Blue Water Equestrian

True Words:

Let’s talk about the lack of quality coaching and lack of standards in the equine industry. For example, kids learning with someone who claims to be a "coach" and all they learned is how to see-saw a horse's head down and chuck their body over a fence like a champion. All coaching is not equal.

But what happens when you have a good coach? One that opens their program to you, takes you under his/her wing? Becomes invested in your success? When you essentially become part of the "family"...

Eventually, something will happen...

Coach tells you that you are not Karen O'Connor 2.0, and not ready to make the move up to the next level.
Coach says you need to go back and fix some holes in your training.
Coach says you have developed a bad habit, and it needs to be fixed before you can accomplish your goals.
Coach says you need to make sure that your horse is being ridden (not just hanging out at the barn).
Coach says you need to dedicate more time to studying the sport, not just riding.
Coach says it isn't a "horse" problem, it is a "you" problem.

People have become increasingly more reactionary. More easily offended. In lieu of everyone getting a trophy, it is so hard to hear these words from people you admire. Some of the best coaches will be the toughest. Not ones that tear you apart constantly, but coaches that aren't afraid to have the tough conversations with you. Or conversations that you may not have wanted to have.

But remember, a good coach is in YOUR corner. They want YOU to achieve success. They dedicate so much more than an hour of time to your growth not only as a rider but as a horseman. Maybe you are burning the candle at both ends (and in the middle), and you need a reality check that this sport requires more of your time and focus.

These conversations can hurt, but while it may sting at first.... take a second. Think about why your coach is against you moving up right now, why your coach is saying to wait until the summer to be a working student, why your coach is saying that you should not enter the show until the homework and flat work is done.

Surround yourself with coaches that aren't afraid to have these tough conversations with you. You don't want or need a "cheerleader" coach. You are paying for your coach’s expertise... the positives and the criticism. Let them help make the best decisions for your horse, and for your program. The lessons on the horse and the lessons off of the horse. Are you ready? Are you doing what is best by your horse? You owe it to yourself and your horse....

*** Copied and modified

***My own note to add.
I have certain standards and have definitely been called tough. Sometimes too tough for some, but I will not water down my standards when the basis of my teaching is safety and understanding the horse. I WILL NOT and flat out refuse to stroke an ego or be a "cotton candy" type of coach.
After a particular eval, I mentioned that the child had some fundamental holes. She had difficulty getting one of our true blue larges to trot because a tap on the shoulder or just a cluck didn't just work like at her other barn. I said, in a very understanding and sympathetic tone "With these lesson horses you have to be more correct on how you ask. They will not just do it for you and maintain." Well, apparently the young rider got upset after and cried in the car.
It may sound harsh, but that is not my problem when I am giving you advice. Not yelling, not abrasive, not irritated, but simply relayed a fact that form follows function. A weak form and weak aids are not the road to success. They signed up for lessons and camp 🙃.
I see this kind of stuff ALL THE TIME when I have young riders come from other farms for evals with me. Weak legs, passive upper body, no sense of steering, eyes in the dirt, have been "Cantering and jumping" (which is horrifying to me seeing these young students "ride"), and yet cannot get my simple lesson horses and ponies to trot and steer.
"She/he just wants to have fun." Guess what? Getting hurt, when it was preventable is not fun. Guess what is? When the hard work you have put in finally starts to come together and you enjoy the fruits of your labor. AND I don't need to put a parrot on the arena fence saying the same 3-5 things over and over and over and over.
If you don't like it you can go somewhere else for the "honey" and "sweetie" experience.
I will always do my best to empathize in legitimate moments, but I will not compromise my standards.

This photo is a favorite because it is in the middle of praising this young lady. Her confidence was shaken to the core and we decided to take a step back and scratch our last day to just practice.
Before this walk back to the barn, after she had a blast schooling, we stood ringside watching the competition I said to her, "The whole point is that you have as much fun in there as you do out here. It's not about the ribbons, it's about the joy of your partnership and the love you have for this sport. When you mix that with practicing accuracy, the ribbons will come on there own."

Photo credit Megan Gonzalez

Of all the different types of riders you will teach in your career, the nervous rider requires the most from you as an instructor. Not because they are the most technically demanding but because teaching them well requires you to set aside your lesson plan, slow everything down, and meet someone exactly where they are rather than where you planned for them to be. That is a specific skill set and not every instructor has it or wants to develop it. For those who do here is what works...

1. Separate the fear from the rider.
A nervous rider who believes their fear means they are not cut out for riding is carrying two problems, the fear itself and the shame about having it. Take the second one off the table early by telling them directly that nervousness in the saddle is one of the most common things you see and that it has nothing to do with talent, toughness, or potential. Some of the most capable riders you have ever taught started exactly where they are right now. Fear is information about where they are in their confidence development and not a verdict on where they will end up.

2. Slow everything down.
A nervous rider on a forward moving horse in a busy lesson environment is a nervous system that is completely overwhelmed. Before you teach anything reduce the inputs where possible with a quieter horse, slower gait, simpler exercise, or a smaller ask. The nervous rider cannot learn in a state of high alert because the part of the brain responsible for learning is offline when the threat response is running. Your first task when teaching nervous riders is to create an environment calm enough for learning to become possible. Everything else comes after that.

3. Give them tools not just reassurance.
Telling a nervous rider that everything is fine does not give them anything to do with the anxiety. Give them specific physical tools instead. A deliberate exhale before they pick up the reins. A focus point to ride toward when the horse feels uncertain beneath them. A specific rein or leg aid to apply when they feel tension building - something concrete that gives the hands something useful to do besides grip. A rider who has a tool for managing a difficult moment is a rider who starts to trust themselves in a way that pure reassurance never produces.

4. Build confidence through progressive success, not challenge.
The instinct to push a nervous rider through their fear and to get them to the canter before they are ready, to take them over the pole they are scared of, to prove to them that nothing bad happens, almost always backfires. A nervous rider who is pushed past their readiness does not learn that the scary thing was fine. They learn that their instincts about their safety cannot be trusted and that makes them more anxious not less. Build confidence through repeated successful experiences at and slightly below their current comfort level before you extend the edge of it. The confidence that comes from genuine mastery is the only kind that holds up when the pressure goes up.

5. Watch the horse as much as the rider.
A nervous rider and a nervous horse are a combination that escalates quickly and quietly. Watch the horse's body language throughout the lesson. A horse that is getting tighter, more reactive, or more resistant in response to a nervous rider needs to be addressed before it compounds the rider's anxiety. Sometimes the most important thing you can do in a lesson with a nervous rider is change horses and put them on your quietest most reliable school horse and let the horse do some of the confidence building work for you. A genuinely steady horse underneath a nervous rider communicates something that no amount of instructor reassurance can replicate.

6. Keep the lesson focused and task oriented.
An anxious rider with nothing specific to focus on will focus on the anxiety so give them a job. That job may be a pole to navigate, a transition at a specific marker, a pattern to ride, or a question to answer about what the horse is doing beneath them. The moment a nervous rider's attention moves from their internal experience to an external task, the anxiety loses some of its grip. Not because it disappeared but because it is no longer the only thing in the room. Task focus is not a distraction from dealing with the fear. It is one of the most effective tools for managing it in real time.

7. Celebrate the small wins loudly and specifically.
Every nervous rider needs to hear what they got right and not in a vague encouraging way but specifically and immediately. You stayed soft through that transition. Your breathing stayed even through the corner that spooked you last week. You felt the horse drift and corrected it before I said a word. These specific acknowledgments build the internal evidence base that self confidence runs on. A nervous rider who accumulates enough evidence that they can handle things will eventually stop needing as much reassurance from the outside because they have built enough of it on the inside.

8. Know when the fear is beyond what a lesson can address.
Some riders are carrying anxiety that runs deeper such as a previous bad fall, a traumatic experience, genuine anxiety disorder that shows up everywhere not just on horseback. You are not a therapist and you do not need to be but you do need to recognize when what a rider needs is beyond the scope of a forty five minute lesson and respond accordingly. Acknowledging that what they are dealing with is real, referring them to appropriate support if needed, and removing the pressure of a timeline for progress are all within your scope. Pushing through something that needs professional support is not.

9. Not every instructor is equipped to teach nervous riders and not every instructor wants to.
Both of those things are okay as long as you are honest about it. If slowing everything down, working at the walk for an entire lesson, and building confidence one tiny increment at a time is not something you have the patience or the skillset for right now, refer that rider to someone who does. That is not a failure, it is professional self awareness and it is far kinder than keeping a nervous rider in a program that is not set up to serve them well. While we are being honest, some instructors also have the audacity to tell a nervous or slow progressing rider that they are simply not cut out for riding. That is NOT feedback. That is cruelty dressed up as honesty and it has no place in a professional lesson program. Your riding goals are not your student's riding goals. A rider who wants to walk and trot on a quiet horse and spend time grooming and being around horses is a completely valid lesson student. Personally I never minded those riders at all as I got paid the same for the lesson and my horses had significantly less wear and tear on their body which is a win for everyone.

The student who will never canter. The adult who just wants to hack out on a loose rein once a week. The nervous rider who considers a quiet trot around the arena without gripping the saddle a genuine victory. These are real riders with real goals and they deserve an instructor who respects those goals rather than measuring them against someone else's idea of what riding should look like.
Meet your riders where they are and if you genuinely cannot, pass them to someone who can.

Nervous riders are not a problem to solve, they are people to understand. The instructor who takes the time to understand what drives a particular rider's fear and responds to that specific fear with patience precision and the right tools builds the kind of confidence that lasts long after the lesson ends.

This summer let's put the 'FUN' back in Fundamentals of Horsemanship.

I am on a mission to keep horsemanship alive for the next generations.
Understanding that there is a difference between riding to win and that the win is not just the ride. Winning is the care, the education, and the love from hard work has paid off. Building skills for a lifetime, not a moment.

What I am offering is a one on one condensed Horsemanship Camp, out of the saddle, in 60 minute time slots in Jupiter Farms and Caloosa.
Riding discipline doesn't matter. The type of tack is irrelevant. The only age requirement is 10 and over.
What matters is knowing your horse(s) front to back, top to bottom, understanding their body language, idiosyncrasies, and habits.
Maybe you want to learn something new, brush up on some lost skills, or need a new perspective.
I want to keep this as feasible as possible in order to help anyone who is interested.
I can come to you or you can come to me (adults only on my farm, as it is a working farm not a lesson barn) to work along side some schoolmasters who can help build confidence, or some green beans to learn from the ground up. Possibly learn a new perspective, or just add some tools to your tool belt.

DM me for availability and pricing options. The more days in one week you sign up for, the more discounts applied.

Saturday morning lesson essentials 😎

These photos are almost 20 years apart!
Remember our sweet broodie, Loretta? Lancer II x Cor de la Bryere x Raimondo
She is 25 years old and living her best low level AA/trail life in Kentucky. 😍😍😍
Clearly she is aging backwards and we love to see it.
Her last filly, Opal, is coming along so beautifully too 🥰

The value is in the education. Making a profit is like playing scratch offs.

Ok I have a little dilemma I want to run by you and get your opinion on. Bear with me, I promise you it’s horse related.
2 years ago I bought a brand new truck, loaded with option, the top of the top as far as duallies are concerned. It was quite expensive and I had to pay $105,000 but I needed it and I really wanted to buy something nice.
Since then I have driven it 80,000 miles, I did scrape it in a few places (oops… my bad) so it’s not quite as nice than when I got it.
I’m ready to list it, and here is what I was thinking. I would like to price it around $155,000.
Why $155,000? It’s simple, so like I said I paid $105,000 for it, then I put diesel, DEF (why do we have to use DEF now, fr), I replaced the tires (all 6 of them a few times), fuel filter, air filter, brake pads), insurance. Also the price of the trucks has gone up and in the show room similar vehicles are going for $125,000 nowadays. So yeah between the purchase price, the expenses and the inflation I think It’s worth 155,000.
Do you think I’m being reasonable and do you think I will find a buyer?
If I came up with this logic you would all tell me that I’m crazy. And that I should sell it for $75,000 and go on with my life. Right?

So why is it that every single person who buys a horse wants to make a profit on it when they have to sell it. And expect to get their expenses back and feel cheated when you tell them that they will actually have to sell their horse for less than what they originally paid for it?
You see if you imported a 1m30 horse and you are now campaigning in the 2’6 adults with questionable results because after all you are there to have fun and you are still learning so you chip here and there , then don’t expect to make a dime and don’t be sad if you get less than what you paid for your horse.
Unless your horse is dramatically better (you got your horse as a 5YO tripping over crossrails and it’s now winning the 3’3 greens) or if you bought your horse as a 1m40 horse in Europe and you put a decent 1m40 show record on him in the US) then you need to accept that it’s ok to not make money or to even get less than you paid for it in the first place.
Everybody treats horses like real estate, buy horse, keep horse, expect value to go up, sell for a profit.
But horses are closer to the car market, you buy said horse, you use it, you get value out of said use, you pay for maintenance you sell and upgrade, or you lease or whatnot and the value depreciate in the meantime.
Again I’m not saying that everybody should lose their shirt while owning horses, I’m just saying that the new expectation is that owning a horse is a profitable venture. IT IS NOT… so when it’s time to put a price on your horses, be realistic about what your horse is worth compared to horses with similar traits who recently sold. If your neighbor prices his 21YO trail riding QH for $85,000 that doesn’t mean that you should price your own 23YO QH for $75k. It just means that your neighbor is delulu and will keep his horse forever.
The difference between horses and cars is that you can’t park your horse in a garage. So month after month your expenses go up and you have a risk of injuries. When selling horses, try to be realistic and don’t chase the market.

Nice rainy day lesson today. So proud of this kiddo for sticking it out in a torrential downpour learning pieces of her very 1st dressage test.
She exuded confidence and determination, even when her horse was not happy about getting soaked. She was a great horsewoman, softly encouraging him that everything was okay.
Very happy with her ride and her horse 😊

ImAGoodFella 🥰❤️