Check yourself Before you Wreck yourself

Riding horses and living life it is very easy to place blame on something or someone else. I caught myself doing it just the other day on a horse that was having some trouble. I started placing blame on the way the horse had been ridden by someone else. True, the horse probably wasn't used to me or what I was asking, being that it had probably never been asked to do this task. However, the horse is in my training program now and is my responsibility, although I need to take into consideration how the horse has been handled in the past, I still shouldn't place blame. It is easy to do because we get frustrated. Just before total frustration sets in I always run a check on what I am doing, (surely I couldn't be doing anything wrong). Then I over exaggerate my movements to make them as precise as I can (I try to be precise every time I ride but it is easy to get lazy on horses that already know what you are trying to do). Usually this fixes the trouble and I get a small try out the horse. I will talk about try in a later blog. It could've been very easy to continue to get frustrated and then get mad at the previous rider and lose all control of everything going on at that moment. The same thing goes in life. Life is hard no doubt about it. But a lot of people try to point blame for troubles they are having. I actually had one person tell me they wont believe in God because their life is in total shambles and if there was a God, he wouldn't have let it get that way. Well although God is in control, we first of all need to let him be, and secondly, we need to step back and take a look. I would be willing to bet we did it to ourselves. I know I always have. So the moral of the blog is before we get frustrated and start blaming others, our horses, or our God, lets all take a minute step back and check ourselves and what we can fix. Fix what we can and move on. Same way with training horses, fix or work on what the horse needs right now and move on, working from there. Thanks for taking the time and reading, remember check your self before you wreck your self. God Bless BW

Still Ridin One Day at A time

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read my little thoughts. In my last blogging (my first) I discussed preconceived notions and how they could affect our horsemanship and our relationships with others. Today I want to talk about all the little parts. A good friend of mine and I were talking today about the differences in every ones training style. Then we hit on the differences between him and I. Although we achieve close to the same end product we go about getting there differently. I want to discuss all the little pieces involved in achieving the end product. I am not going to tell you every little thing I think is important but noticing the little things is what is important. I don't only mean with our horses I mean it in life. So often I am required to ride a horse that someone else thinks is a true gem. Once I start riding the horse I find allot of things that the original person missed. This get me to thinking that many folks are ok where they are with their horses. That is fine, far be it from me to tell people to fix what aint broke. But several people get horses that are relatively gentle, get them so that they will just plod around, and never ask them to do anything else the rest of their lives. They are content to just get by, never improve, never go for much, just simply plod along. It is my feeling and belief that it is our responsibility to our horses to learn and improve our selves for their sake. Even if all we ever want to do is ride down the road (not plod through life). Just the same way it is our responsibility as Christians to read the Bible and educate ourselves in Gods word, because we need to be ready to deliver it when called upon. That is why we need to constantly be working on the little things and educating ourselves about what the little things are. So when something happens we are ready (in life and with our horses). However, upon striving for perfection for ourselves and our horses we need to understand that it will take time. If you expect to get on a colt and lope a perfect circle, you are dreaming, if you expect to fight with it until the circle is perfect, you will be fighting for a long time. What we need to do is achieve the small victories for both ourselves and our horses. Instead of a circle, start with a straight line, because a circle is a bent line anyways. If you cant lope a straight line how do you expect to lope a circle. SET YOU AND YOUR HORSE UP FOR SUCCESS, notice the small victories, work up from the smallest place the horse will let you work from, and from there build the foundation toward perfection. Eventually all the small victories will become the victory that you are looking for. Hope everything made sense. Just remember during these tough economic times find the small victories. God Bless, BW

Riding for the Lord

This is my first time blogging. I have heard that it is all the rave and a good way to spit out thoughts and share information. I have alot of things constantly racing across my mind. I am a professional horse trainer just starting out in the business. (I guess I have been in the business for some time but still feel like I am starting out) Being on horses all day long I am constantly thinking about the little things they are trying to tell me. When I am not thinking about horses I am thinking about my life and all the things that God is trying to tell me. It is not that much different than the horses. I have thought of several examples inorder to relate the two, however, I will only touch on the most recent thoughts in this, my first blogging. The point that I feel the most strongly about is tollerance. I feel that as a trainer it is my job to find the value and strong points in every single horse that I work with. If I enter a training session with a bad attitude toward a horse, the odds are that I wont have a very productive session. It is my job as the human in control of my emotions to accept each and every horse for what it is and build off that. I also need to be able to adapt myself to every horses needs at that moment, no matter how that horse has previously been, bad or good. It is often when a horse does well for a while we come to expect that from them, and not forgive them for having a bad day. When a horse hasn't done well we tend to enter the session with a poor mind set and not forgive them for what they have done in the past. We need to ride for the here and now, not the then, and most certianly not for what we hope to make them in the future. I feel it is no different then the way God wants us to be to eachother. So often I find my self judging a person based on a previous incident, (not many wouldn't) and not appreciating that person for how they are right now at this moment. History has shown that, with racial discrimination, several of us are judged based on our ancestors and what they carried out. If I could allow myself to forgive the horses and forgive people I feel that the "ride" could be so much better. I am not saying to let down your guard and let horses or people take advantage of you, but strive to meet the needs of the here and now and see how much farther that will get you. One example of this would be a horse that I am currently working for a horse rescue. Prior to working this horse I was warned that he would flip himself over backward. I had heard this several times. I don't know what caused him to do this I am sure that the people I work with at the rescue did nothing to cause this however, this became the horses M.O. I could have very easily went in to my first session with this horse braced and ready for him to prove his unworthiness. But I didn't, I simply went into the session with an open mind and looked for what he needed the most in his training that day and worked at those little things. 3 weeks later the horse is doing wonderfull and hasn't tried to rear over with me yet, and he doesn't seem like he will, almost like he forgot about it. I am constantly on the look out but not expecting it. If I had gone into the session expecting him to rear over and with an attitude that I would show him who is boss and went to pullin and kickin, I would bet a months pay that he would have flipped over. I think we should treat people with the same compassion and forgivness. Jesus forgives each of us for our actions and only wants the best for us in our lives. Shouldn't we treat eachother the same way. God Bless BW