Ahh, home sweet home! I've slept in my own bed 5 nights now with my wonderful hubby at my side, and been awakened by our army of cats each morning--life is good. My boys were so happy to be home that Taffy actually trotted all the way down the aisle to his stall! A day or two after getting home, they went out into their huge fields and looked totally content and happy munching on our winter grass. They thought FL was just an awful lot of work and that maybe being home meant less strenuous work...ah, were they wrong!

I was surprised by the number of people who were aware that we traveled home the day that the horrendous storms moved through the Midwest. I received numerous emails, phone calls and Facebook messages asking if we made it ok. Only by the grace of God and a whole lot of luck did we make it home totally unscathed! We left Wellington at 6:30 AM on March 1st and heard rumors of the storm system moving through Illinois leaving behind tons of damage. Unlike our misadventures heading to Florida, that first day of our return trip couldn't have gone any smoother. In fact, at lunch, I asked Lenny his opinion of not stopping at our planned overnight facility in Unidilla, GA, and just driving straight through to Chattanooga where we had to drop off Crescendo. He mulled the idea over, we took a vote and confirmed that Sondra could house all our horses that night. Considering the impending storm, we all decided that the 16 hours on the road was worth getting further north to hopefully get in front of the storm system.

All went well, and the horses settled in around midnight. We were up and shuttling the first load of horses by 6:30 AM to the big trailer parked just down the road from the farm. We got on the road by 7:30 and had my mom and Natalie's dad, Jim, watching various radars all day long. My mom had a massive prayer chain going, literally world-wide (thanks to Facebook), and it really did feel like we were living in the midst of a miracle as we watched on our smart phones that our path straight up I-75 kept clearing out just before we got there. If you had been watching the radar on Friday, you would certainly have noticed that there was a distinct front edge, and break, then a back edge to the storm system. We stayed in that break all the way from Chattanooga to DHF! We only had about 30 minutes worth of rain and 10 minutes of heavy downpour in the Tennessee mountains. We even had enough time to unload the horses, unpack the trailers into the aisles and drive the camper home before the winds and rain picked up. It was very surreal to watch the videos that evening of all the devastation left in the path of that storm system in places we had just been and would have been during the storm had we stuck to our original plan. This return trip more than makes up for the stressful trip down there.

Both of my boys went back into light work on Monday, then back to pretty much their normal routine on Tuesday. I am pleasantly surprised that the daily progress we made in Florida continues here and I'm loving dancing with my boys in front of my mirrors. Sunset's changes are getting even closer to "normal" (that means that his back feet aren't necessarily always reaching higher than my head anymore) and he is starting to get piaffe and lifting his front legs to touch the stick in hand. Taffy had a major breakthrough in his trot work today and lifted his entire forehand up dramatically which enabled him to lift his forearms to horizontal! He apparently saw Paragon and is trying to figure out how to do that--whoo-hoo!! He also started lifting in the canter and did the most consistent flying change work he's done to date! Riding these two is like a dream!

I've had several people ask me if I showed while down there or why I didn't. I wanted to focus on training on this first trip, and did we! We all progressed at least 6 -10 month's worth in 2 months! Before I left, Heather told me she wants me to plan to come back next winter and hopefully bring both out at PSG down there-so next year we will show. We did attend shows and I am very comfortable that we will be competitive there, and I love the show facilities and amazing footing!I've also been asked how riding with Heather compares to riding with Mary. Heather is very RWYM focused, but from a competition-centric perspective. It was incredible to put the biomechanic pieces together to build a complete picture. Very rarely did Heather say anything about my position, mostly we worked on timing, responsiveness, and always improving ridability. She did spend a lot more time on position with every other rider I saw her teach, so that made me feel really good. And, I was fortunate to have Mary there for my last lesson with Heather and Mary confirmed, at Heather's request, that Heather hadn't missed or overlooked anything!! 

I was fortunate enough to work with Alfredo Hernandez with both boys for 3 days and learned a lot about ground work. Alfredo was with the Spanish Riding School for something like 8 years and now does clinics around the country working with our top riders (Steffen Peters, Heather, etc.) on improving their horses' piaffe and passage. My boys both have benefited greatly from working with Alfredo. I worked with Alfredo a couple of years ago at a RWYM Teacher Training at Sandy Howard's barn in California, but with one of Sandy's horses. I brought what I learned then home to horses at DHF and saw marked improvement from that initial work. My new found knowledge and understanding of timing has already made drastic improvements in my boys and I use the in hand work with them everyday before I get on as a warm up.

I can't wait to go back next year! Every day since we've been home, my boys are still improving in leaps and bounds. I'm excited that Mary will be here next weekend and that Heather is going to continue teaching me regularly via our live-streaming video capability. 2012 is shaping up to be a fantastic year!! 

Taffy now has a super cool piaffe that happens "almost" every time I ask where he actually sits down and carries weight behind instead of just bouncing his croup in the air.  His passage is now much improved in the same way.  Sunset's starting to understand flying changes, he just does them with panache--he thinks they're extra fun/fancy with a kick straight out the back! Sunset now has the most impressive medium canter and trot he's ever had and we just found a super collected walk and Taffy has discovered how to do collected canter in an uphill frame which allows him to do more fun things like pirouettes!

Our count down to coming home has started--we have two weeks left and I feel that I've accomplished everything I wanted to with my boys, even with Taffy's 3 week set back from his eye surgery. He's been back in full work for a week already--a week ahead of schedule, and is doing great! The only training areas I feel I haven't been able to focus on enough yet are flying changes with Taffy and piaffe with Sunset, so those will probably be our foci for our remaining two weeks. 

Have I mentioned recently how much I love my boys? As I type this at my camper's kitchen table, I'm gazing out the picture window at my gorgeous beefcake boys with their rippling toplines, impressively round necks, chiseled heads and shiny coats.  I can't believe I actually own horses like those I've spent my career admiring from a distance under some other rider and wondering what it must be like to call a horse of that quality their own! I can tell you now from experience, that it's an amazing
feeling to own horses like Sunset and Taffy and that everyday, no exaggeration, one or both of them literally takes my breath away. Even now, just relaxing in the paddocks, they are spectacular creatures. I am extremely blessed to have them.

I love it down here, but I miss my farm, clients, friends, house cats, parents, and most of all, my wonderful hubby back home. Before coming down here, we talked about extending our stay to 3 months next year, but as of right now, I'm really happy with 2 months. With Heather's help, I've been able to dramatically advance my boys' training and my understanding of deeper layers of the onion than I even knew existed. I can envision coming for 3 months once I start competing down here, so that I could have a month or so for training with Heather and then the rest of the time for show prep and showing, but I think that if I come again for just training, 2 months is perfect.

I'm so excited to come home and bring all my new knowledge back to my clients and horses back home. The advancement in my training down here will have a ripple effect all the way down through the ranks at DHF, from my apprentices all the way down to the regular lesson client. Even more exciting, within a couple weeks of my return, Mary will return to DHF! So much to look forward to in chilly March in Lebanon, OH! 

I'm soooo excited! Taffy's back in lessons again and is, seriously, better than ever!! Sunset worked so hard last week, we decided to give him a couple days off, so we decided to bring Taffy to my lesson with Heather on Sat and work on mostly walk with a little trot sprinkled in since the vet limited to only 5-7 mins of trot per day. Saturday morning, when I told the vet that Taffy was so insane in the paddocks that we can't catch him in time to stop all his cavorting and leaping since he's super fit and not doing anything athletic to work off some energy, he said I could increase his undersaddle trot work to 15 minutes. So, we headed to Heather's that afternoon excited to be able to increase his work load 14 days after surgery. 

The vet is still really impressed with his healing--normally, the horse wouldn't be as healed as he is by now. The vet said that on average he would not be ready to be back in full work until February 14, but it looks like he is well on his way to being back in full work several days before that, which means he's following the optimal healing timeline instead of the average timeline! Other than having a lavage tube running through his eye lid, and a final stitch in the back corner in his eyelid, you would not know looking from the outside that anything is wrong with him. His eye is functioning normally and he looks very comfy and happy which is how we determine how much work he can handle because the increased blood pressure in his eye could make it really uncomfortable.

He was amazing at Heather's. We both were astonished that he was more obedient, submissive, through, organized, and all around a better partner than ever before! He actually experimented enough with his balance and legs to figure out piaffe for the first time!!! It was so fantastic to experience him figuring it out as if he was "logic-ing" through the problem.

When I reported to his vet that his eye looked the best it has since the surgery after his increased workload, he was thrilled and decided to put me in charge of his training regimen and he'd just be in charge of his eye :-) When we went back to Heather's on Sunday, we added a little canter work and did tons of real piaffe and then actually backed off from piaffe to doing controlled tiny steps in walk to get him even more engaged and reactive. Wow! We had to stop doing piaffe to do something more complicated, like highly collected walk! Super exciting!!  I posted videos of both lessons to my www.youtube.com/jentruett page for all to see. 

Lenny and Sami arrived Saturday night and are here until Thursday, so it was great that Lenny got to see Taffy figuring out piaffe in person--what a treat! Watching horses on video is just not the same as seeing them in real life. Today, Sami, Lenny, Anja and I are headed to Miami to sight-see and hang out on the beach. Still loving it here!

WOW!!! What fun!!! Heather's been saying that I need to start jumping Sunset regularly to increase his strength, pushing power, and help him to become more coordinated and knowledgeable about what to do with his long legs and feet. I keep telling her that I have jumped him and done a lot of work with cavallettis and trot poles at home but that he always crashed through them without a care in the world. Well, enter into the picture Bill Dyer, the super jumper trainer at the barn right next to ours here at Mission Farm.

I asked Bill this morning if we could swap jumping lessons for dressage lessons, and he was thrilled to do that. He asked when I wanted to start, I said, how about right now! So, Anja and I ran off to tack up my dressage horse in his dressage saddle for my jumping lesson. I actually didn't raise my stirrups any because I already ride with them so short I figured they'd be fine for small cross rails-little did I know that wasn't all we had in store.

Sunset started off the same way he always does when it comes to picking his feet up over anything:  clunking through and knocking everything over.  Cavaletti and a tiny cross rail jump are no match for his flailing long legs. Bill has started many green horses in jumping and impressed me with the depth of his toolbox and exercises to show Sunset what to do with his feet and when. 

The jumps here are so nice.  They are wooden poles with a PVC coating and the standards are plastic, so it all falls apart when you hit it and there's nothing to get tangled in or hurt on--I know this for sure as we took the jump down more times than we cleared it, especially in the beginning!

Bill determined the same thing I always suspected, that Sunset's not going to care enough to make an effort until the jump is pretty high. So, up and up it went all the way to a 2'9" vertical with a placing pole in front and on the landing side. It was clear to us once the jump hit 2'3" that Sunset suddenly turned on and was enjoying himself in a whole new way. He absolutely LOVED  jumping! He only bailed out once which was totally my fault because it was the first time we approached the jump set at 2'3" and I suddenly realized it was big and that I haven't jumped anything more than a cross rail in over 15 years. When I hesitated, he also did and we together decided to turn right instead of go straight over. Other than that time, he jumped every fence straight as a arrow and never wavered! 

Bill was totally impressed that he jumped so well the very first lesson and that despite how very complicated the exercise was that he gave us, that I really got the timing down. My only real struggle was caused by my dressage saddle, I wound up getting too forward and not letting him jump up to me until the last time through when it all came together perfectly. Bill says his form is fantastic and we even found hoof prints on his girth from his knees being so tight! Bill is a super teacher and is gifted at being able to explain what to do and when to do it quickly and in a way I can understand. I am looking forward to my next jumping lesson tomorrow!

This afternoon, Sunset had his daily dressage lesson with Heather, and I was worried that he'd be too tired for a second ride today for only a nanosecond because he's gotten so fit and athletic that he can't even be quiet in the paddock for more than a few minutes before he  takes off and acts totally crazy. 

Heather was so excited to hear the report of his jumping success--she couldn't believe that "I" was the one riding him over fences that big! She said she meant I should get somebody else to jump him--LOL! She was even more impressed with the wonderful changes in his body awareness and responsiveness as a result of the jumping! His canter departs were better than ever!

This represents my second personal "demon" I've faced since I've been here. I stopped jumping in my teens when my event horse, Stretch, got his front legs stuck in a cross country table top jump. He could have broken both legs and additionally, he was a nasty stopper and put me in the middle of lots of jumps instead of jumping them. I finally realized that jumping can be very dangerous and it was no longer fun, so I changed my focus completely to dressage. It's so exciting to me to have faced that demon with the help of a fantastic coach and not suffer any repercussions from it. Never one time did Sunset give me the feeling that he wasn't going to jump or that he would endanger my safety in any way. I had so much fun jumping again!! Heidi P., I can just see you grinning from ear to ear reading this!

The other demon I've faced since I've been here was that I haven't been back in a carriage since my nasty accident 4 years ago when my mini ran away with me and crashed me into the barn wall giving me a terrible concussion and making me not want to drive again--something that I've loved doing my entire life. My sponsor, Scott Adcocks with NupaFeed, was stabling his horse only a couple barns down from us so he could do a driving demo at the WEF last weekend.  He invited me to go on a Sunday morning drive with his Advanced CDE horse and his student with her CDE pony. It was amazing to be driving again and I was able to offer him some training advice on improving his horse's walk--so cool! Again, no fear or anxiety at all when facing this demon. 

Honestly, I really don't suffer from fear over much of anything at all with horses, but I got very hurt in these two experiences and I've finally been able to face and overcome those demons! All of us wind up developing fears of one kind or another as we age and realize our mortality. I feel that it's very important that everyone understands that even if someone seems like they really have it all together, there can still be hidden issues that haven't been addressed--we are all human. How liberating to understand that and overcome!!! 

I apologize for not being in contact with you for some time, so this post reads more like a book. Not long after my last blog post, Taffy gave me a big scare, but now I'm happy to report, he's doing great. Here's what happened...we had yet another amazing lesson with Heather, came home, fed everyone dinner, went to dinner ourselves, and then when we did night check, we found him holding his right eye closed. I checked it and found nothing but a scrape on his eyelid, so I figured that was why he was keeping it closed. The next day, we discovered a bb-size ulcer on his cornea near where his eyelids join at the back of his eye. I had our FL vet, Dr. John Lockamy, out immediately, even though it was Sunday, because eye problems are always emergencies. We started treatment right away, and at his re-check on Tuesday, the ulcer was down to the size of the head of a pin. YAY! The vet expected to come back out on Friday to re-stain it, find it completely resolved, and tell me to put him back to work. But, alas, not here--this is FL, home of unkillable bacteria and fungus.

At Thursday's night check, Taffy appeared to be in pain and the ulcer had grown to at least twice its original size. Early Friday morning, the vet came back out and said Taffy's cornea was infected and we needed to bring in an opthamologist right away. Friday afternoon, Dr. Tim Cutler, a specialist ophthalmologist, met us at Heather's to evaluate Taffy's eye. He said we needed to be very aggressive in our treatment to hopefully stop the fungal infection from growing. He put Taffy on an every hour on the hour, 24 hours a day eye ointment treatment plan and recommended hospitalization to ensure he got his meds as prescribed without us becoming zombie-fied. So, on our way home from Sunset's lesson that day, we dropped Taffy off at the Palm Beach Equine Clinic.  Thank God for insurance!

After four days of treatment, it was clear that the infection was too aggressive for the treatment options we had available, so surgery was required. Taffy underwent a corneal "cookie cutter" type resection where Dr. Cutler removed a 6 mm diameter area of infection that also took away 40-50% of the depth of his cornea. The surgery went without complication and I got to watch from the observation deck. Taffy amazed everyone involved when he recovered from the general anesthesia less than10 mins after entering the recovery stall and then nearly trotted back to his stall dragging several people along with him. He was in his stall marching circles within 20 mins of laying on the surgical table!! The anesthesiologist and Dr. Culter both said that was a record! In fact, when the anesthesiologist and I were talking about the process of horses recovering from general anesthesia while Taffy lay on his side in the recovery room, she looked at his body mass and said she expected him to take at least 20 mins just to wake up enough to make an initial attempt to stand. She said race horses are the only ones who recover quickly because their low body mass allows them to remove the gas from their tissues the fastest, usually in about 5 minutes. So, Taffy recovered like a race horse! That's my boy, setting records again!

His surgery was on Tuesday and he finally got to come home this past Saturday. His recovery is going very well. Dr. Cutler continues to be impressed with his healing and even commented that the tissue graft from the side of his eyelid that was used to fill in the hole left in his cornea is healing and sending healthy blood vessels into the damaged cornea faster than is normally expected! He also doesn't see any signs of infection and the ulcer is completely gone! I won't be completely relaxed about it Dr. Cutler declares him healed and removes his lavage system for administering meds, the stitches in the back corner of his eye, and his eye cup hood is no longer necessary.  

I have been able to walk him under saddle since he got home and he is on track to start trotting this weekend and cantering next week. Dr. Cutler expects he will be back in full hard work by Valentine's Day. A huge thanks to Heather and her team of amazing vets!  I heard that our regular vet, Dr. Lockamy, is so busy that he doesn't take new clients and that Dr. Cutler is one of the best ophthalmologists in the country. Wow! Thank you Heather for helping make it possible for my boy to get the best treatment available.

Ok, despite all the stress and worry I've been through with Taffy, every other experience down here has been like living in a dream world! Since Taffy was out of commission, Sunset has gotten Heather's full attention and he has blossomed from it. A week and a half ago, the day before we called in Dr. Cutler to evaluate Taffy's eye, Heather and I introduced the idea of activating and quickening Sunset's back feet, to which he responded with trying to leave, kick out, or buck--not very fun with me sitting on him. So, she decided to work through his resistances from the ground with longlines and in-hand work for three days. We then went back to our regular ridden work and left the quick steps work alone until she was busy competing in the Masters and Sunset and I were left to entertain ourselves at home for those three days. I decided to play with the quick steps by teaching it to him as if it's a trick like his now famous "smile" which he does every time he sees me. So, the quick steps became fun and got him the reward he so desperately wants-cookies! Once he understood was I was asking of him, I was able to transition the work from the ground to the saddle with much less dramatic resistance. 

Yesterday was the first time Heather got to see how well Sunset learned to do his baby piaffe and was very impressed (you can hear her comments in the background on the videos I am currently uploading to my www.youtube.com/jentruett channel), as I was when I watched the video at midnight last night!! Sunset has always been incredibly lazy and I've often wondered if he would ever be quick enough to be able to piaffe. I'm so excited to discover that the answer is resoundingly "yes"! He is also finally learning how to use his body to enable medium trots and yesterday was also another first--he lifted his wither up and floated over the ground in a trot I've only seen him do in the pasture (that video is also being uploaded today). Wow! All this progress is coming from me finally breaking through his hard shell and getting him to partner with me and respect my requests with instant responses and a good attitude instead of his normal M.O.: a half-hearted effort to do the minimum amount of work. I have an all-new horse!

The rest of the horses and riders here with me also continue to excel at an impressive rate, since I am "putting more and more small chunks together into bigger chunks," to use RWYM terminology. Every lesson with Heather, I peel away another layer of the onion and get a deeper understanding of how to more effectively communicate with both my horses and my students. I am an addict of learning and am in heaven getting to take a lesson 6 days a week! I am very happy to see in my videos that I'm stronger and more stable than ever before in my position. Heather almost never addresses my biomechanics in our lessons, we simply talk about timing and how the horses need to respond to my aids.

You are probably wondering to yourself, why has it taken Jen a whole month to finally upload videos to share with the rest of us? Well, the answer is that the internet is the only complaint I have about this place. Until a week ago, I only had internet through my cell phone as a hot spot-which didn't work very well at all given the poor cell reception at our farm. Bad internet service is a real problem when I tried to teach my students back home via virtual streaming lessons, so I pleaded with the farm owners who graciously allowed me to tie into their high speed network, but I only have "2 bar" signal strength at my camper so yesterday I went on a concerted search to find someplace on Mission farm with a full signal. I lucked out! the strongest signal is located under a lovely pavilion covered in beautiful pink bougainvillea with picnic tables, a grill and power! I'm sitting along a palm tree lined drive next to a jumper ring where a 2011 Pam Am Games competitor named Juan from Guatemala schools his horses every day. Did I say this is like living in a dream world yet? So, multiple videos are spooling up to my YouTube channel now-check them out.

Argh! YouTube just gave me another error message. I have to do some research to see why my videos are being deleted once they finish uploading. I promise to keep working to get you footage of FL. To be continued...

Sunset, Taffy and I are now aware of an entirely new level of responsiveness, total body accessibility, and obedience than ever before. Both of my boys and I now have a totally new understanding of what is an acceptable response to an aid and what is not. In addition, Taffy now accepts the whip which has never before been a possible aid because it caused him to go into panic mode and Sunset is learning to come out of his shell and finally show some personality and interest in his work. This has been a very successful week of changing perceptions and that has flowed through to my clients and their horses as well. Oh and Taffy's now gotten several clean flying changes!!

We plan to play with piaffe with Sunset and introduce the double bridle to him in a couple of weeks. Taffy's work on flying changes is coming along great and the new obedience work has me sending him (and Sunset) into tiny voltes in every gait which has put us into working pirouettes on occasion, so they will be up for grabs soon, too. We have focused a lot of energy on getting big ground covering gaits that are totally under my control at all times as well as the entire horse's body being accessible. The new level of accessibility I have of my horses is like nothing I've ever experienced before! WOW!

We actually haven't gotten to do or see much yet because we are so busy with the horses, but tomorrow evening, we are going to watch the $30,000 Grand Prix jumping at the WEF. 

Wow! it's been a totally amazing first week here in Wellington! Heather and I decided to focus on improving Taffy's acceptance of the whip (which was completely non-existent until a major breakthrough yesterday), and improving his quickness to respond to all aids. I have never felt a horse as quick to respond as he is now, after 2.5 rides with Heather. She explained that my perception of an acceptable "Yes Ma'am" response is appropriate to my experience, and that only once someone has trained/ridden a lot of GP do they really understand how much quicker a horse can be in his responsiveness. Since Taffy is definitely on his way up, we need to teach him to be that responsive and respectful.

We are all constantly impressed with Heather's impeccable timing for giving aids, corrections and rewards. Her philosophy is that the number one goal is always ridability and everything else falls in line behind that. So, when the horse spooks, gets distracted, tenses, or evades in any way, the rider needs to not participate or get emotional about it, she simply must continue to work on improving the horse's ridability and suppleness. Through not allowing the horse to change her ridability goals as well as not allowing the horse to change her position, the horse learns to work with her as a team member with complete focus on the rider's goals.

We bring the lessons we learn at Heather's home to all our horses at Mission Farm and they've all shown super improvement in their responsiveness in this short period of time. I'm excited that Heather will get to see Sunset for the first time on Tuesday-he's doing so well.

Today I had to make a quick trip first thing this AM to the local tack shop, the Tackeria, after Sunset ripped Taffy's fly sheet literally in half! Taffy was trotting past Sunset in the adjoining paddock and bratty Sunset reached out to bite Taffy and got a hold of his fly sheet and held on while Taffy kept trotting! We plan to do a little sightseeing with Natalie and Jeanette this afternoon, then Lenny has to fly home to return to the real world :-(

Hello from sunny Welly World!! We arrived on Sunday after a 3 day drive that should have only lasted 2 days if truck batteries, loading horses and tires would have cooperated! Once we arrived to the tranquil and beautiful Mission Farm that is our new DHF South location we knew we chose our winter retreat wisely. Mission Farm is a 25 acre facility with 92 stalls spread out over multiple barns on multiple parcels with each barn having its own arena. Despite having so many stalls, we have to look hard to find our neighbors. We can see lots of jumping happening beyond the tree lines that separate the properties and there are bridle trails throughout, so we can have as much interaction with others here as we desire. There are a couple of other dressage trainers at the farm as well. What has impressed us immensely since our arrival is how welcoming and nice everyone is EVERYWHERE here. There is a strong mid-western/southern feeling in the culture here-we love it!

All 6 horses have settled in beautifully and are very happy in their new winter homes. I have had a lesson with Heather everyday starting Tues. Taffy has been the lucky one to kick off our winter training because Sunset threw a shoe cavorting in the paddock the first day and Heather and I have been having so much fun with Taffy that he's gotten to go everyday! He is doing incredibly well! Heather rode him yesterday and said he feels completely even and normal-no lameness or asymmetries at all...YAY!!! We've been working on getting his hind legs quick and more drawn under his body instead of bouncing croup high which is his preference. I have to say, he looks incredible and I have to pinch myself everyday that he's sound, sane and above all, mine.

Sunset's back in work and feeling great. He's been working in the prototype Equicoreconcepts.com belt pad we came home with from the McPhail Center and is incredibly stronger and more stable a month later. I'm excited for Heather to see him this weekend. He is developing into a stunning young man. Today is his birthday-he turns 6 today!

Lori and Breezy and Natalie and Wellini are all doing great in their work. Jeanette just arrived last night for her two week stint riding Janet's Bianca. Sondra's 4 year Dutch gelding, Crescendo, who came for training has already made amazing improvements. He's learning where his body parts are how to control his big gaits while keeping his medicine ball back. He's super cool and fun to ride. Anja's work with him on the ground before I ride him is a perfect way to teach him how to communicate with people both on the ground and on his back. 

Anja's been working her tail off, but loving every minute. She has a constant smile and is doing a great job with the horses. My boys have both decided that they would rather not have to load into the trailer every day, and Anja's been incredible working with them showing them that it's not ok for them to say no. She is so patient and calm even when they are not. She has also gotten a new client here, Denise and Chief, who is afraid of her horse. Anja is teaching her how to communicate with her horse and develop a relationship that has meaning.  Denise is thrilled with the results!!

I have to go now. I see that Sunset and Anja have just headed to the arena to wait for me.