High Standards Stables

10/03/2026

People often ask why our young ponies live out so much when they have big competition careers ahead of them. The field is where those careers start.

Every day turned out, our youngsters are building:

- Strong bones and tendons. Running, turning and playing on natural ground strengthens their bodies in ways a stable never can.
- Balance and footwork. Hills, dips and uneven ground teach them where their feet are long before they meet their first fence.
- Healthy tummies. Grazing all day keeps their digestion working the way nature intended.
- Calm, confident minds. Living with a herd teaches manners, patience and resilience, which pay off at busy shows and in hectic warm-up rings.

Our goal is ponies who are still sound, happy and loving their job well into their teens, and that starts right here with mud, grass and good friends

09/26/2026

09/08/2026

In a barn, there is almost always a faster way to do something.

You can get on without thinking much about how your weight lands on the horse’s back. You can rush through grooming. You can decide that “good enough” is good enough for today. But Archie Cox sees the long-term cost in that approach.

A National Horse Show Hall of Fame horseman who has spent more than 25 years running Brookway Stables and has coached dozens of riders to national championships, Cox believes doing things correctly from the beginning may take more time, but it creates skills riders can rely on for the rest of their lives.

“It takes longer to teach someone to do something correctly,” Cox said during a live Plaidcast conversation at the Savannah College of Art and Design. “But once you have it correct, you move on to the next task.”

One of Cox’s clearest examples comes from a lesson many years ago. He watched a student get on a medium pony and simply flop down onto its back. She was ready to start the lesson. Cox was not.

“We spent 40 minutes getting off, getting on, getting off, getting on,” he recalled.

He broke the mounting process down into pieces: knees, toes, allowing the horse to gradually take the rider’s weight, finding the stirrup, and lowering into the saddle correctly.

It would have been much faster to overlook it and start jumping. Instead, Cox used nearly the entire lesson to fix one basic skill. “She now wins Grand Prixs,” he said, “and she knows how to get on.”

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/09/08/doing-it-right-takes-longer/
📸 © Heather N. Photography

09/06/2026

There is only one winner in most horse show classes. That means even very successful riders spend a lot of time not winning. For Ava Stearns, learning how to handle that reality became an important part of her own riding career and, later, part of the perspective she brings to her work as a commentator.

“This is a sport where you’re going to lose more than you win,” Stearns said on episode 483 of The Plaidcast. “And if you don’t figure out how to lose and how to lose effectively, you’re not gonna get better.”

Stearns has competed on some of the biggest stages in equitation, including winning the Maclay Finals and finishing near the top in other national championships. She is also quick to point out that she has made mistakes on those same stages. “I’ve made mistakes on every national stage you can do so,” she said.

That experience shapes the way she talks about riders during broadcasts. She knows how exposed a mistake can feel at a major championship, especially for a junior rider competing at that level for the first or second time. A missed distance or disappointing round can suddenly feel enormous because it happened in front of a crowd, judges, trainers, family, and everyone watching the livestream.

Stearns wants riders to remember that mistakes are normal. “It happens to the best riders in the world,” she said. One imperfect round is not unusual, and it is not proof that a rider does not belong at that level.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/09/05/youre-going-to-lose-more-than-you-win-so-learn-how-to-lose-well/

09/02/2026

"This is why your turn does not come from pulling on the rein. Note the riders hand and leg position and hip angle in each sketch. Note the development of the horses muscles in each sketch. Note the shape of the horse in each sketch. A truly supple, truly bent horse is working through their entire body. It is OUR job as the rider to guide the horse to become soft, supple, and through in all movements.

Rider one is pulling the nose around, and trying to push the haunches in, with a following outside rein offering the horse no balance, and a hardly supportive inside leg to wrap around. This has created a rigid, stiff horse that will surely be back sore, weak in the hind end, with front end bulk in all the wrong places. This horse has every opportunity, and will likely be so uncomfortable that it will try every time, to run out of his right shoulder.

Rider two is pushing the horse from his inside leg to his outside rein. The outside rein is providing a balance point for the horse, allowing him to be both comfortable and willing to carry himself. Because the riders rein is supportive and blocking the shoulder, the horse can not blow out the shoulder, and can only become truly bent along the entire length of the spine.

In order to build the athlete you want, and to allow your horse the opportunity to have a long, successful, and most importantly SOUND career, it is important to understand how we ride, even in seemingly simple tasks such as the walk or trotting circles, is effecting each muscle in your horses body. Not all muscle is good muscle!" - Ali Hamann South Coast Sport Horses LLC.

09/02/2026

If you want a village, you have to be a villager.

Villager duties may include (but are not limited to 😆):

Rescuing your friends and their horses when they break down on the side of the road.

Feeding your friend’s horses when they’re sick, hurt, out of town, or simply having one of those weeks where everything has gone epically wrong.

Having a coffee waiting for your vet, trainer, farrier when they come, because there is a reasonable chance they have been awake too long.

Answering the “does this look swollen to you?” text, usually accompanied by six nearly identical pictures.

Loaning out a piece of tack.

Picking something up at the feed store because you’re already going.

Standing at the end of the arena to video someone’s test.

Celebrating someone else’s success without needing it to diminish your own.

Showing up when things are considerably less fun, too.

Because I think we all love the idea of having a village. We want people who show up for us, cheer for us, help when things go sideways, answer the phone, lend the trailer, hold the horse, bring the coffee, and make this occasionally ridiculous way of life a little easier.

But villages aren’t something we simply find.

They’re something we participate in.

You build one every time you inconvenience yourself a little bit for somebody else. Every time you show up when there’s nothing in it for you. Every time you celebrate someone else’s good news, make their bad day a little easier, or quietly do the thing that needs done.

All people need villages, but especially horse people. There are too many heavy things, expensive things, unpredictable animals, long days, and moments when two hands simply aren’t enough to do this entirely alone.

So find good people, absolutely.

But be one of the good people, too.

If you want a village, you have to be a villager. ❤️