Big Top Equestrian Centre

Our filly, *Little Bo Peep is really starting to show who she is. Her momma is a 9hh, KRT25 Curly mare, but her sire is a full size, fancy, cremello Quarter Horse.
Now before you jump all over me.... I did not do this breeding! I bought the mare, *Goldilocks, in January of this year, she was already bred to him. And, let me tell you it was a nailbiter waiting for the foal to be born, I was so concerned, but *Goldie had one of the easiest births I have ever attended and *Little Bo Peep arrived without fanfare!
As many of you may know, the birth turned out to be the easiest part of that day as that was also the day that we had a massive wildfire in our community resulting in the loss of our home. We do have lots left at our farm though and a ton of people helping us so we will rebuild.
In the meantime - enjoy *Peepers - she is da bomb!

Well, it has been a wild ride this past couple of weeks since our little cremello filly was born.....
The very day she was born... she was about 8 hours old when a gigantic wildfire ignited in our community. I had to evacuate all my horses including this little mare and her brand new foal.
So the filly is now coming up on 3 weeks and we finally have them back home again.
It has been a lot, but the filly is growing and thriving - thank goodness.

Curly filly born just after noon today, August 7, 2026. Her mom is a mini, tobiano, palomino KRT25 Curly (about 9 hh) and her dad is a full size cremello QH!
I am going to call her *Little Bo Peep.
This filly is a full sister to my yearling smooth coat, Snow White.

I feel so badly for all the people affected by recent and ongoing wildfires. We have been extremely lucky so far that we "only" have smoke to deal with - no fires in our area at this time. The smoke though, is significant.....
We are so happy we installed this giant air filter in our indoor arena - we don't have to turn it on too often, but when we need it we are glad to be able to give the horses a break from the smoke in there.
Only very light work is done, walking maybe a little trotting, but not really working them at all - just breathing some clean air for a bit.

We are lucky so far and have no fires directly impacting us, but still.....it is just SO smokey outside. We can stay inside with our air filters, but the horses are out there all the time.
A couple of years ago we installed a HUGE air filter in our indoor arena and it gives the horses a break to at least get some clean air into their lungs - to give them a break for an hour or so inside.

Self carriage! It is "really" a thing. Thanks Lee for this great info this morning!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BSnrK2Y3y/

The horse who bobs his head in and out of contact is usually the horse who does not trust the rein, which is another way of saying that he isn’t comfortable with our hands. Yet.

How do we build trust along that sacred pathway we know as the bridle rein?

We have to become reliable. We have to allow freedom of thought and movement. We have to cease micromanaging, or even, inadvertently hurting the horse. This isn’t an easy pill to swallow and yet, after my time spent teaching and judging, I would have to say that this one thing is common to many schooled horses, no matter their discipline or breeding.

They’re ‘on’ for a stride or two, then they come ‘off’, until they are immediately nagged to come back again. The rider wants this contact, or roundness, more than they do. Micro-managing is a big part of the conversation.

This is the horse or pony who has been held together, or reminded every few strides that he must be lower, or more ‘collected’. He has been ridden ‘front to back’, by someone who is visually focused on what is going on in front of her and maybe, not so much on what she is feeling coming from behind and underneath.

This is usually a horse who has never been invited to stretch towards the bit, nor has this horse gained the ability to ride at all gaits while ‘on the buckle’, with a swinging rein.

He may be the horse who is constantly being told to slow down for certain show classes but we also recognize many like him from the carriage driving world, in 4H and on the ranch, or schooling for speed events or for jumping. This horse's trust in the bridle has an on-off quality, like a light switch.

His contact has become a thing by which he is scolded, almost like a mother reminds a teenager that the trash has yet to be taken out... over and over, again.

One of the most important lessons that I was taught by my long-ago dressage teacher, was to consider a horse’s posture—aka his head carriage—as a diagnostic tool, rather than a thing to be fixed, or aspired to. Immediately, when one really believes this, everything about her riding will change!

So, if I’m riding along and my horse’s head is up in the air, rather than pull him into position, I ask myself a few questions.

What’s going on, here? Is he mentally checked out, or especially high, or worried? Each of these things requires a different approach than merely hanging on for dear life.

Is his body stiff or did he just sleep wrong last night? Does he want suppling in the way of more walking and bending, such as loopy serpentines?

Is he not moving forward enough, to really engage his engine from behind? Does he need some extended canter, or some lateral steps to get things moving back there? Does he need bodywork, above all?

Is he simply waiting for me to start nagging? Because believe it or not, we can become accustomed to this back-and-forth bickering, like an old married couple. It’s almost an addiction, of sorts, about who will get the last word. It will require one of you to simply stop. Maybe some quiet rein back, or backing circles, will help him look after his own body parts, without all these memos from upper management.

Remember, there are personalities among us—both horse and human—who resist being forced into anything. I can’t tell you the number of highly-mettled horses who go like lambs, the moment we stop demanding their submission.

If you’ve been paying attention, not one of these ‘fixes’ involves the busyness of our hands. Not the inside rein first, nor the outside rein, nor any sort of 'driving' with the inside leg.

There is no so-called 'triangulation', with hands held low and wide. At their lowest point, there should be a straight line between the rider's elbow and the bit. The rider's elbow joints are always softly bent, never held straight.

All of these things are encouraging the horse to come from behind, to swing through the back and to become an autonomous (self-governing) state. Do I need my horse to wait for instructions and to guide exactly where I want him to? Of course. But none of these things is accomplished by my getting busy with the reins.

I wish for more people to sit with this and really take it to heart. The beautiful self-carriage we all love, want and admire in horses who display this skill is not rocket science. The hint is in this name we give to the horse who proudly, effortlessly and consistently seeks subtlety in the messages sent by his rider through his mouth.

I am certainly NOT suggesting that you put your horse into side-reins and lunge him until he gives up. All this will do is lock up his back and predispose him to a life of ‘maintenance’ in the form of needed pain meds and injections. So, none of that.

Self-carriage is a whole-body experience. The horse becomes happier, more confident and smoother to ride. He stops with the silly shying out. His rider begins to grow more interested in what is going on in the world around her, rather than staring down at her lap. This changes her balance, which, in turn, affects her horse. His movement becomes grander and lighter in its footfalls.

In time, which can range from weeks and months to mere minutes, he becomes more the horse he was born to be. It feels good and so, he begins to crave this happy state. This last sentence is important.

We want to ride on and on, without ever stopping. But none of this is possible if we continue to see-saw and ‘remind’ our horses every few steps with the reins. Will it get even uglier, while you are weaning yourself off from this constant habit of ‘riding the horse onto the bit’ and exploring other avenues to steady and build your horse’s posture? Possibly. No, very probably it will.

It depends on how married you are to the idea of riding forever, just exactly as you are. Change always requires of us a willingness to leave the past behind and go try something new.

Here are Henry and I, in a photoshoot for the AQHA publication, 'America's Horse'.

Photo: Mike McLean.

Snow White - smooth coat, Curly bred mini/QH. She is really quite lovely - growing and developing like a small quarter horse! Gotta love those blue eyes.

Practice your scales - good one Amy Skinner Horsemanship!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1E78edEbDA/

Good intentions don’t replace good technique

As the horse world increasingly explores intention, relationship, and the emotional side of horsemanship, I sometimes worry that we risk overlooking something equally important: technique.

If you want to become a musician, you practice scales. It isn’t always exciting, but it creates the foundation that allows expression, creativity, and artistry to emerge. Once the technique is solid, you can create something uniquely your own.

Horsemanship is no different.

Good intentions matter. The desire to be kind, connected, and understanding matters. But our horses don’t experience our intentions directly—they experience what is communicated through our bodies, our timing, our tools, and our feel.

If we haven’t developed the technical skills to support those intentions, the message can become unclear. What feels soft and thoughtful to us may arrive to the horse as confusing, inconsistent, or even unsettling.

I’ve spent countless hours with teachers refining seemingly simple things: how I hold a lead rope, a flag, a lunge line, how I pick up a rein, how I organize my body before asking a question. Repetition of small details can feel tedious, but those details shape the conversation we have with the horse.

The intention was always there. The challenge was learning how to communicate it clearly.

Practice your scales. Be willing to examine the basics and receive feedback on them. The horse people who become truly effective are rarely the ones with only good ideas or good intentions. They are the ones who combine intention with skill, and who keep refining both throughout their lives.

Relationship, emotional awareness, and understanding can set the direction. Technique is what allows us to communicate those things clearly. One without the other leaves the conversation incomplete.

Photo by Jesse Cardew

The 3 F’s of equine welfare are Friends, Forage, and Freedom. These core principles represent the fundamental physical and mental needs of a horse. Providing them is critical for keeping horses healthy, reducing stress, and preventing behavioral issues.

At Big Top Equestrian, we are very, very lucky to have the land to be able to offer this to our horses. The horses you see in these photos are some boarders and some are mine - hard to tell as I keep them all in small herds. Sometimes I have to make an exception to that for a new horse arriving (quarantine) or for a horse who is sick or needs a bit less grass - but it is ALWAYS my goal to get them out with the rest of the gang.

Do these horses look happy? :)