Resolute Training Stables

Me and my twinsies sharing some@beets fresh from the garden.

Man August was a long month…. Fires, work the heat. Looks like the heat is breaking less things are burning and we finally have some better air quality.

Looking forward to getting back to riding and not just feeding these (super cute) hay burners.

I’ve always thought of my horses as pretty lucky. They live in a 5 acre field all day with their buddies. The ones who need special treatment get pulled out for that, whether it’s gluing them back together because they got dinged up or, for special feed because they don’t have teeth (Zuni).

When I left Wenatchee, I felt guilty moving them from the side of a mountain where they were mostly feral for 23 hours a day to a flat boring 5 acre field with no trees, hills or other natural enrichment.

But, I’ve been keeping a secret 👀

It won’t be long until they can go back to the hill side. In addition to enrichment, being in the hills helps keep them fit and, provides plenty of natural desensitization and overall makes for a more sure footed and fit horse under saddle.

Stay tuned for an update on Resolute Training Stables new home base and our new focus of developing all-rounder amateurs horses that have ALL the SKILL.

I’m so disappointed in the horse community.

For those that don’t know, half of Spokane burned down last week along with large swaths of the rest of the state east of the Cascade Mountains. We have had an Air Quality Index (AQI) of over 150 (often quite a bit higher) consistently over the last week with it far exceeding 150 in some areas for sustained amounts of time. The science says don’t ride in this, it’s damaging to the horse’s lunges, not to mention yours. It’s been recommended by the leading vet in our area that horses have two weeks off AFTER the smoke clears to allow their lungs to recover.

And yet, people ARE RIDING. They are hauling to the hills where the air is marginally better, they are galloping their horses early in the morning to “beat the smoke”. I’ve seen excuses that range from it being more detrimental for the horse to lose fitness than breath bad air. Some are rage baiting and actually inviting people in community groups to go for a trail ride. Regardless of your excuse, it’s wrong. The science says so.

As a horse community we talk about the massages, the chiro, PEMF and expensive high end feeds we give our horses and the quality of care they get but, it seems those are the people who can’t just give them a break. How unthinkable that we spend the huge amount of money we do on them to let them sit for a month. The mind set is that we owe it to ourselves to get the most of the investment.

I wasn’t a smoke jumper or on a shot crew but, I’ve dug line and stuck my face in fire and I can say, after a two week roll of hard cardio hiking up mountains with hose and metal fittings, I wasn’t breathing so well. I’d never ask my horse to carry weight up a mountain or gallop around and jump a course in this.

We need to do better.

Amongst the tragedy of the Spokane fires this weekend, there was a little joy in finally getting to meet an Emu in person.

Wasabi the Emu evacuated to the fair grounds giving Jennifer Hamilton and I some fun on night shift.

Love me a handsome thoroughbred ❤️ and Rapído did not disappoint. Looking forward to taking this 5 yo OTTB for a spin soon.

Turnout is not just a nice to have, it’s fundamental to having a physically sound horse.

Yes, they get more scrapes and bangs, but without movement, keeping horses sound is a challenge. The horse industry spends an absurd amount of money on routine injections, specialized shooing and all other sorts of fixes that (PEMF etc), if turnout were provided, wouldn’t be necessary. All these joint issues aren’t only from hard riding, they are from a 1,000lb plus animal standing in one tiny 12x12 spot all day every day.

Could you stand in one spot for that long? I can’t. If you’re a horse owner, it’s your responsibility to advocate for 12 plus hours a day of turnout for your horse. Your trainers not going to do it. Your vet who makes millions off maintenance procedures sure as hell isn’t.