I would like to invite everyone to send me a YouTube, if it would please you to do so, on the personal connection that you have developed and are enjoying with your horse using the Waterhole Rituals. This is an invitation to blog readers as well as the students in the Inner Circle Program. Just paste the link in the comments section below.

For the Inner Circle students: put together a YouTube that shows how far along you are in the Rituals. This information will help me to support you further. I am sure your YouTubes would also be helpful to people who are just starting out with my Method.

I want to give more information on the Eye Contact Ritual. This Ritual is to develop your horse’s habit in keeping and eye on you. Some people cannot tell if their horse is looking at them. It is easier to tell with some horses than others. The easy ones will get interested in looking somewhere beyond or left or right of where you are standing and will turn their heads to look. Try this exercise to see if your horse is really keeping an eye on you:

Allow your horse … Read more

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This is an amazing August, usually it is hot. Fall is in the air and the weather is beautiful. I do not have much to share today so I just wanted to update you on everyone here and tell you about a small tip you might find useful.

Cat is doing really well and appears to be very happy, as is Stoli. Morning Star (Lucero) is also very happy with his life and is like a little puppy dog now. When he came here about 10 weeks ago, he had a very surly attitude but has responded wonderfully well to the Waterhole Rituals™ and is as friendly as you could wish now. This kind of grounding well set him up very well for whatever training he does later in his life.

Greg Bruce, our equine dentist, came the other day. He fixes all my horses teeth and it was amazing to watch him. He spent at least 30 minutes with Julia telling her all about how a horse uses his teeth and things to look for that can cause a horse problems. I came in the middle of it and got a lot out of his talk. Greg teaches horse … Read more

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The other day I was telling you about how I started to use music to train my horses and so I wanted to tell you a little more about my experiences.

When I trained to music, I found that the horses responded more quickly to my spontaneous direction. We became united as a team beyond anything I had experienced before. It caused me to be more careful not to ask anything of the horse that would cause the loss of rhythm or negatively impact the horse’s ability to perform. Music made me a more tactful rider. My spontaneous cues caused the horses to focus on performing at a moment’s notice, which created a brilliance in their steps. It was a miraculous discovery. After that, I developed a training program in four stages.

In the beginning, when I first started a horse to music, I chose classical or any music without a beat so the horse could focus on even cadence and develop an evenness and smoothness of the gait. This way, he could easily attach to the flow of the music. After the horse responded naturally to what he was listening to, the next step was to pick music with … Read more

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A cultivated understanding of the culture of horses enables us to fit in with them, train them and befriend them and brings out a horse’s desire to bond and follow our lead, as well as an amazing ability to perform for us in all equestrian pursuits. Just picking up some tips to be able to get along with horses has some serious drawbacks. Trying to fix horses that do not fit with their jobs or with our abilities also has drawbacks. Taking the long journey to get to know horses has no drawbacks and offers a more enjoyable experience that is far reaching. You evolve your ability to create a connection with horses from being able to acquire a state of being and consciousness that horses are drawn to.

The best way to acquire this cultivation is by being present in the moment when a horse feels safe and comfortable. We need to spend time watching horses with a keen eye to learn how horses communicate with one another, and how horses train horses and how leadership in horses can be gross as well as highly sophisticated, since it comes from an care taking approach. Care taking lead horses have … Read more

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This Sunday morning before I began working on my blog for Tuesday and after feeding, I was coming up from the horses and I heard bird sounds that were not natural to this area. I ran to where I heard the sounds coming from and found about 16 parrots on the telephone lines next to the house. After watching them for a while, they swooped down into our arborvitae trees and began to eat the berries on them. I went to the house and put out fruit and seeds. They were not interested. They were here all morning and now they are gone. I just had to share this as it was so beautiful an unexpected.

Last Thursday I worked with the first Ritual, Sharing Territory, with Lucero and wound up in a spontaneous ball game with him. Lucero is a 14 month old Andalusian-Arabian cross gelding that I chose to help me with coaching for the Insider Circle group. I had intended to sit quietly and just share space but the game started when he started throwing a ball he has in his paddock. He was just playing by himself, while we were Sharing Territory, when he accidentally threw … Read more

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Horses and music have always been a part of my life but never did I think that music would bind us together and be what we would have in common. Nor did I believe that music would open the door to reading each others minds but it did. Over the years, I have discovered that horses not only listen to music, they respond to music with rhythmic strides. I also found the music increases their desire to work close with me in the training process.

At the age of 10, I began training horses for the show arena. I had also studied ballet most of my childhood and planned to be a professional ballet dancer. However, when I reached the age of 18, I had to give up dancing due to an inner ear problem that affected my balance. It was the natural choice to pursue a career in showing horses. I fulfilled my need for dancing by listening to music when I was around the barn. If you should drop by my ranch, you would hear anything from Swan Lake to country music. It wasn’t until years later that I started playing music while I trained horses.

One day … Read more

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Hello again.

So many people have come to my Method who want to ride a horse as well as have a deep bond with them. Some are looking for solutions to behavioral problems. Many people are feeling snubbed by their horses. Others cannot gain respect whilst some are on a journey in search of a way to connect with a horse in the moment of unity and harmony.

What I offer through the Waterhole Rituals™ is support through a journey by accepting the horse for who he is right now and building a relationship in the most natural way. The Waterhole Rituals™ offer an enjoyable process to bring horses and humans together using rituals that horses use to develop a working partnership with one another. If you have the horse of your dreams and a wonderful riding horse, the Rituals will help you to develop a deeper connection in friendship.

Many people have discovered that horses, like people, have different personalities and that this needs to be considered when dealing with horses. The most important aspect of having a horse is picking the right horse to fit your purpose and personality. Horses are like shoes. Not only is the fit … Read more

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