Tune-up Time

Spring is a great time to renew, refresh, and rejuvenate.  We get out the garden tools to get the yard, beds, and gardens ready for clean-up and planting.  We go through the lawn mowers, string trimmers, and roto-tillers to make sure they can do the jobs they vacationed from all winter.

If our horses sat around most of the winter eating hay and growing hair, Spring is a great time to pull them out of the pasture or paddock and give them a good dusting-off.  It’s this time of year we groom off piles of dead winter hair, get feet shaped-up, and see if there’s any muscle left under that hide to carry us around.

We had an awesome time this weekend with a group of people doing just that.  Our “Spring Tune-up Clinic” is one of my favorites.  Amy and I have a chance to get our hands on all of the horses attending the clinic to see where they are and what we can do to help them improve.  It’s one of the rare times that we have recent, first-hand knowledge of the horses.  Getting information straight from the horse, not through a human filter, is a big deal to us.  That insight really helps us help the riders as they get their horse “tuned-up” for the riding season.  The riders this year did an outstanding job of taking in the information about their horse, feeling what the horse was offering, and making good adjustments to improve their communication and relationship with their horse.

Everyone had a chance to dust-off their horsemanship tool bag, pull out some tools they forgot they had, and add a few new ones to the pile.  Knowledge builds confidence and having he right tools to work with only adds to that confidence.  A confident rider providing leadership to their horse makes for a confident, secure horse.  Together, that kind of horse and rider team can get out and really enjoy our beautiful state and all the activities our equestrian community offers.

We hope you had a safe and enjoyable weekend too.  Let’s hear it for a riding season filled with new trails, challenging events, happy horses, and safe rides!