Responsible Horsemanship

These pictures of equine nostrils provide accurate information on a horse's breathing and wind capacity in the moment. The left image reflects relaxed normal breathing. The center image is of dilated or flared nostrils that are opened more than usual in order to provide increased airflow to the lungs required by greater exertion.

The right image shows a horse fully dilated and showing pink inside the nostril. The pink reflects the intense blood flow to the respiratory system during very demanding work. It is not a good idea to keep a horse in such intense work for long periods when the nostrils are flared and pink as shown.

I have an interesting cultural observation regarding sharing nostril information with other riders about their horse. Years ago, when out riding in a group such as fox hunting it was considered a courtesy to tell a fellow rider if you saw their horse's nostrils fully dilated and pink. The usual response was, "Thank you". The last time I went hunting I shared that information with a rider who became offended and essentially told me to mind my own business. Times and people have changed.

I suggest that today if you feel your horse is breathing heavily, that you ask someone to look at your horse's nostrils and tell you what they see.

The way to avoid highly flared nostrils and flared nostrils showing pink is to build fitness in your horses. There is an old saying, "Trotting builds muscle and cantering builds wind". Canter more.

Things your riding instructor wants you to know:
1. This sport is hard. You don't get to bypass the hard…..every good rider has gone through it. You make progress, then you don't, and then you make progress again. Your riding instructor can coach you through it, but they cannot make it easy.

2. You're going to ride horses you don't want to ride. If you're teachable, you will learn from every horse you ride. Each horse in the barn can teach you if you let them. IF YOU LET THEM. Which leads me to…

3. You MUST be teachable to succeed in this sport. You must be teachable to succeed at anything, but that is another conversation. Being teachable often means going back to basics time and time and time again. If you find basics boring, then your not looking at them as an opportunity to learn. Which brings me to…..

4. This sport is a COMMITMENT. Read that, then read it again. Every sport is a commitment, but in this sport your teammate weighs 1200 lbs and speaks a different language. Good riders don't get good by riding every once in awhile….they improve because they make riding a priority and give themsevles opportunity to practice.

5. EVERY RIDE IS AN OPPORTUNITY. Even the walk ones. Even the hard ones. Every. Single. Ride. Remember when you just wished someone would lead you around on a horse? Find the happiness in just being able to RIDE. If you make every ride about what your AREN'T doing, you take the fun out of the experience for yourself, your horse, and your instructor. Just enjoy the process. Which brings me to...

6. Riding should be fun. It is work. and work isn't always fun.....but if you (or your rider) are consistently choosing other activities or find yourself not looking forward to lessons, it's time to take a break. The horses already know you don't want to be here, and you set yourself up for failure if you are already dreading the lesson before you get here.

7. You'll learn more about horses from the ground than you ever will while riding. That's why ground lessons are important, too. If you're skipping ground lessons (or the part of your lesson that takes place on the ground), you're missing out on the most important parts of the lesson. You spend far more time on the ground with horses than you do in the saddle.

8. Ask questions and communicate. If you're wondering why your coach is having you ride a particular horse or do an exercise, ask them. Then listen to their answer and refer to #3 above.

9. We are human beings. We make decisions (some of them life and death ones) every day. We balance learning for students with workloads for horses and carry the bulk of this business on our shoulders. A little courtesy goes a long way.

Of all the sports your child will try through their school years, riding is one of 3 that they may continue regularly as adults (golf and skiing are the others). People who coach riding spend the better part of their free time and much of their disposable income trying to improve their own riding and caring for the horses who help teach your child. They love this sport and teaching others…..but they all have their limits. Not all good riders are good coaches, but all good coaches will tell you that the process to get good is not an easy one.

*thank you to whoever wrote this! Not my words, but certainly a shared sentiment!

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Quote of the Day - "There are lots of people I admire and respect, but I don't necessarily want to be like them. I'm too happy being myself... Being myself is what got me to where I am." Amen!

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Listen, we see hundreds of EHV-1 positive horses a year through auctions. EHV-1 its self is not scary, it’s an upper respiratory infection. Most stud farms have out breaks, that’s why they vaccinate mares for “Rhino” religiously. What makes EHV-1 scary, is it CAN mutate to EHM. Horses who contract EHM become neurological and some recover and some do not. (This is the same for EPM, some horses recover without side effects, some have life long side effects, and some don’t make it).

If you’re concerned about hauling places, it’s so important to have a healthy immune system to begin with.

EHM is scary. It’s not a joke. It’s not something to “ignore”.

But, you can do things to keep your horses safe.

1. Vaccinate during stress free times. Don’t wait until you’re hauling and your horse is stressed to vaccinate. Do it during the less stressful season for your horse.

2. If you’re going to a big 3+ day show, or going on a rodeo run, EquiStim is a great product. We give this to EVERY SINGLE HORSE WE BUY, as soon as they step off the truck, this is a great immune stimulator, it also is the only thing we give to horses with strangles.

3. Zesterra is a great product to give daily. It helps keep a horse drinking, it helps their stomach, and it helps keep their immune system supported.

4. We feed supplements with Lysine and Zinc, to the horses we haul. We’ve been told by more than one vet that lysine and zinc are two key products to building their immune system.

I buy over 1,500 horses a year to sell to the public and I have since 2012. I’ve been in the top 5 largest equine bonded brokerages in the US, per P&S / USDA since 2015. So, I unfortunately “know ball” when it comes to sickness.

I’ve managed to never have a EHV-1 outbreak and I’ve managed to never have a strangled outbreak despite buying horses with both, at different times. Quarantine, proper hygiene and precautions are important - but having your horses vaccinated, and their immune systems built up are the most import essential keys to preventing your horse(s) from getting sick.

What we don’t hear enough people say openly is that strangles, EHV-1, and other viruses are present at ALL major horse events. Horses are silent carriers, so you can’t blame anyone person because it maybe you hauling a carrier around without knowing and that’s just part of livestock.

I want to be realistic with the public and horse people. I am tired of the crazies online blaming and shaming, where people are afraid to openly talk about tough subjects like sickness for fear of being attacked.

We need to be smart, and being smart comes with education, and how can you be educated if people who have dealt with something (a lot), are silenced and shamed into believing their going to be blamed if they speak up.

I get shamed every time I turn around, because I openly discuss strangles. But, the fact is I have managed to buy hundreds of horses with strangles and never have I ever lost one (praise the Lord), and I quarantine heavily - my staff is educated - and I have managed to prevent my daughters horses who live here from ever being infected so clearly I do know something.

I want people to take EHV-1 serious, take Strangles serious, but don’t be afraid. I see a lot of FEAR online and I think it’s because Facebook gives people who have maybe 1-2 horses a platform to be a professional and they’re scared; they don’t have the knowledge or tools to handle strangles, they don’t know how to prevent or treat EHV-1. So, they are scared. It’s okay to be scared but it’s also to be educated and know that generally EHV-1 comes, and goes quickly. EHM is scary, and it can go bad quickly. But, it’s potenial to be out there - is at every event.

EHV-1 is present everywhere you go. And horses who have recently been vaccinated and horses with the slightest compromised immune system due to stress or gastric tract issues - are more likely to mutate to EHM.

So, in short vaccinate during stress free seasons. Keep their guts in good shape - ulcer care is important. And do everything you can to build their immune systems especially around stressful times.

** Below is a gelding who is fully quarantined and ready to find a home, but he battled a horrible upper respiratory infection and had to be isolated. Now look how good he looks and he has gained a ton of muscle.

Good morning. Here's your great read for the day!

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Fear of Failure.
I’ve got three rules that sit at the very top of my training program, and they don’t change no matter what horse is in my barn or what level of training we’re working on.

Rule 1: I don’t get hurt.
Rule 2: The horse doesn’t get hurt.
Rule 3: One of us must learn something.

Most folks nod their head at the first two because they sound obvious. And they are. But that third rule is the one that separates a productive day from a wasted one, and it’s also the one that forces us to tell the truth about what really happened in the ride.

Because here’s the easy part: it feels good when we clearly see the horse learn something. The horse softens. The horse tries. The horse gets it. The horse repeats it. That’s the part that feeds our ego in a healthy way. We get to say, “Look what I taught him,” and sometimes we even get to feel like we’re a little smarter than we were this morning.

But the harder part—the part that serves you for life—is when the horse didn’t learn what you wanted, and you realize you learned something instead.

And most of the time, what we learn sounds a lot like this:

“Don’t do that again that way.”

That kind of learning feels like a bite out of a humble pie, and it can sting your pride because it’s not the kind of lesson you can post a victory lap about. It’s not pretty. It doesn’t come with a ribbon. It doesn’t come with applause. It comes with an uncomfortable moment where you recognize that you made a decision that didn’t work, or you asked a question at the wrong time, or you pushed too hard, or you didn’t prepare the foundation enough, or you let your emotions get ahead of your timing.

And at first, that can feel like failure.

But I’m going to say something that a lot of people don’t want to hear: that kind of “failure” is one of the best things that can happen to you.

Because real failure in horse training isn’t “that didn’t go like I planned.”
Real failure is refusing to learn.
Real failure is blaming the horse for everything.
Real failure is being so scared of looking wrong that you never grow right.

I’ve learned over the years that most of what holds people back—whether it’s in a show pen, in training, or in life—is not the lack of knowledge. It’s not the lack of talent. It’s not even the lack of opportunity.

It’s the fear of failure.

That fear will put a cap on you. It’ll keep you small. It’ll keep you doing the same safe stuff over and over again because the safe stuff protects your ego. The safe stuff keeps you from getting embarrassed. The safe stuff keeps you from having to admit you don’t know everything. The safe stuff keeps you comfortable.

But comfort is expensive. It costs you growth.

And here’s the part I wish everybody would really let sink in:

The fear of something is almost always worse than the actual thing.

People build failure up in their head like it’s going to be this catastrophic event—like it’s going to expose them, ruin them, prove they don’t belong, prove they aren’t good enough, prove they don’t deserve to be doing what they’re doing.

But most of the time, when you finally take a deep breath and do the thing you’re afraid of… you don’t fail at all.

You might struggle.
You might wobble.
You might not get the result you wanted on the first try.

But that isn’t failure. That’s feedback. That’s data. That’s information you didn’t have before.

And even if it really does go sideways, even if it truly does not work out like you pictured it in your head, you still didn’t lose—because if you follow Rule 3, you learned something.

And if you learned something, you’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re not exposed. You’re not defeated.

You’re becoming.

I want people to understand this: the goal is not to be perfect. The goal is to be honest enough to learn and brave enough to try again. The goal is to be the kind of horseman who can look at a rough moment and say, “Alright. That’s not how I’m going to do that next time.”

Because that sentence is powerful. That sentence is growth.

And here’s what happens when you truly embrace that mindset: doors open.

When you stop treating “failure” like a life sentence and start treating it like a teacher, you start doing things you used to talk yourself out of. You start trying exercises you were afraid to try. You start working through holes in your program instead of hiding them. You stop needing to look perfect, and you start needing to get better.

And when you do that, you grow into things you never dreamed were possible.

I’ve lived that.

I’ll give you a real example that has nothing to do with a lead change or a stop or a cow work maneuver, but has everything to do with the same mindset.

When I was considering doing my live training videos on YouTube, that fear of failure absolutely tried to grab ahold of me.

I got asked a question that sounded simple but carried a lot of weight:

“What if what you’re doing doesn’t go good?”

Now think about that for a second. Because that question is the voice inside a lot of people’s head every day. That question is why people don’t enter the show pen. That question is why people don’t take lessons. That question is why people don’t start colts. That question is why people don’t haul out alone. That question is why people don’t try the new job, don’t start the business, don’t apply, don’t audition, don’t post the video, don’t step up, don’t take the risk.

“What if it doesn’t go good?”

And I had to lean back on Rule 3 and remind myself what kind of horseman I am and what kind of teacher I want to be.

If it doesn’t go good… then we talk about what went wrong.
We break it down.
We learn from it.
We learn together.

Because that’s real horsemanship. That’s real training. That’s real leadership.

I’m not here to pretend everything is always smooth and picture perfect. Horses aren’t robots, and neither are we. I’m here to show what it looks like to stay safe, keep the horse safe, and keep learning no matter what the ride hands you.

That’s why the fear of failure doesn’t get to run the show.

I’m not saying I don’t feel it. I’m saying I don’t obey it.

And if you’re reading this and you’ve been held back by that same fear—whether it’s fear of failing in the arena, fear of failing in training, fear of failing in front of people, fear of failing in life—I want you to hear me clearly:

The fear is lying to you.

It’s telling you that failure is the end.
But failure, handled right, is often the beginning.

Because one “failure” followed by honesty and effort will teach you more than a hundred safe, careful, boring rides where you never challenge anything.

So here’s what I want to leave you with today:

If you follow the rules—if you keep yourself safe, keep the horse safe, and commit to learning—then you don’t have to fear failure the way you think you do.

You can respect it. You can take it seriously. You can make good decisions.

But you don’t have to be controlled by it.

Try the thing.
Take the step.
Do the work.
Be willing to learn.

And if it doesn’t go exactly how you wanted the first time, don’t call that failure.

Call it training.

Because training—real training—is built on thousands of small moments where you learn, adjust, and try again.

And that next try… a whole lot of times… is the success you were looking for all along.