Jim McDonald Horsemanship

08/31/2026

An old friend,Midnight from 2015 !

08/25/2026

Headed home from a clinic in Maine this weekend at Chelsea Canedy Horsemanship and Performance at Unexpected Farm.

I had an amazing time, such great participants and their horse, and a great group of curious and open minded spectators.

There were some great changes in horses, but probably none more than the horses professional trainers who were in the clinic. These people train horses all day every day, and are really good at what they do.

So what did I do to have the professionals horses be even better ?

The hard stuff?

No.

The technical stuff?

No.

It was the basics.

It was about being a little more particular about the basics. Not picky. Not pedantic. Just more particular.

Then when then they started doing the bigger stuff, it was better without even working on it.

If that confuses you, think about it this way. Think about going to walk somewhere. If you alter your direction 5 degrees at the start, 10 feet later you’d think you were still on the same path. But 10 miles later you are somewhere completely different than you would be if you hadn’t made that small adjustment.

As the dance saying says “beginning dancers tend to take intermediate lessons, intermediate dancers tend to take advanced lessons, but advanced take beginning lessons”.

Thanks to Chelsea Canedy for all us to use your beautiful facility for the weekend !

08/11/2026

"It is my belief that horsemanship should be about finding the good that the horse offers and building on it rather that looking for the bad so that we can fix it".. Mark Rashid

08/10/2026

From just a couple of years ago

07/30/2026

Time to get cleaned up

06/28/2026

06/18/2026

Now thats some serious herd behavior!

04/30/2026

The Ask
True power hides in softness
You’ll see that from the start
As a good hand bridles gently
A true puncher shows their art
With voices soft and soothing
And a friend to guide em thru
Here how you ask still matters
When you’ve got a job to do
There’s places in this country
That it’s a full days ride to town
The good ones do their finest
Without an audience around
You will seldom see them angry
They don’t ply their skills by force
You can see what lies inside them
Watching how they ask their

PT Muldoon copyright 2022

04/02/2026

I’m pleased to announce the I will no longer have any videos on trailer loading.

They just aren’t necessary any more…

Photo credit Double D Trailers