Mango Bay Eventing

04/27/2022

.saddlery

04/21/2022

💕💕

Having a sense of progress is important, but it’s easy to miss the small, everyday markers of progress if you are attached to what progress should look like.

Being able to notice and appreciate progress in training involves:

1. Total acceptance of where you are currently.

If you are desperate to change or escape your current position, you are already fixed on an outcome. When we’re fixed on an outcome, we’ve already created a mental model and how and where we think things should be, which colours our perception and observation, and prevents us from seeing the subtlety and nuance of day-to-day changes.

2. Letting you and your horse be new every time you meet

I mentioned this a few blogs ago, but letting yourself be new means that allow yourself to meet the training session and see what presents. You don’t have ideas about what’s going to happen. You don’t presuppose that your horse is going to respond in a certain way. You don’t presuppose YOU are going to respond in a certain way.

This extends beyond the mental and emotional to the physical also. You don’t label your weak side or bring the story with you about your stiff left shoulder or how your horse always drops to the inside on the right rein. None of it.

You let you and your horse be completely new every time you meet.

Every thought we have has a corresponding motor pattern in the body. Our thoughts play out in our physiology. If we have habitual thoughts, we are consistently expressing habitual patterns as part of a sympathetic reflex response and creating ground hog day scenarios as a result.

Let yourself be new.

3. Observation without judgement

The brain learns through consistent and repetitious failure. We make a decision; take an action and we observe the consequences of that action. Our unconscious brain then tries again in an attempt to bring the outcome of our action closer to our original intention. In this way, every action we take is a success; every action we take is making us clearer, more efficient, and more in line with our original intention. Every repeated “failure” is a “success”.

Judgement has not functional purpose in the learning process, other to pull you into the workings of the emotional brain and limit your capacity to truly take notice of what’s happening.

There is no right or wrong, good or bad. There is just “how far from our intention did that action take us?” and “how might we get closer next time around”?

Onwards.

❤️ Jane

04/19/2022

Are you straight 👀 are you relaxed…but are you engaged? Great work ladies 👏🏼😎👏🏼🐴

04/06/2022

Event Team time!!! This right here is what it’s all about 🥰🥰🐴🐴

03/28/2022

Photos from Tamarack Hill Farm's post

02/25/2022

Yawn it out beautiful girl 💕💕

02/18/2022

Let’s see those yawns!!! 🥱🥱🥱💕💕💕

02/09/2022

Winter event team

01/17/2022

“Start easier than you almost can imagine” 💯💯

12/31/2021

Happy New Year Eve 🥳

12/30/2021

Feels good to be out of lock down 😊😊

12/17/2021

There is always more to learn than you know 💕

“I’ve been doing it this way for years!”

When folks justify their skills by saying they’ve been doing it for years, decades, their whole life, etc., I grieve the lost years of potential progress.

I don’t train horses the same way I did 10 years ago. I don’t even train the same way I did 2 years ago. My path is littered with abandoned methods, tools, and paradigms. And though I have a rather successful track record helping horses rehabilitate and develop, I am constantly searching for ways to do it better.

I also find that the horses I encounter today as a whole seem softer, smarter, and more balanced than the horses of my past. For that I thank my own dedication to growth as a horsewoman… not some mystical force that has graced me with better horses.

It excites me to imagine the level of horsemanship we may all find 10 years from now if we commit ourselves to a path forward instead of a stagnant satisfaction with current methods that have been “working fine for years”.

12/04/2021

Great two days! Thanks to and for a great clinic!! Followed by a perfect outing at great Brook today 😎🐴⛄️ .saddlery

11/30/2021

Winter is here ⛄️🐴 .saddlery

11/24/2021

A really fun day!! Thanks for having us and hosting a great clinic, looking forward to more tomorrow 🐴😊

11/12/2021

And that’s a wrap, what a great team!!! Thank you all for being so great, it’s been my pleasure to watch you all progress and have fun 💕💕

11/05/2021

Some happy pairs and beautiful backdrops 🥰🐴💯

11/01/2021

Thank you .mayo for a great ride critique ride today!! Fun was had by all 🎃👻🐴

10/30/2021

A great day 💙🖤

10/30/2021

A nice break from the rain ☁️ ☁️

10/25/2021

Thank you for hosting such a nice event!! You can tell how much work is put in and on top of that everyone is so nice and supportive 😊

10/25/2021

It’s certainly a roller coaster and I definitely feel defeated at times, but there’s a positive somewhere every day if you can find it.

Hanging On

With horses, as with all sorts of matters, there will often be many more failures than triumphs, and so it would be good to hear strategies from those who have figured out how to keep hanging in there when things get bleak.

In every big riding enterprise that I have had, even the ones that did end well, there have been moments when failure seemed close, almost inevitable. It has become a cliché to repeat Winston Churchill’s “Never never never surrender,” saying, but in real life, that not only requires more resilience than many people have, it isn’t always possible, because we can’t always prevail against all odds.

So what makes YOU hang on in the down times? After you’ve been injured, perhaps, or lost your favorite horse, or experienced some big disappointment? Ideas that might help others to cope?

Even little things---?

Some people seem to be more able to bounce back than others, and why and how??
Thoughts? Ideas? Strategies?

10/20/2021

This sweet boy is settling in so nicely 💕💕. Thanks for letting me give him a new home! Excited to see him progress and hope to find him a forever home down the road.

10/17/2021

What a great day!! First time out for some, lots of great rides and good ponies 🐴🥰 thanks to for a great show and for all the help and great coaching!

10/16/2021

Looks like fall 🍁🍁🍁

10/14/2021

Love this dude 🥰 .saddlery

10/09/2021

I can’t think of two girls more deserving of each other ❤️❤️❤️. My heart is full, Eclairbear has found her forever home with the perfect fam 🥰 .eventing

09/29/2021

❤️❤️

09/26/2021

Couldn’t be happier with this dude at his first event 💕💕 Thank you for trusting me with your boy! And a big thank you to for always making room for me after 20 something years ❤️

09/24/2021

Adulting fun

09/24/2021

Jager thinks we should wait under the tree for the rain to pass… the barn is 30ft away 😂💕

09/24/2021

💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯

Every student/rider should read this and understand why it is you can’t always just “jump bigger” or “run faster” etc…

((This is NOT mine))

Haven’t done one of these in a while - my last one got over 3k shares and eyes 😳this one has been sitting on my mind for a while now…

We are going to go on a small rant that’s been brewing for a while. This entire “I want to jump big rant, but only want to pay for lessons.”

My lesson horses are saints. They work hard. They know their job. Their job is to teach your child the fundamentals on how to be a better rider so they can then decide if this is really what they want to pursue. So with that said, they are limited in jump height for lessons. I’m not going to ask my lesson horses to jump over 2’3” all week just so your kid can “jump bigger.”

You want to jump bigger? Great! I love hearing that! But now it’s time to put some skin in the game. Half lease, lease, or purchase a horse. Why? Because the maintenance and care I put in my horses to compete and stay at that higher level far supersedes your X amount of lesson fee.

My horses all go in shoes when they compete/jump bigger, get massage, chiro, magnawave, maintenance (injections/whatever they need) and not to mention the board, insurance, teeth, and regular annual maintenance. Want to know what that adds up to? Over 1k per month for me to keep a horse for your kid to come “jump big” once a week.

So when you want to leave me because I say it’s now time to half lease or lease so your kid can continue to accomplish their goals - don’t be surprised when I don’t try to hold on to you or beg you to stay. At that point my horses and myself are being fully taken advantage of and I will not tolerate it.

Horses are expensive. Period. There is no way to get around that. So please don’t get upset when I protect my lesson horses best interest, because when they break or something happens - guess whose paying the bill? Me. Guess whose suffering? My horse!

Now for those who still don’t understand - let me break it down this way to where maybe the concept will be easier.

You buy your dream car. Let’s say a Ferrari. You take great care of it, the best parts, pay great insurance, and all. I show up once a week ask for the keys throw you $60 and go romp on it around the block for an hour. Breaking down the breaks, god forbid I scratch it, or cause something to break, come back and throw the keys back at you and say “thanks - see you next week!” Now, how would
You feel? It just DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. Was that $60 worth the damage that was just put on the vehicle? No!

Now let me preface this - if I have a hard working kid that can’t afford a half lease, but who comes and bust their butt for me. Yes, I will give them plenty of opportunities! I know everyone is not made of money - I worked my butt off to get where I am now and worked very hard to have the rides I did growing up.

So understand what I mean when I say you need skin in the game. Show some commitment. These horses aren’t robots. They work hard and I will NEVER stop protecting my lesson horses.

End rant 🦄

09/19/2021

Well that was the perfect outing, so proud of everyone!!

09/17/2021

Event Team working hard 💪🏼🐴😍

09/11/2021

Lots of great riding this week, love seeing all the progress in all the different pairs 💕💯🐴