Our August Foundations clinic was a huge success and we’re looking forward to the next clinic at NLHTM the first weekend in November. All of our participants made huge improvements in their horses and in their horsemanship in just a few short days and importantly – had FUN doing it! We worked on several Foundation exercises such as the ‘basic-4’, the ‘tractor tire’ exercise and the ‘push-toy’ concept in addition to several others. It was amazing to see the improvements…
Push-Don’t Pull
Have you ever seen a pull-toy? I think we all have and likely remember them from our childhood. They are usually very simple, make some noise or are somewhat flashy by design and can be quite captivating to watch.  When I was a child I remember playing with these and my overstuffed animals for hours but I also remember just sort of dragging them along mindlessly while focused on other tasks. It was easy to cling to them and…
Trainer Spotlight-‘Chip and Dale’
CATRA, the Capital Area Therapeutic Riding Association, is a nonprofit organization located in Grantville, PA which provides  therapeutic horseback riding to people with disabilities. CATRA is run by Ben and Shirley Nolt  who just celebrated the organization’s 25th year helping disabled people improve their lives through interactions with horses, and other animals that live on the farm. I first met Ben and Shirley several years ago when a former client introduced us.  Ben was looking for someone to train some…
Cross Training Improves Your Horse
Do you feel like you have the versatility and flexibility that you’re looking for with the horse you have now? You can by making a few changes in your training program. At Next Level HorsemanshipTM we build the Foundation, from the Ground Up. It’s important that horses have a strong Foundation in training before being asked to perform beyond their capabilities. Then they will be prepared to succeed in any discipline. Think of training horses as an inverted pyramid. For…
Ride Like the Wind
May 16th to July 26th…a lot has happened with Viggo in his gentling and training in the two and half months since he arrived at NLHTM! With less than 7 weeks remaining until the competition in September we are moving into the final phases of our training – at least for the short term. Viggo will continue his training at NLHTM beyond the competition for sure, but because he’s had such a solid Foundation from our training Program, he has…
Time Flies!
Wow! Do you ever feel just like your summer is just flying away? I mean every two weeks we write our blogs and it seems like every two days! The fact is that at NLHTM, TIME FLIES! So I’m going to give all of you a little ‘mini’ update of what has been happening in the  past couple of weeks. So first my mom and I went down to Tennessee to do a clinic for some of our good friends…