I’m not sure who is more stubborn, me, or the horses. I have heard so many “you can’t” do this or that with show horses, with my horses specifically, etc. You can’t turn them out during show season, you can’t work them twice a day, you can’t get on from the correct side or from a mounting block (Duke), you can’t ride him bareback, you can’t ride him just in a halter, you can’t run barrels, you can’t trail ride show horses, especially saddlebreds, they’re too spooky. Excuse me, what? No. We can do anything we want. Don’t tempt me with a good time trying (even if we fail). Which we won’t. Because we’re awesome. And we’re too stubborn to stop trying until we figure it out. Saddlebreds are smart, resilient, brave, and versatile. Despite what people think, they ARE multi purpose. At least mine are. I don’t really give them a choice not to be. 

Many years ago when Fizz first came into my life, I was determined to give him a well rounded education. What I didn’t know is that I would be educating myself along the way. Over the years, I have learned many things outside of the saddleseat background that I grew up in. The key is to take knowledge from any and all places, no matter if you agree or disagree or like or dislike the discipline. There are principles of training in literally every discipline that you can use to make your horse better. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t believe that teaching them things outside of their intended use is going to make them less good at their primary job. 

From saddleseat to dressage, to jumping, to reining, to barrels, to trail riding and everything in between, there’s something in each and every one that can help build your horse. I do the same exact job every working day and it makes me bored as all hell. What makes us think our horses don’t like variety? I know from my experience the happiest my horses are, is when they aren’t asked to do the exact same things every single day. The least happy they are (or at least Fizz was) is when I was doing the same thing day in and day out hoping to make a saddleseat horse out of him in the very beginning. That is all I knew. The best thing I ever did for him and for me is to open my eyes and learn. Most importantly, HAVE FUN.

Am I saying you have to trail ride if you don’t want to? No. Am I saying you have to take lessons in dressage? No. Am I saying you should run out and set up jumps and jump them? Absolutely not. But certainly don’t discount the training principles of the disciplines other than yours and give some solid thought to the ideas behind them, how they can help your horse(s). You have the option to try, and if you don’t like it or it doesn’t seem to work well for you, the beauty of life is that you can choose to discontinue doing something whenever you want. True that consistency and repetition is how horses learn, but once the basics are covered I am a FIRM believer in that horses adapt very easily to different things. The consistency comes in your handling. You keep your contact the same in their mouth, your cues stay the same no matter what job they are doing, you have the same basic rules and they can adapt to any task at hand. It’s OK for them to question it but at the end of the day, they should rely on you and trust you to support them in the same ways you always do and they can overcome any obstacle.  

Enjoy these photos of the boys doing many different things. SUCCESSFULLY.