Author: Lynn Reardon Page 3 of 4

A fun strategy for right now is to set a 90-day goal. Make sure it’s one that you find genuinely exciting — and that fits in your overall horse plans for the future. What are the things that you always wished you had time to study or learn or get better at? Because what’s good about now is that we ALL have lots more time on our hands. And we have the luxury of slowing down. So many big gains in performance come from slowing down to get things right first.

Not sure what to pick as a goal? Try this exercise. Sit down and write out ALL your goals related to horses and riding. Every single one. Even the one about riding in the Olympics or the Calgary Stampede. Put them all on paper. Then read them over and pick the three that excite you the most. Don’t worry about the current weird spring break — just pick those three.

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“In all the things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The secret in riding is to do only a few things but to do them right.”

Nuno Oliveira

What is the key to simplicity? Awareness.

Simplicity and awareness go hand in hand. You get to the essentials, the only things that matter. There is a confidence in that. For you and your horse.

If you are aware, you can see the heart of the matter. The foundation becomes clear.

Just like in a house. You could look at a house and see many things. The porch design. The décor. The color of the shutters. The size of the bathrooms.

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“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

Gilbert C. Chesterton

For me, Thanksgiving is the holiday of food, fellowship and good cheer. It’s a day where I give myself full permission to sit back and enjoy the things I love the most. When I had a full-time office career (back in my Washington DC days), Thanksgiving meant a day with my horses. Back then, a trip to the boarding barn meant a two-hour round trip (often longer, thanks to DC traffic). To fly down empty roads on a weekday was a rare treat.

Things have changed since then. My commute is a five-minute walk to my own barn. Horses fill my days. They are my office now. My job is all about working with horses, helping horses and taking care of horses. But they are still in my life entirely for my pleasure – for my learning and delight.

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For me, Horse Wise began in 2007. Back then, I was running a racehorse adoption ranch and blogging about my experiences. Whenever I would write about a key lesson that a horse taught me, I would tag the post as “Horse Wise.” From that beginning, Horse Wise has evolved into a coaching and teaching service for people and horses.

My history with horses started with learning to ride as an adult (in weekly group riding lessons). A full-time office worker with a normal job, I soon found horses taking over more and more of my life (including a memorable volunteer stint with a mounted Park Police unit). Eventually, I moved from Washington DC to Texas and started the racehorse adoption charity, LOPE. The ex-racehorses provided me with an incredible education about horses, horsemanship and life itself.

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Over the course of my work, I’ve met many horse owners entrenched in the grip of horsemanship fail patterns. None of them intend to create situations that set their horses up for failure. But because they are unaware of their actions, they simply don’t see the habits they perpetuate with their horses and riding routines.

The best way to illustrate this principle is to create ridiculously exaggerated parodies of horse owner types who do this. So we can safely mock them while surreptitiously assessing if we’ve made similar mistakes with our horses.

That way, everyone wins.

So, without further ado, here are the Horse Wise Top Eight #HorsemanshipFail Owner Categories.

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