Fine I'll Do It Myself- A Solo Episode with Crysta

Crysta Brown: Hello and welcome back to Horse Show Bessie. I'm your host Crysta Brown and that's it. It's just me today. So Scott has a lot going on at work and he's super overwhelmed. And then like, to be the most honest, I was like asking my husband if he wanted to come on the podcast and then he's not like feeling good and the man cold is alive and well in my house. So I'm just like sparing all of you guys from that and it's going to be just me today. So I kind of want to give you guys a little update on the things going on in my life, the things I'm thinking about, what I'm feeling. And then I want to talk about a few of my special interests, because it's just me. So I'm kind of in charge here. So anyway, I did want to share with you guys what I have going on a little bit, the things I'm working towards, some of the things I'm feeling. I'm kind of in, I've been in a transition. And I find myself like my horsey goals are feeling slightly intangible because own horses aren't in that place yet. ⁓ a lot of, know, maybe you listened to the episode about my ⁓ that we lost moon. And ⁓ then ⁓ been struggling because my hope was that this year would be my year to ⁓ moon. ⁓ that obviously didn't work out. So now I have two horses. have my mare Bubbles and I have Ricky Bobby. But Bubbles was kind of always like a heart purchase. Like, like I never bought Bubbles back thinking like, okay, like we're going to make our dreams come true. I just really loved her and I just wanted her to have a safe landing, a good landing. We knew that she had navicular and so I just didn't want her to end up in a place that wasn't the best for her. So she's essentially a pet and it's really become obvious through 2026 that that's going to be it for her. ⁓ And so some of you might've heard kind of what we were going through, like the joint flare and like the mystery lameness. And the truth is she's just not coming back sound enough from that. She is better than she was, but the future for her is likely going to look like retirement. I'm currently having conversations with my vet about like what's responsible, what that can look like. I think she can still do some like walk only, ⁓ like some trail rides and things like that, but that's going to be it for her. A lot of hand walking, a lot of. Hey guys, a quick word from our sponsors.

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Crysta Brown: turnout time but then of course that's hard too because she has one copy of PSSM and it is symptomatic. Don't let anybody tell you that it's never symptomatic because that's not true. So she can't be out when sugar is high because it like causes her muscles to contract so she gets like super tight across her neck, across her shoulder and gets really uncomfortable so it's something I have to keep an eye on.

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Crysta Brown: She's a really tough horse to retire because I would just like turn her out and let her be a pasture horse, but that really can't be her life. So figuring out how to manage her life in the way that's best for her and also is fair to me is tricky. ⁓ I don't think she's a surgical candidate. know, she's just not that, she's just not that type of horse. And maybe that's something we can talk about a little bit.

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Crysta Brown: But I'm comfortable with the choice that she's not a surgical candidate. So it's just making her as comfy as she can be, doing whatever she can do. so besides Bubbles, I have Ricky Bobby, who is a yearling. And I don't have a huge interest in the yearling classes. And I also don't feel like he's a super, I don't know. Just yearlings are kind of awkward and growthy. And I don't know if he's. Now back to the episode. fancy enough moving at the moment that it's worth it, but I also find it really hard to judge because it's like, he's hip high, I don't know. I just don't think the yearling classes are for me. I can't imagine him hauling down the road just to show in some like in-hand classes. So I don't see that in his future, which kind of leaves me in a position where I don't super have a horse that I'm working hard at right now. Like, like I'm feeling a little bit lost in my own kind of growth goals. ⁓ And then personally, know, something people ask me a lot about is being in Northern Ireland versus being in the States. And the thing I always say is like right now Northern Ireland makes sense for my family because I'm not the only one who gets to make decisions. You know, ⁓ my husband's business is in Northern Ireland. He loves pursuing it. He loves watching it grow. So that means for us that life in Northern Ireland makes sense right now. I have the capability to be mobile, whereas he doesn't yet. But we are looking to be in the States, but I also don't see that as something that's going to happen soon. So that kind of makes it tricky to make a choice as to like, do I buy the next horse here? Do I buy a horse in the States and like fly back and show? I don't really. know the answer yet. I'm kind of thinking it through, but I will say I feel myself floundering a little bit without a goal that I'm working hard at with one of my horses. ⁓ You know, and there are some clients and things, but I'm also in the, right, like I said, I'm in this transition phase. have been in this transition phase. January, my husband and I sat down. So ⁓ he's very business brained and Sometimes it's nice to have somebody who thinks very businessy look into my horse training business because I think it can be easy to think like a horse trainer instead of like a business owner. So I really appreciate his insights. And one of the things we did is sat down ⁓ and really looked at my ⁓ numbers. ⁓ And the thing that we saw is like, as business is concerned, where really is my online products, ⁓ producing the score glow horsemanship course, ⁓ my video lessons, like ⁓ all of that has really healthy. growth and the overhead is minimal. ⁓ It's really created this kind of amazing way where I can share knowledge without like a huge output. Because I think what's hard about growing things in Northern Ireland is I would have to buy up horses to really have lessened horses because there are very few people that already have a Western horse. Most of them would be starting on like the Cobb that they're currently doing maybe working hunter with or show jumping, right? So they really need the opportunity to sit on a Western horse in order to kind of get a feel for it. Right. And like we said, I don't have a Western horse that people could really get on right now. So I really want things to in person, ⁓ then we start to be looking me buying a lesson horse. Right. I have to have less intact. ⁓ My insurance is different for things like that. ⁓ It just starts to get really And so ⁓ because that's not where I'm really seeing financial growth. Because the other thing is, different cultures spend money in different ways. Americans love spending money. You're probably rolling your eyes hearing me say that, but especially when you step away from it. It's true. I think Americans are much more into the value proposition. We are willing to spend money to get the best. We don't necessarily look as much at the bottom line. It's the value. Am I getting this much value for this price point? And if I go to a lower point, ⁓ I getting less value? ⁓ ⁓ I find over here is people really care about that bottom line because incomes are different. Things just look different. Like what people are willing to spend on horses and on a hobby is just ⁓ ⁓ that means that ⁓ the overhead of like running things in person, ⁓ how much Western is in a growth phase here, ⁓ Like it just doesn't make sense as a business to try to grow things in person. So I'm actually kind of phasing out of a lot of that stuff. And I'm really trying to turn my in-person things in Northern Ireland into more clinic based. Because I think that's what makes more sense here. A lot of people keep their horse at home. They're starting with the horse they have. I think it makes more sense for me to be available for like a weekend clinic once a month when I'm here. ⁓ Even every other week, but I think something like that makes more sense. We'll see how it goes. So I'm focusing hard on my online business. And one of the main things I needed to figure out for 2026 is how to replicate myself. I think I'm super scrappy. I'm super DIY. Like I really don't like the like buying all the gear before you're doing the thing. You know what I mean? So like I really had the intention of everything that I did with like Crysta Brown Horsemanship's online platform. I kind of did the DIY version of it until I saw that it worked and then I'm willing to invest a little bit more heavily. thing with the podcast. It's like when Scott and I started the podcast, I was like, just let's just start with what we have and see how it does because ⁓ people are interested or maybe not. But like I don't want to buy a ton of gear. just to sit there and then never do anything with it. So that's a lot of my thought process with most things. So now I'm at a point where a lot of the things that I'm doing for Crysta Brown horsemanship, like I was spending my time on too many things that weren't making me money and I was losing money. like a scheduler, that was like a big deal for me. Like I needed help and like having somebody who is rebooking people honestly has like immediately like helped the growth of business. ⁓ And now I'm kind of looking for some help not taking over my social medias because my social medias are very personal, personal, you know, it's just kind of its own thing. But looking for help maybe along like the marketing side of like some of the things that I'm not doing well, like getting some ads running, doing some static posts ⁓ and getting a page started for like Crysta Brown horsemanship. not everything is coming out of my personal page. So I'm looking at a lot of stuff like that, but I find because I'm not feeling a ton of fulfillment isn't the right word because I do feel fulfilled with horses right now. Like I love the progress that I'm seeing with a lot of my lesson folks. That's really satisfying, but I'm not feeling, excited. Like I have nothing I'm really excited for with like my own journey at the moment. Like I'm not really looking forward to developing one or getting one to a show. Like I'm really just doing my travel work to show and things like that. So I think because of that, I'm really business focused right now. So if you're not interested in that, like, can I just give you permission to click away from this podcast right now? because that's kind of my special interest at the moment. And Scott and I were talking about, you know, how we're feeling about the podcast, things we want to do coming up. And there's a lot of people I want to talk to, but I feel like the thing I really want to talk about right now is horses as a business. It's really interesting to me. I really sit and ponder often. I don't understand why, because our profession is sitting on horses, it's just expected that you're not wealthy. It's just expected that you shouldn't have a high income because of that. ⁓ And I think it's a really fine line because I think a lot of trainers, you know, they want to do right by their clients and I think they're pricing things at what they think people will pay. And I know I said this on the last episode, but I think people are pricing things at what they think people will pay instead of what it costs with a healthy margin for you to live your life. like, Can I just be clear? Like having a margin on top of a product is not selfish. Like that's sustainable. And so something I'm thinking about a lot is, as you can tell, is just like the business of horses and like why in the hunter jumper world are like higher training numbers so normalized and like, what is it about the Western community that our trainers are just not being paid appropriately? ⁓ If you talk to most horse trainers, where they actually make their money is on hauling. So they're like glorified haulers with extra tasks. Like that seems wrong to me. Like we spend a lot of time and effort to develop our skills to be appropriate as trainers. At least I have like, I mean, I've put, I don't know, 15, 20 years into like becoming the horseman that I am. Maybe 15, that's more fair, but 15 years into becoming this version of a horseman, like, why does that mean that we don't deserve to make something? And the thing about full-time training programs is it's like, the problem with them is the overhead. Like, as a business, it's not like you pay, I don't know, 800 a month, and that goes directly into your trainer's pocket, because chances are your trainer is also paying an accountant, is also paying a saddler, ⁓ an assistant if they have one. All of those different expenses are making it so they're not making a ton of money. And I think, and I think a lot of amateurs would agree with me, I don't think the solution to how expensive everything has become is horse trainers need to be paid less, right? Because another thing that I'm kind of passionate about, I'm jumping all over the place. God bless anybody listening. Another thing I'm kind of passionate about is the pay that assistants are getting. if you think horse trainers aren't making a lot, ⁓ my God, I don't even want to begin to talk about ⁓ it's like as an assistant. And yet you your time as an assistant to develop and grow and make connections and learn. Like that was important, but the pay is just not there. And that's not because the horse trainers don't want to take care of you. think a lot of them can't. And let me also just say, like, there are a lot of times in an assistant's career. where the trainer may just avoid them on a Friday, right? Or they may have to not get paid for an extra week, things like that, okay? It is really, really hard to make it in that regard. But I think if we're able to grow these like horse training businesses in a way that are more sustainable, to me that also includes making enough money that I can pay the people that work for me, like, not just a decent wage, like I want them to have like a livable wage where they can experience growth, they can have retirement, like all of these things that I think are important. Like I just don't think the bare minimum is acceptable, especially when like this is an extra thing. Like getting to do horses is an extra thing. It's not a life necessity. So I don't think people should be barely able to feed their kids because of people's hobbies. Like that's a little bit silly. It's this should be fun and it should keep people healthy. Right. just don't ⁓ think makes ⁓ for. Your ⁓ trainers and your trainers employees not be paid appropriately. So. ⁓ that being said, it's like, well, then what can we about problem? To me, I think we need a new business model. And I see this in a few ways. I really think the rise of a DIY amy is a response to how expensive things have become. It is really unobtainable for the average American, not even American, like worldwide, right? The average person, it is really hard to get into horse sport and do all of the things that it takes, spend all of the money on show fees and do all of those things. So I think a lot of them have gone, I can do it myself. But what I've found and what I've kind of explored with Crysta Brown horsemanship is like, what if there's a medium or even a low tier? what if you're willing to maybe have your horse at home or maybe it goes to the trainer sometimes, but want ⁓ some You just don't want the whole thing. Because in head, ⁓ full-time training be like the top tier, right? You're getting the ⁓ most time me, the most effort, the most thought. That should be the top tier. So I think a medium and low tier can exist where you want like help once a week, right? And so we can do video call lessons and it's like, you just want somebody to put eyes on you and just like confirm what you're seeing. Maybe give you a few exercises for this one thing you're struggling with. You're not sure how to deal with. Like I think that medium tier needs to exist. I also think a low tier should exist where you're like, you know what? Again, I want some help, but like my budget is just not at this higher level yet. Well, okay, like then send some video and let me give you some feedback. Like I think we need to be more creative as trainers of like products that are not just full-time training. Now, when I say that, I know like one horse trainer just like got mad and yelled at their phone because they're like, I don't have time, but I think we can make time. I think the problem is you get stuck in this cycle where you've got, I don't know, somewhere between six and horses in training, right? So now you're stuck in this cycle of like that is eating all of your time and you may not be seeing the reward because your price point may be too low. I think if you can do the really hard thing of making time to start creating what those mid and low tier products should be, I think it will pay off in dividends. Now, the other thing I think is not great about the horse training business model, as it is, is horse trainers are only getting paid if they are on a horse. Right? Like that is the only way we make money. If I can't be out at the barn, then I'm not getting paid. If I get injured, then I'm going to have to either send those horses out to friends, like the people are likely going to pull their horse from training. That puts a horse trainer in a really bad position because again, it's not like they're making huge margins on training all the rest of the time so that they can float themselves if something like that happens. Most trainers are one accident away from having to switch careers entirely. That scares me and that also doesn't feel right to me. So I think we need more passive income in horse training. And I really think the market is hungry for more information. Again, when we talk about like this lower tier, people that have something to spend or the people that are at the mid high tier that want additional resources because they just really want to get better. If we're offering things like written materials, know, these like video courses, things like that, where as a trainer, I can make that one time and it can sit there and it can continue to sell. can continue to benefit people. Okay. So now I can make money whether I'm doing the things or not. Now there is still a little bit of overhead. We still need to market it and things like that. But again, I really think our youth and amateur community is screaming out for something like that. I think they really want more resources and want more opportunities to learn. And I think we, you know, should make it a priority to try to put things like that out there. And like, if you're listening, you're like, Crysta, you're giving away like the best stuff. You're really giving away all your secrets here. I actually don't care. Like, I really, really, I love the industry. Like I know Scott and I get spicy every now and then, but like, I really love this industry and I genuinely hate. that so many of the horse trainers that I love are not like flush with cash. There are some people that are so talented and amazing at this industry and they're not being rewarded for it appropriately. Now, when we run our own business, a lot of that is on us, but like, I'm just sick of it. Like I want better for everyone. And so I really want us to consider what else horse training can look like, right? For you guys as amateurs listening, I know we have a lot of amateurs, I know there some trainers listening as well. I just think there's... We talk a lot like Scott and I about the trainer amateur debate, like the things that we kind of get head to head. And I think most of the time it boils down to a communication issue or like I as the trainer have some background information and knowledge that maybe you're not privy to, right? And so I can bring you in. Now there are some people who would say like, they don't think amateurs should know that their horse trainers aren't flush with cash because in some ways like trainers are kind of selling a lifestyle, right? We're selling the idea of this really premium product, but I'm sorry. I think it's wrong that like there are trainers going into debt to try to keep up with the Joneses to have the new stall curtains, to have the look, to have the truck and trailer. So when they pull in, they feel like they're selling something really premium and they're thinking that that's what's going to get them more clients. And that scares me for the future of our industry because I don't understand how trainers are going to make it if that's what is deemed necessary to have a successful training business. So can I just encourage you, as an amy, maybe you're a youth parent and you're picking a training program for your kid, I really want to encourage you to look beyond the stuff. Anybody can buy nice stall curtains. Anybody can buy a truck. Anybody can buy a trailer. Anybody can buy a nice Harris saddle. ⁓ The look can inform you of a lot of things, but that does not tell you how well your horse is going to be trained or how well you are going to be coached. Okay. And so I really want to maybe encourage folks to be a little bit more open-minded, right? If we want to see this industry continue, think trainers are an important part of it. And that doesn't mean that you need to go drop your horse in full-time training, but maybe when you're making a training decision, you take a chance on the young person who's trying hard. You know, have some of those conversations, you come up with some of those opportunities. I think it's important consider, you know, ⁓ maybe you're somebody that has few prospects coming up and you could go, you know what, ⁓ I'm going to send this out to be cult started by the young trainer coming up instead of sending them to the person that has a hundred different yearlings. ⁓ I think it's just something can consider ⁓ to benefit the future of industry. when think about the things that I for Crysta Brown in the I just think there's a lot of editing that I need to do as to where I'm putting my time. ⁓ And that's really tricky for me because I really like a lot of the stuff I But ⁓ what I found doing the Maneuvers Score Glow Up Horsemanship Edition course ⁓ is A lot of people really wanted that. Like it sold very well. I was really excited to see the interest, the positive feedback. So that tells me that I need to produce more courses, which is great. Like that's something I'm working on. But in order for me to produce things like that, like I have to stay off the road. And that's also hard for me because that's really my only showing opportunity. And also, my video content is a lot of what pushes back to my online business. So like I'm having a hard time saying no to travel work right now because I feel like, well, that will give me the opportunity to make videos because my trainer friends are super cool and let me make videos while I'm at horse shows with them and things like that. So then that's kind of content I can bank, which then helps tie back into me making money when I'm at home. Great. Wonderful. But then I don't really have the extra time to work on some of the bigger projects I'm working on. ⁓ There's a few, but of the bigger projects that I really want to work on that I think will be ⁓ So my hope for 2026 was to release ⁓ different courses this year. ⁓ see how far I get if two land. think I will be happy at this point, right? ⁓ That's a lot of the part of the transition. It's just like rethinking what a horse business can look like, all of these different things, you know. And a lot of it is just figuring out like what best serves our community. Because the other thing I work at a lot is my club, Stock Horse Ireland. And it's just hard because it's like I can't do everything, but I'd like to. I cannot. Personally volunteer effectively for my club. I stepped down as chairman and my brilliant friend stepped up in place of me, which is wonderful I think that's gonna be great decision because she's also a local so I think that will be good for the club but I'm still in as vice chair and Maybe you're a person who's had to Step down from different opportunities before maybe you're involved with your club, but I think I'm trying really hard to be honest about my bandwidth right now because I really hate not nailing everything that I'm doing. So it's the editing of things for me that I find tricky, right? Like I need to edit my relationship with Stockhorse Ireland in order to see it grow. Like I knew that with the way my time had been working out, like I had to make changes. ⁓ in the same way, you know, okay, like my personal horse situation is weird. Like I need to make an edit and I haven't figured out what that should be because I really need a personal horse for a few reasons. ⁓ I can sometimes use client horses for reels and Tik Toks and things like that, but I don't like to. Because when it's my own horse, like if there's a moment of them looking imperfect or there's hate comments about how like my pleasure horse looks lame, I don't care, you know? And if it's my horse, like I can take that risk and it doesn't matter. But I feel like when it's a client's horse, like I just, hate to, not that I represent their horse poorly, but I don't want it to be perceived that I'm representing their horse poorly or to subject them or their horse to negativity. It just doesn't feel fair, even though there are folks that are willing. So I'm trying to figure out can I successfully continue growing Crysta Brown horsemanship while not relying on as much video content. ⁓ I don't know because there's the horse person side of me just like who's just a horse girl and I'm like yeah I want to buy another horse that would be great. And then there's the business brain side of me that now goes If I'm essentially making a business decision here, spending 10 to $20,000 euros or pounds, depending on where I buy, to make a business investment seems extensive. Like that is a lot of money. And there are a lot of other ways I can invest in my business with that amount of money. So I'm really struggling to justify that choice. and it's something I just need to keep thinking on. ⁓ anyway, that's kind of like what's going on with me, some of the things that I am thinking through, working at. If you're still listening, God bless you. This is going to be crazy rambling. ⁓ I think a lot of people maybe can relate though to some of the uncertainty, some of the transition. I think a lot of being a horse woman for me has been just learning to stay adaptable. Like I've really struggled emotionally with horses when I was trying to hold on to things too tightly. I just, I don't think a life with horses has all that much predictability. I do think we have to be very gritty and also very moldable. Right? because nothing ever goes as planned with horses. I mean, literally nothing. I don't know if you've tried to sell a horse recently, but like nine times out of 10, you decide, okay, it's time to sell this horse. Like things are going great. They go lame or all of a sudden they've decided when someone puts their right foot on, they're going to try to bite at it. Like the craziest thing will go wrong. The moment you try to sell one, mean, horses are just like that. Whatever can go wrong will. And so it's really being able to quickly pivot. and just go, that's fine, it could look this way also. And that's something I learned the hard way in my horse journey. So right now I'm still trying to figure out what some of these pivots are, but I know I'm going to get it figured out. So stay tuned. ⁓ But I would be really curious to hear from our listeners, like, just in general, like what do you guys have going on in your horse? journeys, right? Like not just the baseline, like, oh, I'm trying to figure out like the trot or I'm trying to figure out the loping, but like, I would really like to know what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you're finding difficult. So please like send a message in the horse show bestie DMs and like chat with us about what you want to talk about. And actually, I am going to talk about diagonals for a second. Let's talk about diagonals guys. A lot of you. struggle to pick up the correct diagonal. And ⁓ one of my lessons is currently struggling with that. So this is fresh on my brain. I think 99 % of diagonal issues not like, you just started struggling with diagonals, that the people that come into their lesson and they're like, ⁓ my gosh, I cannot get diagonals, I just can't get it figured out. ⁓ 90 of the time, it is a mental game. ⁓ And is not a physical game. Okay. So for me, when I'm teaching someone to pick up their diagonals, the main thing I want them to figure out is the feel. So a lot of the games we play is like sitting the trot and swinging your arm or like trying to get the feeling in your hip, ⁓ things like that to try to help you figure out where the horse's feet are. Okay. Then the next thing I check in on is like, okay, if we're feeling it, is it a timing issue? Because sometimes what happens is the person might be feeling like where the leg is in the timing of the trot, but when that leg is back, you have to be ready to rise with it as it goes forward. Some people mistime this and they get behind the motion. And so then they end up picking the wrong diagonal, right? So then I kind of work at the timing of like when that foot is all the way back, that's when you begin to rise, right? Not once you feel it coming forward. So I work on the feel, work on the timing. Okay, if between those two things we are still struggling, it is probably because we have made too big of a deal out of getting your diagonal. I think ⁓ you cannot learn to ⁓ yourself, and when the narrative starts to become like, ⁓ just, can't get the left diagonal. Like no matter what I do, I just can't get the left diagonal. ⁓ soon as you think that thought, ⁓ give it too much power. And then when you go to pick up that posting trot, You're going to pick up the wrong diagonal because you're going to second guess yourself. You're like, is it that one? Ooh. And then you're not going to get it because your timing is going to be off. So I really think the posting trot is about trusting yourself, feeling it, getting the timing, and then trusting those two things. OK? So if you have a narrative in your head right now of like, I just can't get diagonals, take that idea, throw it out the window, and learn to trust yourself. OK? Change the thought to, why couldn't I figure out my diagonals? It is. not hard, is standing up and down baby. Like you can do it. Absolutely. What else should we talk about? What are the trainer thoughts? Let's talk about the lope. ⁓ God. Let's talk about the lope. I think a lot of folks struggle with the lope because they are too focused on the speed and they are not focused on engagement. Okay. So the function of a correct horse. is their shoulders are lifted, their back is lifted, and their hind end is tucked in underneath them. Their back should look like a rainbow if they are engaged properly. Now, the head and neck should, if I round my back right now, literally shape myself up like a rainbow in my back through my pelvis and through my shoulders, my neck will naturally want to fall off. So when you are teaching a horse the lope or you're riding a green horse in the lope, I don't want you to worry about its head and neck because here's the thing. If you set that horse's head and neck manually too soon, okay, before that horse has learned how to like lift up through a sternum and pick up those shoulders. If you set that head and neck before he's kind of figured that out, those shoulders will drop with the head and neck and getting them back up is a process. Okay. So when we're thinking about a quality lope, I want you focused on the biomechanics through the legs, feet, and body before you worry about head and neck and before you worry about speed. Okay, so now I want you to imagine if that horse has a rainbow back, okay, in order for them to have that pretty sweepy front leg, there has to be base of support in order for that to be soft. Otherwise, you get those horses that are really quick into the ground, right? Almost like bicycle legs. It looks like they're falling into the ground every they take a lope stride. That's a horse that's dumped on the forehand. A horse gets on the forehand because there's not enough engagement from behind. Okay. I want you to imagine if you didn't have like your glutes engaged and your feet up underneath you, there would be nothing to lift your shoulders from. ⁓ ⁓ we think about how to get our horse up off the forehand, you actually need to start by engaging the hind end. Okay. You can start to get a feel for this. A lot of people, think, struggle with this because of the feel. They're not able to feel the engagement, not because they don't understand what they're looking for. I just think it can be hard to feel the back feet. In a game I play with clients often is having them just call for me. Like in the walk and the trot, I'll have them call like left, right, left, right, but with the hind feet because that will help develop your... feel and understanding of where the hind legs are, which is essential for, ⁓ period, ⁓ ⁓ is essential to get a good quality lope ⁓ So first thing I'm ⁓ looking when I'm building a lope and a horse ⁓ is need to get lift up front in the shoulders. Okay. So if a horse comes to me and it's like ⁓ a horse or whatever, then it's super dumped down. The first thing I'm going do is lift his head and neck as high as I can get them because that going to help me get his shoulders lifted ⁓ from there. Then I can start working on engagement from behind and getting him to take a big step with his back feet. When we talk about engagement, I want you to imagine your horse's hind feet reaching all the way forward to mid-belly. you can feel that feeling of him ⁓ from behind and it almost feels like he's scooping his tail underneath you, that's a horse that's properly engaged. ⁓ movement at the lope. feels like pedaling a bike backwards. Like it literally feels like the motion of the horse comes up over the shoulders, over your body, and then forward, like over the hind end through the hind feet. ⁓ like comes ⁓ in a backwards circular motion and then forward through the front feet. Okay. ⁓ disengaged ⁓ lope, ⁓ will feel like your horse is coming like pedaling the bike forward. Okay. The energy comes ⁓ over the spine and then down forward through the front. before you worry about that, I do want you to make sure that you're sitting back because as I'm talking through that myself, I'm like, if you're not sitting back properly, you're definitely not going to be able to notice that situation. Okay. But if you are sitting back, you're in the ideal situation, you're loading your weight on the horse's hind end, that is going to allow you to feel those two differences in motion. and what you need to do about it ⁓ ⁓ that horse engaged. Okay, if your horse is falling on that ⁓ motion, right, they're not loading ⁓ behind, they're not lifting up up front, ⁓ you to get that hind end engaged, like I said, so that you can lift up the shoulders. ⁓ once that consistent and you have that horse, like, engaged from behind, ⁓ the front will soften and they're gonna start to feel lighter into the ground, ⁓ If they don't, it could be stiffness through the neck and it could be that they're like diving that neck down. So that's when I would start doing a lot of bending and flexing to kind of disengage their reliance on their neck and their balance through their neck to again get them to lift through the shoulders. Like to me, so much of success with an all around horse is through the shoulders and having like both shoulders up and balanced and self-maintaining. Right? Like I do a lot where like both hands are coming up and even to connect through my horse because I want bridal contact to then connect through the shoulders. That's how I steer. ⁓ like ⁓ you have a horse that drops a shoulder often, ⁓ I encourage you like, ⁓ don't into a situation where you like, let's say your horse drops the right shoulder. Okay. You're loping and you can feel him just kind of dive and drop that shoulder to the right. ⁓ When go to pick up that shoulder, ⁓ instead of just picking up the right rein and then letting his shoulders then drift to the left and then you end up in a situation kind of like when you were in high school and the first time one of your friends hydroplained and then they over correct and then the car starts like you know kind of going back and forth on on the sets of tires anyway i explained that poorly but you don't want to end up in a situation where you continually over correct and the horse never gets balanced i instead expect the shoulders to connect together and up towards me, which does require me to have my shoulders in place. A lot of times, the correct movement of the horse is directly tied to the correct movement of the rider for me in my experience and what I've seen work in my program. It is one of my like foundational foundational beliefs as a trainer is the horse is a mirror of you. So a lot of people think of me as a horsemanship coach because like in my videos and things I talk so much about rider positioning. But the truth is I'm really passionate about rider positioning because it directly influences the horse. Okay, that's not to say that you can't get a horse going pretty good if you have imperfect posture, but it sure does help. Because that horse is a mirror of you. And I mean that in every way, shape and form. If you are someone who is like uneven in your shoulders, your horse is gonna end up uneven in their shoulders. If you are somebody who kind of like rolls the shoulder forward and like it's heavy up front, Maybe you watch your horse a lot when you're riding. So you start kind of slowly leaning towards the horse. horse is going to be dumped forward on the forehand. They're going to be leaning forward. ⁓ just how it's going to work. ⁓ you're somebody who kind of bows your back and leaves your hips out behind you, ⁓ horse is going to drop their hind end out behind you. Okay. I I feel like people ⁓ maybe it's kind of silly ⁓ how I talk about the pelvis and hip circles and things like that. But it is so essential to correct riding. And I feel like figuring that piece out for me and in my journey, I I probably really started figuring out like hip circles and connection through the pelvis maybe 10 or 12 years ago. But I was maybe 18, maybe 19. Anyway, I worked with a classical dressage trainer, Carla Bachmuller. She is amazing and she's also a centered riding coach. So there's two things I really like. Classical dressage is kind of the return to form. It's almost dressage's version of the ranch riding. Like it was kind of like, okay, things are getting a little extreme. We need to have some return to form here. Okay. And classical dressage really tries to go back to the roots of dressage, which was creating a functionally correct war horse. Like that's what it was supposed to be. And then like degree of difficulty was added and things got kind of flamboyant. So right. now they're coming back to it with this classical dressage movement. Okay. There's also centered riding which centered riding was founded, founded, just maybe the wrong word, coined. The term was coined by Sally Swift and she wrote this book called centered riding and centered riding two And now she like, there's this foundation and you can be trained into it and like become a centered riding trainer. But what centered riding is, is kind of the thought of like how to connect through the body, but also explained in layman's terms. So I learned a lot from this personally. So like, if you just want to like learn how to be Crysta Brown, like just listen to this podcast. I'm literally giving away everything. But she did a lot of physical therapy as a kid for a condition that she had. And in physical therapy, they use a lot of like mental pictures to help you understand what they're trying to get your body to do. So when she applied that to horses and to good equitation, she really found it made a huge difference with the clients because they understood the feel they were looking for instead of just what to do. Because the problem is a lot of times when we tell a client like, pull your shoulder back or like pull your leg get your leg back, ⁓ people tense, ⁓ right? ⁓ hold leg where they're supposed to be. They ⁓ hold shoulders where they're supposed to be. ⁓ Well, is not functionally correct to your horse. It's just not. So instead what we need is people to ride with their bones instead of their muscles. I don't want to see people muscle their elbow into their pocket, right? Or like put their elbow in their rib cage by just holding super tight because that tension is going to feed into your horse. What instead I want them to do is like take that upper arm and just place it, magnetize it to the rib cage. Think of just like the picture that went into your brain by just me changing the language there. So that's what centered riding is. It's a different way of coaching to really connect to your horse. And I mean, it's a lot more than that as well. You know, it's really the principle of like building the base through the pelvis and then through the legs and like working it right up and like stacking your person in blocks. Essentially, there's a lot of different pieces, but The centered riding really changed things for me. And the thing I really see that I've taken and then now give to my clients is like that working through the pelvis. So many people have ⁓ that forward pelvic tilt or they're like tilting that pelvis too far back and it gets them either in front of or behind the motion. But I want you to imagine just rhythmically and in balance. If you tilt your pelvis like completely forward, you're now like dumping your horse's motion forward. Like that just lends itself to that kind of down on the forehand forward pedaling motion. When instead we take the top of the hips and we rotate the tailbone, like we're kind of like scooping it underneath ourselves, what you find is your hips can then go in that backwards pedaling motion. So it's like when the right hip is kind of up and back, the left hip is forward and through. And if you can get your horse to kind of extend the walk, And you can just get your pelvis rotated in that position where if it was a bowl of water, you're not spilling any water out of the front. You're not spilling any water out of the back. If you can find that nice neutral pelvis position, then when you send your horse forward, you're going to start to feel the hip motions. ⁓ like as you go through, you'll find that backwards peddling movement. Okay. Now that translates walk. You can also find it at the jog. You can also find it at the lope. What I feel at the lope is I tend to have a bigger hip circle with my outside hip and a smaller circle with my inside hip because it's got that little bit of a lateral motion to it. So for me, once I kind of figured out how to connect my motion of the pelvis, motion of the hips to my horse's movement, I noticed my horse was following that. And so I developed like a following seat where my motion could follow my horse. But then I learned to influence the horse with my seat. Right? So you can kind of resist your horse's motion with your hip circles and that encourages them to slow down and collect. if I want to extend the gate, ⁓ I send a little bit of energy ⁓ when hip is at the bottom of its circle. ⁓ And then kind of like sends my horse forward. Like ⁓ I ⁓ if ever sat on your horse bareback, ⁓ their muscles kind of feel like an elliptical machine. Like they're kind of forward, back, forward, back. So when I kind of bring my hip up and back, then I kind of go forward and through, like imagine you're just sending that ski of the elliptical machine like farther forward. ⁓ will open up your horse's stride. Some horses will break to jog, but like ⁓ you kind of work with your horse on this, you'll notice you can influence your horse's stride through your seat aids. So when we talk about like the aids of the feet and legs, the aids of your hands, the aids of your seat, This is what we mean by seat aids. And I feel like when I was a kid, I heard the term that rider has a good seat all the time, but I genuinely had not a clue what it meant. And I mean, not a clue. And also I don't feel like anybody explained it to me. Like I really had to search for these outside resources to find this information. But like, if you can find, how to get yourself in the correct positioning with suppleness, you will find more suppleness in your horse. This is what I mean. Your horse is a mirror of you. If you can ride soft and supple, you will end up with a soft and supple horse. If you get on the horse and you're a little fractious, a little nervous, maybe your hands get a little quick, guess what? Your horse is going to be fractious, nervous, and a little quick. So all of those things tie in together. And I really think horses help make us the best versions of ourselves. Not that I'm the best version yet, but also my horses aren't their best version yet. So, you know, it's still true. But I feel like my horses often reveal to me the things that I need to work on. You know, if I notice like, hmm, this horse is a little quick to react. I need to slow myself down. I'm looking for too much out of them. Like I need to keep things simple. I need to keep things positive. I need to focus on what's working and not keep diving into the things that aren't. working for us yet. Like it's laying the foundation for me, ⁓ ⁓ a lot of kind of ⁓ I think about what I work on. like part of why I'm so passionate about the rider's seat is because how much it changes things in the horse. So yes, like I am totally a horsemanship coach. I am more than happy to be ⁓ to that way because I love the class of Western horsemanship. I also love equitation. ⁓ The showmanship can be fun. ⁓ But I think no matter what class you show, these principles of rider alignment and riding in such a way that's effective and gets you in tune with your horse and aligned with your horse will pay off for every rider. It will improve your riding no matter what discipline, what you do, the principles are the same. that's a lot of what I found. ⁓ being exposed to so many different disciplines now. ⁓ you know, especially being in a place where the jumper land is really the thing. I find the principles of riding apply no matter what discipline it is, because a correct horse is a correct horse. Doesn't matter if you want to jump him, doesn't matter if you want to ranch him, doesn't matter if you want to do the all around. A correct horse is a correct horse. It's just what you're asking for there, right? In my ranch horse, I want a little more, pa, pa, like energy, like tossing forward. In my all around horse, it's like, oh, just beautiful, soft. fluid, right? Like we're asking for a different energy out of the horse, but the principles are still the same. They still need to lift the shoulders, connect through their back, engage their little abdomen and tuck their hind end underneath them and engage forward and through with their feet. It is exactly the same, If you are struggling with your horse, can I just encourage you to go back to fundamentals, ⁓ Check your forward ⁓ Check your rider alignment. Check your suppleness. Like go back into all of those pieces. Go back to your groundwork even. ⁓ my God, I'm such a big fan of groundwork. But don't be afraid of checking in on your foundational skills. Because a lot of times when I get stuck with a horse, it's not that I need to push them to go forward. It's that I need to go backward and I need to like fill one of the holes in the Swiss cheese knowledge in order for us to keep going forward. Sometimes you don't realize that a step was missed with a horse until you, I don't know, are asking for something new and you find, ⁓ there were the hole in the program. Okay, let's go back. Let's patch up that hole at the walk. Maybe we go back to patching up that hole at the stop. You know, I used to have some horses that really struggled with bridle connection, had their teeth checked, all of those things. And, you know, I would start to kind of work on some suppleness, doing some side to side bending and flexing. And you would be doing at the jog or doing at the lope and they would get super locked up and struggle. And the answer was not to push through those. It was to go back to the walk. Go back to standing still and just like bending and flexing his head left and right until he started to, ⁓ yeah, that's right. ⁓ yeah, that's right. I'm looking for the release. ⁓ yeah. Right. And like rebuilding that connection and then sending them back up and forward. ⁓ know, forward motion is such an important piece. Like I've had some horses that like come in for training ⁓ they just sit on your leg. Like they have no concept. of my leg connecting to forward motion. And that's because somebody has desensitized them. It's not typically their fault. They've just been desensitized in the process. But you have to find a different way about it. Like whether that's like using your rein and kind of over or under, like sending them forward. ⁓ I found a dressage whip to be a great tool at times because I can kind of tickle right behind my foot. And just sometimes the cue being different or feeling different can like get my horse thinking about it in a different way. And maybe that's a good spot for me to kind of. wrap up this absolute nonsense rambling of a podcast today. I just want you guys to think different. Okay, I've got all these things going on. I've got all these, I don't know, life events, life changes going on. But in general, when it comes to horse business, it's like, I just think we need to think a little bit different. And I want us to be creative in like what we can do about some of the challenges in our industry. But additionally, like when it comes to your horses, right? Like don't be afraid to think different and be curious and check out other disciplines and check out resources. And that's the biggest thing I can leave you guys with. So next week, I'm sure Scotty and I will be back. We are getting some great guests lined up. Speaking of me referring out some work, I'm getting some help getting our podcast scheduled built. And I am really excited about some of our guests getting lined up. I think they're going to be I think we have a lot of thought leaders coming on. Okay. And so that's what I'm really excited for. So in the meantime, guys, remember you can't be all of the good that the horse show world needs, but the horse show world needs all of the good that you can do. See you next time.