“You look through pricked ears and see an endless world of possibilities ahead of you. Some are good, and some are bad; but, on the back of a horse, nothing else matters except you and your communication with this animal. It’s a mutually dependent relationship. You need the horse to carry out commands, but you also have to listen to the horse’s body cues and needs so that they can understand and trust you.”

When I first started showing in patterns, I thought that my maneuvers had to be perfect, and the rest of the pattern wasn’t too important. It didn’t matter if my circle was perfectly round or ended on the wrong angle, as long as it looked good and his lope was nice, right? Wrong!

When working on a Trail obstacle warm up, I try not to make more than two or three rotations of any single obstacle. Then, I get out of the way of others. Simply put, doing a drill and kill type of practice does not work for my horse, or I, and we generally only get mad at each other.