California Spark

09/25/2026

A Misrepresentation of Good Relationships, and Basic Safety

There can be a mystique out there from our heroes, who are so deeply in tune with nature and the horse, that they can cast aside safety protocols we know has kept our forefathers alive long enough to reproduce (hence our existence). They seem to be able to cast aside the basics of physics, the laws of nature, and reality itself at times. An adoring public can easily believe that their connection with horses is so great, they need no shoes and no shirt to be served up a healthy helping of equine love.

What people are up to in their personal lives is really none of my business. But what becomes concerning to me is the perception over time, from so many images of romanticized relationship projecting unsafe practices as superior, that the public comes to believe requiring safe measures as a failing of relationship. Should you need to hold your lead rope in a way that doesn't wrap around your neck, it means your horse doesn't love you. Wearing shoes in your pasture means you aren't grounded with nature and don't desire to connect into your horse's unique manure imprint. Not sticking your head between your horse's hind legs means they don't trust you and you don't trust them, and rejecting the notion of a moonlight ride on psychedelics means you must be a pretty poor rider and an unspiritual person at large.

Conversely, I say that loving your horse means respecting physics and the laws of nature, as a being governed by both. Loving your horse means being lucid enough to guide them. Desiring a good relationship with your horse means being a steward who sees things clearly, and that even the best, most loving relationship between man and horse includes the reality of stomping at flies and a large head swinging randomly toward an itch. Even the most idyllic situation can leave a foot crushed, a lead rope entangled, and a horse deeply frightened by what he should have never experienced.

It's all well and good to love your horse, and in fact, I highly reccomend it. But loving your horse should not put amateurs in peril by poor example, nor guilt people into removing barriers for safety between themselves and 1200 lb animals. They know we are humans and not horses - believing they think we're one of them simply by taking off our clothes and getting down on hands and knees to eat hay with them is a pretty dismal look at the intelligence of a horse, I'd say.

Love your horse. Trust your horse, if you've done your homework. But if you like your horse, don't traumatize them with the act of squashing your head between their hind legs. If it isn't important enough for you to keep your head out of places it shouldn't go, consider how it might ruin their day to do it.

Which one of these horses playing thinks the other is really a human on psychedelics?

05/13/2026

If we seek control, we will be shown just how much we do not have it.

If we seek harmony within the natural world, we will surely find it.

A student asked me recently about a horse’s behavior on a cold, windy morning. We were riding much earlier than normal, and the weather was brisk. She was feisty and energetic.

“Shouldn’t this work make a horse reliable?” he asked me.

It’s a very valid question. Good work should make a horse more consistent, but at the end of the day, a horse is still a horse, governed by natural principles far more deeply rooted than human desire can ever fully reach.

Heat cycles, weather, the strong need for safety and security, the need for a herd, their natural psychology — these things can never truly be overridden. Yet surely we try, and we are constantly sold methods and products that promise to do that.

We use medications to interfere with cycles. We carefully manage turnout and herd dynamics. We use artificial lighting to prevent winter hair growth. We create all kinds of systems we believe are clever enough to make horses more predictable, more manageable, more convenient for human expectations. We see and practice training methods that promise obedience with just a few simple, repeated steps.

But these instincts are ancient, strong, and beautiful. They can be suppressed, but never completely eradicated. They burrow underground and emerge elsewhere — in tension, anxiety, explosiveness, shutdown, illness, or quiet unhappiness.

Nothing is truly under our control.

We can work within the nature of the horse. We can help them feel secure with us. We can make their bodies feel balanced and comfortable beneath the rider. We can provide consistency, clarity, and emotional steadiness so they reliably seek the same place within us day after day.

But true horsemanship is not the art of overpowering a horse’s nature.

It is the art of understanding it so deeply that we learn to move within it.

We study their instincts, sensitivities, rhythms, and desires for safety and connection until our timing, energy, and expectations begin harmonizing with theirs instead of constantly opposing them. A good horseman does not force a horse to stop being a horse. He learns how to blend into the horse’s nature so the horse no longer feels trapped in a battle against him.

We can guide a horse, influence them, support them. But we can never replace the instincts nature placed there, and it would be folly to believe a single human could ever replace a horse’s need for a herd.

And perhaps this is part of what horses are here to teach us.

If we truly love horses — and not merely the illusion of power and control we are so often tempted by — then why would we wish to strip away the very thing they have symbolized to humanity for centuries?

Freedom. Wildness. Life lived honestly within nature itself.

Perhaps what draws us to horses so deeply is not our desire to dominate nature, but our longing to return to it ourselves.

A horse reminds us that we are natural beings too, with rhythms and cycles dictated not entirely by us, but by something much larger than ourselves. We are not separate from nature, nor masters over it. We are part of it.

We can either move within that greater current, or spend our lives exhausted from fighting against it — grasping desperately for small fistfuls of control that inevitably crumble in our hands.

02/13/2026

Murieta Equestrian Center stands with the UC Davis Equestrian and the entire Aggie equestrian community. This is bigger than one team. This is about protecting the future of our sport.
https://www.change.org/p/reinstate-the-uc-davis-d1-ncea-equestrian-team

09/22/2025

🚨 ALERT - MAJOR CALL TO ACTION
Calling all San Diego county horse folk and all livestock owners!!
The San Diego/ Del Mar fairgrounds is updating their long range plans,
“ the New Master Site plan 2050”
The fairgrounds has been large incident livestock evacuation center since its inception.
We need to insure this property is not lost for evacuations for our county.
THIS IS IMMINENT .
There are 6 meetings for public input throughout the county, starting October 1st through November 18th.
They are asking for public imput!
PLEASE ATTEND ONE OR MORE of these 6 meetings.

02/24/2025

Edited Press Release One CSI5* win wasn’t enough for Kent Farrington (USA), who walked away with another on Sunday in the $62,500 Hermès CSI5* 1.50m Classic to close out Week 7 of the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF). Aboard Grass de Mars, Farrington proved he has another top contender coming up ...

08/26/2024

06/18/2024

Today is Veterinary Appreciation Day! Join us in celebrating all the veterinary professionals that help our animals (especially our horses) live long, happy and healthy lives.

If you are looking for ways to say “thank you” to your veterinary team, there are plenty of options — like delivering fresh coffee and treats, leaving a paws-itive online review, or writing a thank you note. You could even Google a fun craft project to make a personalized gift! However, it’s very possible that the best way to thank your horse doctors and equine vet techs is to make their job easier. Some small things can make the biggest difference, like being understanding if the vet is running late; making sure your horse is caught and groomed before the arrival of the veterinarian; training your horse to be well-behaved during the visit; following the veterinarian’s advice and keeping an open line of communication so problems can be addressed quickly, etc.

No matter how you choose to say thank you today, there is no doubt you will brighten your vet team’s day!