Grateful Days Farm

10/22/2026

Let’s allow our young horses to be young.

Not every 4-year-old needs to be jumping courses. Not every 5-year-old needs to be winning championships. And not every 6-year-old needs to have it all figured out.

Somewhere along the way, we started confusing potential with pressure and progress with perfection.

Young horses need time. Time to grow into their bodies, time to develop their minds, time to make mistakes, and time to understand what we’re asking of them.

They need consistency, patience, boundaries, and education. But they also need opportunities to be curious, playful, and sometimes a little immature.

Just because they CAN do something doesn’t always mean they SHOULD.

A talented young horse is exciting. I get it. But talent doesn’t replace physical maturity, mental confidence, or a solid foundation.

Our job as horsemen isn’t to see how quickly we can get them to the finish line. It’s to develop horses that are confident, sound, willing, and still love their jobs years down the road.

The goal shouldn’t be to have the best 5-year-old in the barn. The goal should be to have an incredible 15-year-old because of the decisions we made when they were five.

Slow down. Build the foundation. Protect their confidence.

Let them be young. Their future depends on it

10/21/2026

Early voting Oct 22 to 29. Election Day Tuesday, Nov 3.

10/16/2026

Loops must be symmetrical in shape and length and ridden as a series of curves with no sharp angles that would disrupt your horse’s balance and rhythm.

Loops serve multiple purposes in your training:

✅ An Ideal Exercise for Young Horses - Loops require changes of bend without an extreme change of direction, minimizing the likelihood that your young horse will lose balance or alignment (straightness).

✅ An Ideal Warm-Up Exercise for Advanced Horses - For the same reason as above, loops are an ideal exercise to ride during the warm-up of more advanced horses, because they require gradual changes of bend.

✅ Improve Lateral Suppleness - Loops test and enhance your horse's ability to transition smoothly from one bend to another, promoting lateral (side-to-side) suppleness.

✅ Improve Rider Coordination - Riding loops challenges your coordination because you must smoothly and effectively adjust your aids and body position.

✅ Counter Canter Preparation: Loops can be used in the introduction and training of counter-canter.

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Illustration created and copyrighted by HowToDressage

10/14/2026

Cash back on select products

10/11/2026