Sandcastle Farm

03/24/2026

Is your desk job sabotaging your position? Shannon Peters explains why sitting for too long weakens your position and restricts your ability to follow your horse and offers exercises to help you loosen up to rider better.

12/22/2025

Dressage judge and trainer Susan Mandas discusses the value of understanding the mechanics of motion.

12/07/2025

11/17/2025

11/17/2025

Chronic tension reduces your ability to follow your horse's motion. Learn how to eliminate stiffness and encourage your muscles to work in harmony for confidence, calmness and balance in the saddle.

11/17/2025

11/11/2025

Johan Hamminga talks about balance:
“Never make a horse short in the neck, you must always be lengthening in front. When you make a horse short in front, then it goes down in the back, the neck is too high. When you open the horse, it lowers the croup and carries the rider’s weight.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2023/01/top-tip-on-balance-from-johan-hamminga/

11/04/2025

On a trip to the Netherlands this September for the Longines FEI/WBFSH Dressage World Breeding Championships in Ermelo, where I was grooming for my friend Alice Tarjan, I noticed some interesting horse-and-rider pairs—or rather, pairs that would be uncommon to see in the United States. European Ol...

08/09/2025

With any luck the scenario I am describing here won’t happen to you, but it is not uncommon for those who keep riding into later years, and it is about something as basic as getting on and getting off.

But it is NOT so straightforward as that. I know many riders who are just fine RIDING. It’s the damn mounting and especially the dismounting that gets them.

Lots of people have had hip or knee replacements. Others have become less flexible. If YOU think YOU are immune, wait a few decades, see what you think then.

So getting that outside leg up and over the horse gets tricky. It can hit the cantle, it can drag across the rump of the horse, lots of the agility that riders take for granted in their 50 and 60s---and earlier, of course---gets compromised as they hit their 70s, 80s, 90s.

Some are lucky and have gotten to that point without injuries, but so many have not, and make no mistake, injuries are cumulative.

I think it would be a positive thing to bring back those winches they used to hoist up knights in armor. The rider gets lifted into the air, the horse gets led under the dangling rider, at which point the rider is lowered onto the horse. At the finish of the ride, just reverse the process.

They could be installed next to mounting blocks at all stables, complete with their own serfs to do the hoisting. I am surprised this idea hasn’t gained traction----.

07/01/2025