something, when to let them figure it out and when tomorrow is a better day.

Sometimes progress looks beautiful.

Sometimes it looks like standing in the arena wondering which one of you needs a snack and a break.

Horses are individuals. Training isn’t perfectly linear, and the answer isn’t always going to look Instagram-pretty.

If you’ve trusted someone enough to put your horse in their program, there also has to be a little room for them to actually use the experience and judgment you hired them for.

Maybe good horsemanship isn’t disappearing.

Maybe we just need to give it a little more room to do its job. 🤍

08/18/2026

Apparently “help working a few horses” can mean very different things, so I should probably clarify what it means around here.

I’m looking for someone to help work/ride some horses a few days a week in trade for more finessed riding lessons.

We are not running an equine Planet Fitness where everybody already knows how the equipment works.

This is a training barn.

Young horses, green horses, mustangs, stallions, horses learning their jobs, and horses at all different stages of their education.

So while Jurassic Park with saddles may be a slight exaggeration, “come casually exercise a few broke horses” would be an even bigger one. 😂

I’m looking for someone with solid horse experience who wants to get better at actually developing horses groundwork, lunging, ground driving, desensitizing, handling, problem solving and riding.

Must be reliable, coachable, have good horse sense and understand that the fun part of young horses is watching all the little pieces come together.

I will be pretty picky for this position. Not because you need to be the next Buck Brannaman but because this is my business and I’m particular about how these horses are handled and who is a part of the process.

Located in Sisters OR
If you’re interested please pm with your experience!

08/17/2026

I really do try to be kind to everyone I cross paths with in the horse industry. Not because I need everyone to like me, but because I think there’s enough room for all and still be good to each other.

But sometimes it can be hard.

The horse world can be a funny place. You’ll have a perfectly friendly conversation with someone, cheer them on, recommend them, or genuinely think you’re on good terms and then later hear about something they supposedly said about you when you weren’t in the room.

And maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t.

That’s the part I struggle with, because I don’t want to become someone who automatically believes the rumor over the person I actually know. I’d rather believe the way someone treats me to my face is genuine than constantly wonder what’s being said when I walk away.

So I’m going to keep choosing that.

I’ll keep being friendly. I’ll keep rooting for other people. I’ll keep giving people the benefit of the doubt until they personally give me a reason not to.

Because I’d rather occasionally be wrong about someone than let this industry make me suspicious of everyone.

There’s enough competition in the horse world already. Kindness doesn’t need to be one of them.

08/15/2026

Okay, testing the waters on this one 👀

Would there be any interest in a Ground Driving Clinic at Twin Pines?

I’d love to do a hands on clinic covering the basics of ground driving. How to introduce it safely, rein handling and positioning, steering and softness, troubleshooting common problems, and how I use it as a tool with young horses and horses that need a better foundation and why sometimes I prefer it over lunging.

This would be geared toward actually bringing your horse and learning how to do it yourself, not just watching a demonstration.

Beginner friendly, you absolutely do not need to already know how to ground drive.

If I put one together, who would be interested?

Twin Pines Performance Horses

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