Kids learning to ride in balance at Windrock Farm on a hack with Cari and Lauren leading the kids on Mr. T and Goldie.   The rider is in control, however, if there is any sudden movement of the horse, we have control of the bridle with a neck rope to prevent any mishaps.  It is critical to instill confidence in the rider from the very beginning of lessons.

The ultimate goal is for the horse and rider to be molded to each other.  Together they form a finely balanced whole, a living work of art, which is beautiful and graceful, and which works with the precision of a clock.

We have been working on many different breeds of horses with a variety of issues to correct.  This walking horse was a champion in the show arena and is now a trail horse.  Because of his training for the class caused him to have flashbacks while mounting and moving off for the first few steps.

We have been working with Chiller to build his confidence to stand quietly and not panic in the first step off.  He is improving every day and is incredibly comfortable to ride.

Arctic Bright settles into his new stable in California after a long drive from Lexington, Ky where we picked him up.  Arctic is a pure white TB, with pink skin and dark eyed.  He is charismatic, athletic and quite the character.  Here he is having breakfast in bed after the long drive.  For more information, read here.

Bred in Oregon by Darlene Knight, Arctic Bright is the first foal out of the Reign Road mare Mesa Queen. He hails from the family of 1975 Kentucky Derby (gr. I) winner Foolish Pleasure.

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I greatly enjoy teaching kids to ride with confidence and trust in their mounts.  Here is a lesson over our obstacle course which helps them build their confidence and teaches them to deal with any situation.

An afternoon at Windrock Farm after the kids play a game of baseball, practice hitting golf balls and playing capture the flag.  Wyatt celebrated his 12th birthday in style with hot dogs from Four Brothers and apple pie with vanilla ice cream.  Fiona is handing out birthday carrots to the mares.

Last weekend, our youngest student, Vanessa, age 3 rode Rex’s three year old stud colt who has only 16 rides on him,he is a lovely horse who proves if you start them correctly with no mistakes, you have a super horse.

Levi is a confident bold jumper, he has a motor, great personality,

loves cross country, uncomplicated to ride, super event, dressage or hunter prospect.

Congratulations to Chip for his first foal of the season, this handsome colt is beautiful, smart and has a great sense of humor at one month old.  We just returned from a quick road trip to VA to drop off a horse and pick up a pony and have a quick layover at Chip’s farm in Berryville where Spring is in full bloom.

Does your horse stand quietly in the cross ties, does he wait patiently at the mounting block, does he step off only when you ask him, is he on your aids when you ask him to go, whoa, move laterally?  If not, come to a clinic this Spring and learn how to teach your horse to be so obedient, even a monkey  could ride him.  Check the web site for dates and availability.

Diego has no fear of horses because he is growing up around them and loves to sit on the biggest horses in the barn.  Fiona is riding Peadar who is a kind gentle horse and Simon is on Shadow, with Lauren giving him some pointers.

The genome of a domestic horse has been successfully sequenced by an international team of researchers.

The work, published in the journal Science, may shed light on how horses were domesticated.

It also reveals similarities between the horse and other placental mammals, such as bovids – the hoofed group including goats, bison and cattle.

The authors also found horses share much of their DNA with humans, which could have implications for medicine.

Horses suffer from more than 90 hereditary diseases that show similarities to those in humans.

“Horses and humans suffer from similar illnesses, so identifying the genetic culprits in horses promises to deepen our knowledge of disease in both organisms,” said co-author Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, from the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US.

“The horse genome sequence is a key enabling resource toward this goal.”

To generate a high-quality genome sequence, the researchers analysed DNA from an adult female thoroughbred named Twilight.

The horse’s DNA was sequenced using capillary DNA sequencing technology (known as Sanger sequencing) to reveal a genome that is roughly 2.7 billion “letters”, or nucleotides, in size.

In addition to sequencing the genome of a thoroughbred horse, the researchers also examined DNA from a variety of other horse breeds.

These included the American quarter horse, Andalusian, Arabian, Belgian draft horse, Hanoverian, Hakkaido, Icelandic horse, Norwegian fjord horse, and Standardbred breeds.

The team surveyed the extent of genetic variation both within and across breeds to create a catalogue of more than one million single-letter genetic differences in these breeds.

This is slightly larger than the genome of the domestic dog, and smaller than both the human and cow genomes.

So far, scientists have also sequenced the genomes of the platypus, mouse, rat, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and, of course, human.

Horses were first domesticated 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Over time, as machines have become the chief sources of agricultural and industrial muscle, those roles have shifted to sport and recreational activities.

As a result of working in film for nearly 4 decades, Rex Peterson has designed several products to make horse training more efficient and safe. The Neck Rope designed and made by Rex Peterson can be used for many purposes, including ponying kids on their first few trail rides across country. It is important to get out of the arena as soon as possible for the rider as well as the horse. You can see in this video how easy it is to control the pony when he speeds up or wants to turn the wrong direction. This method allows the kid to feel the independence of riding while having a safety line for any errors.

Wash and dry the area and apply. You can bandage over this as well. The main thing is keeping the area soft and dry.

These amounts are approximate ratios-they do not need to be exact.

1 tube Lotramin (athlete’s foot cream)
1 tube hydrocortisone cream
1 tube triple antibiotic ointment
aloe vera gel ( equal to 1 tube amount above)
contents of 4-5 vitamin A capsules, vitamin D capsules, and Vitamin E capsules

Mix well and store in any type empty jar or plastic container.

Last weekend Joa was third in the open Training Level division at Town Hill Horse Trials, after placing 6th in dressage, Joa went on to jump a flawless show jumping round and a clean cross country round on Kestrel. Although Kestrel looked at a few fences on the cross country course– the log over the ditch and the water, Joa rode him beautifully around the course. All of the training and hard work has paid off with this team finishing the season in top form.