Sunset Ridge Equine Services, LLC

07/06/2026

Can we talk about the littlest horse show kids for a minute?

First, because the internet is the internet: this is not directed at any particular show, organization, committee, judge, or group of people. 😂

These are just the thoughts of a mom who has spent the last four days at a horse show with a five-year-old and her pony.

A mom who has hauled the trailer, packed the snacks, found the missing boots, reapplied sunscreen, kept a small child fed, rested, entertained and alive, and is currently thinking about all of this after lying in the gooseneck of a horse trailer while trains roared past her head in the middle of the night. 🤣

So consider this less of a complaint and more of a love letter; maybe a plea.

We talk a lot in the horse world about declining entries, aging memberships, and how we get the next generation involved.

But the next generation is already here.

They’re 2, 3 , 4 and 5 years old, sitting on ponies with their feet barely reaching past the saddle pad.

They’re 6 and 7, just starting to ride on their own.

They’re dressed up. They’re nervous. They’re proud.

And I’ve been wondering:

What if, instead of asking the littlest kids to fit into horse shows designed almost entirely for adults, we built them a little world inside the horse show?

Have a Littles Morning.

Give the youngest riders a couple of hours in a safe warm-up ring, smaller arena, or on the grass where appropriate.
Run their classes together.
Leadline. Showmanship. Horsemanship. Costume class. Poles. Barrels. Whatever your show offers.

Let the five-year-olds be five.

Let the children who are just beginning to ride independently warm up with other beginners instead of navigating crowded spaces with older riders and bigger, faster horses.
Because separating young children and beginner riders isn’t babying them.
It’s good risk management. It’s good horsemanship.

A child who can steer, stop, and ride a pattern independently may still not have the experience or reaction time to handle every unpredictable situation created by a busy arena full of powerful horses.

Give them a place to learn.

Let parents help from the rail.

Let someone take an extra minute when they forget their pattern.

Announce every child’s name like they’ve just entered the grandest arena in the world.

And please—give the littles the real ribbons.
I know. It’s not about the ribbon.
But they’re children.
The magic matters.
If everyone else gets a beautiful rosette to hang on the wall, give the littles one too.

And when it comes time for awards, maybe think beyond another grooming tote. Imagine a teeny, inexpensive buckle with the show name and year on it. Twenty-five years from now, someone might still have it tucked away. “That was my first buckle. I won it on my pony when I was five.”

Have a swing set at the ag grounds.
Or a slide.
A sandbox.

Because a five-year-old can love horses with her whole heart and still not want to sit quietly beside an arena for eight hours.

Make the horse show a place where young families can comfortably exist.

Give the littles their morning.
Let them show. Let them be celebrated. Take the pictures. Hand out the ribbons.

And then let them go play, eat a hot dog, watch the big horses, take a nap, or go home while they still think horse shows are the greatest thing in the world.

If we want children to become lifelong horse people, we need to stop measuring success by how quickly they can function in horse shows designed for adults.

Build them a safe little world inside the horse show.

Maybe?

🖤

06/19/2026

👌🏼❤️

I was on a long flight, sandwiched between an older woman and a younger woman.
The older woman, seated by the window, was fussing with her phone and becoming visibly frustrated. I asked if she needed help.

“My headphones won’t connect,” she said. “I downloaded movies for the flight, but I can’t hear any of them.”

I took a look at her phone, checked the settings, and made sure everything appeared to be connected properly. Satisfied, I handed it back to her.

“It still isn’t working,” she said.
Now she was becoming increasingly upset. The prospect of spending the next five hours without her movies seemed to be creating genuine anxiety.

I was puzzled. Everything I had done should have worked.
The younger woman in the aisle seat perked up and offered to help.
“I work in tech support,” she said.

She took the phone, checked a few things, and then handed it back to the older woman with exactly the same result.

She took the woman’s headphones from her, handed back the phone, and said, “This should work now. But I need you to put the headphones in very slowly and carefully.”

The woman nodded and did exactly as instructed.
This time, it worked.

Within moments she was happily watching her movie.

Once she was settled, I asked the younger woman what she had done differently.

“Nothing,” she said.
“I did the exact same thing you did. But when she was anxious, she kept jamming the headphones into her ears and accidentally pressing the mute button. I just needed to slow her down.”
Then she winked and added:
“Ninety percent of tech support is keeping the client calm.”

That comment struck me harder than she probably intended.

As riding instructors, trainers, coaches, and teachers, we often assume our job is to provide solutions. We spend years accumulating knowledge, building skills, and collecting answers.
But a panicked rider can find nine hundred problems for every one solution.

Often the solution is surprisingly simple:

The horse needs a clearer rhythm.
The rider needs to breathe.
The hands need to soften.
The rider needs to look up.
The horse needs more forward.
Simple things.

But anxiety has a remarkable ability to press the mute button on good information.

When people become overwhelmed, they stop hearing. They stop feeling. They stop processing. In their effort to solve the problem, they unknowingly recreate it over and over again.
I’ve found that some of the most effective teaching doesn’t come from knowing more answers. It comes from helping someone become calm enough to receive the answer that is already there.
The solution may be simple.

It may even be free.
But no solution can land on anxious ears.
Sometimes the first step in helping someone isn’t fixing the problem.
It’s helping them stop pressing mute.

Photo by Jesse Cardew

06/12/2026

Helmet checks don't have to take forever. Here's the quick version I use before every ride.

Before the helmet even goes on — two things.
1. Make sure the dial in the back is all the way loosened (especially if someone else wore it last).
2. Snug those little triangle keepers down so they're sitting right below the earlobes. Those two steps alone fix most of the fit problems I see.

Then: Forehead first, push it on (never yank it on by the straps). Buckle the chin strap. Pro tip- Put your finger between the buckle of the helmet and the student's throat before you snap it. This little detail will keep from pinching the student with the buckle. Check that you've got a couple finger widths between the brow and the front of the helmet. Snug the dial. Shake test.

That's it. The whole thing takes maybe 60 seconds and once your students know the steps, they can do it themselves.

🐴 How often are you catching helmet fit issues after you're already up and going — or worse, in a photo later?

05/29/2026

👌🏼

Why are so many horses being “mis-sold”?

I’m not entirely convinced they are.

You go and try a horse, in its home environment, with people it knows, in a routine it understands. You like what you feel. Maybe you go back and try it again… same place, same setup. It all feels good, and you think this is the one.

Vetting passed and you bring your new horse home...and then everything changes.

New yard. New field. New stable. New people. New routine. New smells, sounds, expectations.

You give them a day. Maybe two. Sometimes not even that.
Then you get on. New tack, different bit, new arena, people watching.

But suddenly, you’re not sitting on the same horse you tried.
They feel different. Tense. Sharp. Spooky. Not quite what you remember.

So now you’re on edge. Watching for everything. Questioning every step, every reaction, every feeling.

And this is where it starts to unravel.

Because what we often forget, or maybe underestimate, is just how big that upheaval is for them.

We’ve taken them out of everything they know, everything that felt safe and predictable, and dropped them into something completely unfamiliar… then expected them to perform exactly the same, almost immediately.

When they don’t, it’s easy to assume something’s wrong.
That the seller wasn’t honest. That the horse isn’t as advertised.

And so the horse gets labelled ''not as described''. The lucky ones are sent back, the unlucky ones are sold on, some going on to boomerang from one place to the next.

But what if the problem isn’t that the horse was mis-sold…
What if it’s that we expect instant consistency from an animal going through complete change?

Horses don’t just arrive and slot neatly into our expectations. They need time to settle, to understand, to feel safe again. They need space to adjust before they can show you who they actually are.
If we don’t give them that, we’re not seeing the horse we bought, we’re seeing a horse trying to cope, and that’s a very different thing.

Maybe the question isn’t “why are so many horses being mis-sold?”
Maybe it’s… are we giving them a fair chance to be the horse we thought we were buying?

05/27/2026

We spend a lot of time talking about what instructors owe their students such as good lessons, safe horses, clear communication, and a program worth paying for. All of that is true but the relationship runs both ways and there are a handful of things every riding instructor has every right to expect from the people they teach - regardless of age, level, or how long they have been in the program. Here is what that actually looks like...

1. Respect the schedule
Your lesson time starts when it starts. Not when you finish tacking up. Not when you finally find a parking spot. Not ten minutes after you were supposed to be mounted because you got caught in traffic. An instructor who has back to back lessons cannot absorb your late arrival without it cascading into every lesson that follows. Be ready and be on time. If life genuinely gets in the way, communicate early and not at the moment the lesson was supposed to begin. Last minute cancellations and no shows are in the same category. Your instructor may have pulled a horse from turnout, set up the arena, and reorganized their entire morning around your lesson. Treat their time the way you expect them to treat yours.

2. Pay on time, every time
Riding lessons are expensive and nobody knows that better than the instructor who spent years and significant money developing the skills they are now passing on to you. While riding might be a hobby or a luxury for you, it is a business for your instructor. They have the same bills, the same living expenses, and the same need for a reliable paycheck that every working professional has. Pay your invoice on time without being chased. It is a basic professional courtesy and it matters more than most students realize.

3. Respect the expertise
There is no shortcut to becoming a good riding instructor. It takes years of riding, training, teaching, continuing education, and a level of dedicated investment that most people outside the industry never fully appreciate. When you walk into a lesson, bring an open mind and leave your preconceived ideas at the gate. The student who arrives already convinced they know how it should be done makes the instructor's job significantly harder and their own progress significantly slower. Trust the process and the person who built it. You hired them for a reason.

4. Show up mentally not just physically
Riding is not soccer or swimming. It is a complex physical education that happens on the back of a living animal and it requires your full attention every single minute of the lesson. Your instructor is prepared to give you their best teaching so come prepared to receive it. Leave the work stress, the family drama, and the distracted scrolling in the car. The horse needs you present and so does your instructor. Frankly so do you because a distracted rider in an arena is a safety issue not just a teaching one.

5. Bring your best effort
Not perfection, not natural talent, but effort and a positive attitude. A genuine willingness to try the thing that feels uncomfortable and work through the thing that is not clicking yet. Riding is one of the most extraordinary privileges available to anyone who has access to it and it deserves to be treated that way. Your instructor is bringing their best to every lesson so bring yours in return.

None of these are unreasonable expectations. They are the basic professional courtesies that make the instructor student relationship work for both people in it. A student who shows up on time, pays promptly, respects the expertise, stays present, and gives genuine effort is a student every instructor wants in their program for years.

Be that student and your riding will reflect it.

03/23/2026

Not the horse's fault is not an excuse for bad behavior.

I hear this all the time—“It’s not the horse’s fault, it’s the owner’s.”

And every time I hear it, I understand what people are trying to say… but I also cringe a little. Because while that statement might be technically true, the way it gets used is where the problem starts.

Let me explain it the way I’ve come to understand it through real life—not theory, not opinions, but outcomes.

I once had a neighbor who raised their kids in a very specific way. If the kids did something wrong, all they had to do was apologize. No consequences. No accountability. No correction. Just say “I’m sorry,” and everything moved on like it never happened.

That system worked… until it didn’t.

One of those kids grew up and committed murder.

And what stuck with me wasn’t just the act—it was his reaction afterward. He genuinely did not understand why he was going to prison for life. In his mind, he had followed the rules he had been taught his entire life: do something wrong, say you’re sorry, and move on.

But real life doesn’t work that way.

Now, was that entirely his fault? Or was it the result of how he was raised?

You can argue that all day long.

But here’s the part nobody argues about—the consequence.
He still went to prison.
He still paid the price.
And the victim still paid the ultimate price.

That outcome didn’t change based on where the blame started.

Now bring that same line of thinking over to horses.

Horses don’t have the ability to sit around and decide right from wrong the way we do. They are a product of their environment, their experiences, and the decisions made around them. In that sense, yes—many behavioral issues can be traced back to people.

But here’s the question I always come back to:

If a horse, because of how it was raised or handled, hurts or kills someone… does it matter whose fault it was?

Does that change what happened to the person?

Does that change what has to happen to the horse next?

No, it doesn’t.

That horse may be put down—not because it’s evil, not because it “meant” to do anything wrong, but because it has proven to be unsafe. Because the risk is too high to allow that behavior to continue.

Fair? No.

Real? Yes.

And that’s the part people don’t want to sit with.

So let’s bring it down from the extreme example to something much more common—because most of what I deal with isn’t life-or-death situations. It’s the everyday behaviors that people excuse.

The horse that crowds you.
The horse that pins its ears.
The horse that refuses to move forward.
The horse that pulls, braces, or checks out mentally.
The horse that uses resistance, anxiety, or avoidance to get out of work.

And someone says, “Well, it’s not his fault.”

I agree.

But what now?

Do we just accept it?

Do we excuse it?

Do we allow that behavior to continue because the origin of it wasn’t the horse’s decision?

Because here’s the reality—whether it’s the horse’s fault or not, that behavior still creates risk. It still affects safety. It still affects usability. It still affects the horse’s future.

And the horse will still pay the price for it.

Maybe not in the form of being put down, but in the form of limited opportunities, constant frustration, or being labeled as “difficult,” “dangerous,” or “not worth the trouble.”

That label follows them.

That outcome follows them.

And it doesn’t care whose fault it was.

So when I hear “it’s not the horse’s fault,” what I actually hear—whether it’s intended or not—is an excuse to avoid dealing with the behavior.

Because if it’s not the horse’s fault, then people feel like they shouldn’t have to hold the horse accountable.

But accountability and blame are not the same thing.

That’s where most people get this wrong.

Blame looks backward.
Accountability looks forward.

Blame asks, “Whose fault is this?”
Accountability asks, “What needs to change so this doesn’t happen again?”

In training, I don’t spend my time worrying about who created the problem. That doesn’t help the horse standing in front of me today.

What matters is this:

What has this horse learned?
What behaviors is it using?
What responses have been reinforced?
And how do we retrain those responses into something safe, consistent, and productive?

Because at the end of the day, the horse has to function in the real world.

It has to be safe to handle.
Safe to ride.
Safe to be around people.

Not because it’s fair.
Not because it deserves it.
But because that’s the requirement to exist in our world.

Just like people.

If a person grows up with poor guidance, bad habits, or no accountability, we might understand why they act the way they do—but that doesn’t remove the consequences of their actions.

The same is true for horses.

So when I work with a horse that has developed bad habits—whether it’s fear-based, resistance-based, or simply learned behavior—I’m not punishing the horse for something that wasn’t its fault.

I’m teaching it a better way to respond.

I’m replacing what it has learned with something that will keep it safe, keep people safe, and give that horse a better future.

Because here’s the truth that doesn’t always sound nice, but it is honest:

A horse does not get a pass on behavior just because it didn’t create the situation.

It still has to be retrained.
It still has to learn new responses.
It still has to meet the standard of being safe and manageable.

And if it doesn’t, the consequences don’t go away—they just get delayed.

So yes… it may not be the horse’s fault.

But that doesn’t change the responsibility we have to fix it.

Because ignoring it in the name of fairness doesn’t protect the horse.

It puts it at risk.

And in the long run, the horse is the one that pays the price for that misunderstanding.

03/21/2026

👌🏼

This post will ruffle some feathers, but my regular followers already know I am not scared to do that.

I see it all the time in the horse world. Every breed association promotes their breed like it is the best one out there. Then the people who love that breed repeat it, defend it, and build their whole identity around it. According to the ads, the articles, the breed pages, and the devoted owners, their breed is the smartest, the smoothest, the kindest, the toughest, the most versatile, the most athletic, the most loyal, and somehow also the most misunderstood. Funny how every breed just happens to be the best breed when the people selling it are the ones writing the description.

That is where I think people need to slow down and think.

The best breed for one person is not automatically the best breed for another person. What fits one rider, one trainer, one program, one discipline, one body type, one personality, and one set of goals may be completely wrong for somebody else. That is not an insult to the breed. That is just reality. Horses are not one-size-fits-all, and people are not either.

Some people want a horse with a lot of motor. Some people want one that is quieter and more forgiving. Some people like a horse that is reactive and sharp. Some people need one that is steady and simple. Some people want more forward movement. Some want a horse that naturally carries themselves a certain way. Some people want a horse built for speed, some for power, some for endurance, some for cattle work, some for the show pen, and some just want one they can enjoy riding safely on the weekends. All of those are different needs, different goals, and different personalities.

That means the question should not be, “What is the best breed?” The better question is, “What breed, type, and individual horse best fits this person and what they are trying to do?”

That is a very different conversation.

The problem is that breed associations are not really in the business of giving neutral truth. They are in the business of promoting their breed. That is their job. They are marketing. They are selling an image, a story, and a sense of identity. They want their horses to sound unique, elite, rare, special, superior, or somehow above the ordinary horse. That kind of promotion naturally skews the truth, because once you are trying to sell people on something, objectivity usually goes out the window.

So people end up hearing the same kind of message over and over. This breed is special. That breed thinks differently. This breed must be handled differently. That breed needs a special saddle, special methods, special training, special excuses, special allowances, and special understanding because they are not like other horses.

I am going to say something some people will not like.

Most of that is nonsense.

Yes, breeds can have tendencies. Yes, body type can vary. Yes, movement can vary. Yes, mental traits can vary. Yes, some bloodlines, disciplines, and breeding goals produce more of one trait and less of another. I am not pretending all horses are stamped out of the same mold. Anybody with real experience can see differences in conformation, stride, sensitivity, power, stamina, speed, and mindset. Those differences are real.

But when it comes right down to it, they are all still horses.

They still learn through pressure and release. They still need clarity. They still need timing. They still need fair expectations. They still need leadership. They still need consistency. They still need to understand the job. They still need to be physically capable of doing that job. They still need good care, good management, and tack that fits correctly. They still need a rider or handler who knows what they are doing.

That part does not change because a registry says their breed is special.

I work a lot of different horses, and that is probably why I do not get emotionally attached to the marketing language around breeds. I do not have the luxury of living inside one breed’s bubble. I see enough horses to know that no breed has a monopoly on good minds, bad habits, talent, athleticism, softness, trainability, or problems. I have seen great ones and difficult ones in all kinds of packages. I have seen horses with wonderful minds from breeds people criticize, and I have seen train wrecks from breeds people worship. I have seen plain horses outperform fancy ones and unfashionable horses outwork the expensive, heavily promoted ones.

That is because the individual horse still matters more than the sales pitch.

I work each individual horse to become the best version of itself that it can be. That is how I look at it. I do not need a breed label to tell me what a horse is supposed to be. I want to see what that horse actually is. I want to evaluate the body, the mind, the movement, the training, the habits, the weaknesses, the strengths, and the job in front of them. That gives me something useful. Breed stereotypes often do not.

A breed may tend a certain direction, but the individual horse standing in front of me is the one I have to train. Not the advertisement. Not the myth. Not the emotional opinion of breed lovers. The actual horse.

And that brings me to another part of this conversation that really gets pushed hard in breed circles: the claim that certain breeds need special equipment, special methods, or special handling because they are somehow outside the normal rules of horsemanship.

Again, I call nonsense.

If a horse needs tack, it needs tack that fits. That should be the standard no matter what style, discipline, or breed we are talking about. Good-fitting tack is not a luxury. It is basic responsibility. The answer is not that a breed is so special that it requires magical exceptions. The answer is that all horses deserve equipment that fits their body and allows them to work correctly.

That is a very different thing.

If someone tells me a breed needs a special this or a special that just because the breed is “different,” I start asking hard questions. Does it really need something unique, or are people just protecting tradition, branding, or poor design? Is this genuinely about helping the horse, or is it about preserving a story? Is the horse actually hard to fit, or has the breed normalized something that should be questioned? If any breed truly requires special compensation just to function in ordinary, sound, practical horsemanship, I do not see that as proof of superiority. I see that as a flaw that people are trying to romanticize.

And I know that statement will make some people uncomfortable.

But too much of the horse world has gotten used to turning weaknesses into “special qualities.” Too much of the horse world excuses problems by dressing them up in breed pride. Too much of the horse world confuses uniqueness with superiority. Just because something is different does not automatically make it better. Sometimes different is just different. Sometimes different is manageable. Sometimes different is inconvenient. Sometimes different is a weakness that people learned to market.

That is why I do not worship breeds.

I respect horses.

There is a difference.

I can appreciate what certain breeds tend to offer without pretending they are above the laws of good horsemanship. I can recognize that some breeds may suit certain jobs better than others without turning that into a religion. I can understand that people love what they love without needing to agree that their favorite breed is the answer for everybody. I can also say plainly that many people choose breeds for emotional reasons, identity reasons, fashion reasons, or marketing reasons, and then work backwards trying to justify that choice as objective truth.

That happens all the time.

Someone buys into a breed because they love the image, the culture, the community, or the story around it. Then every trait becomes proof that they made the right decision. The good gets exaggerated. The bad gets excused. The flaws become “special characteristics.” The limitations become “misunderstood brilliance.” The management issues become “part of what makes them unique.” Before long, people are no longer evaluating horses honestly. They are defending a brand.

I am not interested in defending brands.

I am interested in developing horses.

To me, that starts by being honest. Honest about what a horse is. Honest about what a horse is not. Honest about what fits a rider and what does not. Honest about what is a strength and what is a weakness. Honest about what is training, what is breeding, what is handling, what is rider error, and what is just plain individual personality.

And I think more people would make better decisions if they stepped back from breed loyalty and started looking at horses more clearly.

Instead of asking, “What breed is best?” maybe ask, “What horse is right for me?”

Instead of asking, “What makes this breed special?” maybe ask, “What real traits does this horse have, and do those traits fit my goals?”

Instead of repeating what breed associations tell you, maybe pay attention to what actual horses keep showing you.

Because that is where the truth is.

At the end of the day, a horse is still a horse. The body may vary a little. The movement may vary a little. The mind may vary a little. The style may vary a little. But the fundamentals remain the fundamentals. Good horsemanship still matters. Good leadership still matters. Good training still matters. Good tack fit still matters. A fair, clear, capable rider still matters.

And no breed is so special that it gets to rise above that.