NYEC Riding Academy

06/17/2026

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06/16/2026

Whitney & Dancing In The Dark - RSH (Brooklyn)
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06/11/2026

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I’m not into that customer stuff, Emily Elek writes.

You know what I mean. There are so many in this business who refer to their “customers.” And the customer is always right…right? Except the barn is not an outlet mall. Our customer support team is run by small ponies with an agenda.

And I’m not the general manager. I’m the trainer.

In my program, you stop being a customer the minute you sign your boarding agreement. That monetary exchange pays for your horse’s room and board, so to speak, and serves as a promise that your animal will have a safe, comfortable, and healthy living arrangement.

But with everything else, you are a student and an athlete. I am your teacher and your coach.

I believe this is an important distinction to make, because it sets the tone for the relationship moving forward. I see the people who board and ride with me as students first and foremost. All good equestrians, including professionals and trainers like myself, need to be lifelong learners. Every barn should have the mantra, “Be a learner not a knower” blasted above the entry. Because it’s here where you open your mind and accept your vulnerabilities in the pursuit of learning alongside the ultimate teachers—horses.

Lessons have no set timeline because while each starts with a goal and an exercise to achieve that goal, your horse is not a bicycle. They will feel hot, cold, interested, uninterested, bored, excited, and tired. On some days, repetition will be the answer. On other days, taking a small win and coming back tomorrow will be the answer. Making the call about what kind of day it is requires my students to rely on my expertise.

When you come to the barn, you are paying for a lesson. You are learning. You aren’t paying for my time to use as you see fit. You’re paying for my expertise on how your animal and you, in that order, are best served and how to progress in this sport.

If you want to be a customer, there are options to be a customer. As long as you are an empathetic horse owner, I support you finding a customer-based program that meets your needs. That is not my program. However, the choice to be a student or a customer is one to be made by adults. I do not believe that junior riders should be customer in any program. Truly learning this sport, in order to make educated decisions about your role in it beyond your junior years, is essential to proper, lifelong empathy and horsemanship.

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06/10/2026

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Anyone can say they are a horse trainer in America. There are countless internet videos of these faux "trainers" attempting to train a horse without knowing how and failing miserably. Our horse world today is focused almost exclusively on appearances. Appearance costs money and money allows untrained, inexperienced people to create an appearance of quality and capability as a professional horse trainer when they are not.

This empowerment from money, combined with younger generations having been raised free from failure in order to preserve their self esteem, has resulted in countless young people being convinced that they know something about training when they know close to nothing. Their lack of skill is exceeded only by their lack of humility. They feel they are always right as they ruin horses one after another.

Here are some basic principles that these pretend horse trainers do not understand.

1) Horse training is about getting the horse to pay attention to you, not you paying attention to the horse.

2) Horse training is not so much about doing things right as it is about not doing something wrong.

3) Horse training is about working through issues, not working around them.

There are other important basics of horse training, but if someone can understand these three fundamental principles and use them effectively, they will be better horse trainers than many so called "professionals" that have the appearance of competence from their pro looking facility that often was purchased by daddy for his princess.

1) Phony horse trainers believe that if they pay attention to an untrained horse, it will do what they ask. In reality paying attention to a horse more than it pays attention to you only convinces horses that they are the leader and above you in the herd hierarchy. The horse then feels encouraged to be the leader and they expect you to follow their leadership. This is dangerous but these "trainers" think that their relationship, based on accommodations of the horse, is building a "connection" when actually they are inviting the horse to be dominant.

2) Horse training is not so much about doing things right as it is about not doing something wrong. Wrong means violating the principles of the horses' culture. Wrong means treating them as something other than a horse. Horses are prey animals when many people think of them as pets like cats or dogs. Horses' conditioning and genetic responses are not at all like cats, dogs or humans that are predators. We must establish leadership with horses, not as predators but rather as horses do. Herd dynamics apply and the trainer is part of the herd.

3) Working through issues, not working around them is so important because if you work around issues, you build a lasting quirk into a horse. Too many horses today are full of quirks. For example, you go to see a horse for sale and the seller explains the horse's quirks, such as he "likes" his bridle put on in a certain accommodating manner and if you don't accommodate, they will act up. Who wants a horse like that? Horses with quirks don't know their job. They know their demands of humans and expect people to follow them, or else.

Lastly in this brief list of basics is time management. Don't work a horse beyond their attention span. Quit while you are ahead. Workarounds are most often the result of rushing to get an immediate outcome. These supposed time savers or workarounds only costs you time later on. Rushing and cutting corners only prolongs the training process. Horse training is pay now or pay later. Either way you must pay, so pay now. Quirks from work arounds ultimately become part of a horse's life forever. Please don't do that to a horse.

*Stay tuned - my next horse training post will be about the words every horse should learn and how to teach them.

06/08/2026

Shouting this one out there............
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The most common mistake in rider development is not moving too slowly. It is moving forward before the current level is genuinely ready to support the next one. It usually happens with the best intentions - an enthusiastic student, a willing horse, an instructor who wants to keep the energy high or a pushy parent. A canter that was introduced before the trot was balanced is a canter built on an unstable base. A jump that came before the flatwork was solid is a jump that is going to reveal that gap every single time something goes slightly wrong. Foundations matter more than most students and some instructors give them credit for. Here is why...

1. Rushing creates problems that take longer to fix than building it right would have taken.

A rider who skips the foundational work does not just plateau earlier, they also develop habits and compensations that become increasingly difficult to unravel the longer they are reinforced. The chair seat that developed because the rider started cantering before their balance was ready. The death grip on the reins that formed because the rider was jumping before they had an independent seat. The horse that became dull, tight, or resistant because it was asked to carry an unbalanced rider through movements it was not yet ready for either. These are not minor inconveniences. They are structural problems built into the riding that require going back to properly address. Remember that it is easier to build a new habit than it is to fix an old one!

2. The horse pays the price when foundations are skipped.

A rider who is not ready for a skill does not just struggle with it themselves but they also communicate that struggle directly to the horse through unclear aids, unbalanced weight, and inconsistent contact. A horse carrying a rider who is not yet ready for the canter does not understand why the balance and communication that worked at the trot has suddenly changed. Over time a horse that is consistently asked to work with a rider above their foundation level becomes confused tense and eventually resistant. Not because the horse has a problem but because nobody set either of them up to succeed.

3. Going back to fix the foundation is not a step backward.

This is the one most students and parents struggle with most. Once a rider has experienced the canter or the jump or the lateral movement going back to walk and trot basics feels like regression. It is not - it is the most direct route forward available. A rider who genuinely masters the fundamentals at each level has something to fall back on when the next level gets hard, a foundation of competence and confidence that holds up under pressure rather than crumbling the moment something goes wrong. Every skill in riding is built on top of something else. Balance before rhythm. Rhythm before contact. Contact before collection. Each layer depends completely on the layer beneath it being solid. Rush the lower layers and every layer above them is unstable. Build them properly and each new skill has something real to stand on.

4. As instructors our job is to create the steps, not just the destination.

The students who get to the exciting milestones and actually stay there are the ones whose instructors built enough small achievable steps between where they started and where they were going that there were no gaps when they arrived. Not just getting them to the canter but also building the balance, the independent seat, the correct leg position, and the feel for the horse's rhythm that makes the canter safe and successful when it comes. Every step forward should feel like a natural extension of the step before it and not a giant leap into something the body and the horse are not yet prepared for.

Good riders are not made by how quickly they reach the milestones, they are made by how solidly they built everything that got them there. Take the time to build the foundation and the milestones will come.

How do you handle the conversation with a student or parent who wants to move faster than the foundation supports?

06/08/2026

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06/05/2026

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06/02/2026

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05/28/2026

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