Light Horse Studio

Standardbred Mare Power

TikTok · ʜᴏᴏʀsᴇ._.ᴇᴅɪᴛᴢ

You’re going to start noticing some changes around here.

Taylor Saddlery is becoming Light Horse Studio.

This change has been taking shape for a while.
Taylor Saddlery grew from a very specific part of my life: horses, saddles, fitting, and the equestrian world that has been home to me for most of my life. I’m incredibly grateful for what it became, the people it brought through my door, and everything I learned along the way.

But sometimes something can still mean a great deal to you and no longer be where you’re meant to stay.

I’ve made the decision to stop selling saddles. They require a tremendous amount of shop space, time, and investment, and with the cost and tariffs involved in bringing them here now, it simply isn’t economical for me anymore and I want my shop more dialed into the creative side rather than storage.

The Taylor Saddlery website will be updated sometime in September as I begin making that transition.

But this change is about more than saddles.
Over the years, I’ve realized that what I love most has never really been selling things. It’s making them. Working with my hands. Learning an old craft well enough to pass it on. Taking an idea, a piece of leather, an image, or even a moment and turning it into something that lasts.

And I don’t want to limit that creativity to one corner of my life anymore.

Leatherwork will remain a big part of what I do, including equestrian pieces, but I’ll be expanding into work that has nothing to do with horses as well.

In time, photography will become part of this space too!

That’s where Light Horse Studio came from.

The horse was always going to stay.
Horses have shaped nearly every version of me. They’ve quite literally taken me around the world, introduced me to people I never would have known otherwise, humbled me more times than I can count, and have been a constant thread through a life that has changed in a hundred different ways.

There’s also a nod to the lighthouse in the name: deeply familiar to home here in Nova Scotia. Steady, weathered, useful. Not stopping the storm, but helping you find your way through it.

And Studio gives me something Taylor Saddlery couldn't: room.

It doesn’t ask me to define everything before I’ve had the chance to create it.

It leaves room for the things I already know and love, and space for the things I haven’t discovered yet.

Taylor Saddlery was built around what I did.
Light Horse Studio feels a little more like who I am.

And I’m looking forward to seeing where the light leads.

I have some non-servicable saddles which will have the billets cut so they aren't tempted to go back on a horse / repair not economical enough to try.

Please PM if you are looking for a decorative saddle or a saddle for a kid to play on. There are lots of ideas out there! I just don't have kids to share horses with but I know I would have played with them till the cows came home. They are mainly english but maybe the odd western one.

Asking $20 donation which will go towards rescue rabbits but pay what you can.

Located Cambridge NS
Pick up only.

Shop ponies enjoying some grass paddock time.

18" Thorowgood all-purpose

Older model - not adjustable.

In lovely shape!

Shipping available
Pick-up Cambridge, NS

$350 firm

At 12, a Lusitano may still be entering his prime. 🐎

There is an important difference between age and athletic maturity.

A horse’s development does not end when competition begins. Structure, musculature, balance, experience and training can continue to evolve throughout the years.

In the Lusitano, this maturation can contribute to the development of greater athletic ability and a more refined quality of work.

A well-developed and correctly trained horse can reach high levels of performance at a more mature stage of life. Some individuals remain active and competitive for many years, including well into their twenties.

So looking at a 10, 12 or 14-year-old Lusitano simply as an “older horse” can mean overlooking an important part of the story.

Maturity is not simply a number.

It is the result of development, training, experience, physical condition and time.

A horse does not need to reach its best too early.

Some simply need time to become what they were built to be.

📖 The Lusitanos Archive
Exploring the history, morphology, functionality and culture of the Purebred Lusitano.

EquineBiomechanics Dressage LusitanoDressage LusitanosArchive LusitanosCompany

You’re probably not moving enough at the walk. Here’s why.

The walk can look like the simplest gait but it asks the rider to follow a surprisingly large range of motion.

Your hands move forward and back. Your elbows open and close. And your pelvis? It can almost feel as though your hips are swinging forward between your hands with each stride.
Not excessively. Not artificially pumping or driving.

That's an important distinction: quiet contact does not come from quiet hands. It comes from hands that move enough to remain quiet in relation to the horse's mouth.

You’re simply allowing your body to follow the horse.

At the walk, the horse’s head and neck make a pronounced oscillating movement, while the back and pelvis create movement for the rider in multiple planes. Research using kinematic analysis has shown that the rider’s pelvis follows substantial three-dimensional movement at the walk, with gait-specific pelvic motion that differs considerably from trot and canter.

Your hands at the walk absolutely need to move more "forward and back" tidal sway more than trot or canter.

That is why truly following a good walk can feel like a much wider movement than people expect.

And yet the walk is incredibly easy to interfere with.

Fix the hands, a bit of brace the elbows, stiffen the lower back, or start artificially driving with the seat, and you can interrupt the natural movement of the horse beneath you.

There is an old horsemanship wisdom behind paying particular attention to the walk and canter when evaluating a horse.

The trot can be developed enormously through training. But the natural quality of the walk and canter tells you a great deal about the horse and the walk, in particular, is notoriously easy to spoil through incorrect training.

So when you're walking, don't try to look "still."
Follow.

Let the elbows breathe.
Let the hands travel.
Let the pelvis swing with the horse.

The goal isn't to make the movement.
It's to stop preventing it.