White Winds Farm Equestrian Center

Big shoutout to Maleeah for crushing her first horse show with White Winds Farm Equestrian Center! 🎉 She and Primrose, the spiciest old pony in town, made quite the dynamic duo! 🐴✨ Recieving 4th and 6th! And commendable scores in the 60's! So proud of all the hard work you’ve put in—this is just the beginning! Keep riding high, superstar! 🌟 "

Congratulations to Jennifer Bechtel and Xena for a wonderful ride at her BLM Championships coming in 7th place! Magnificently improved scores over the last year of hard work! So proud of you both! On to the NCDCTA Championships!

Resilience is a mindset so baked into the horse person identity that we rarely take a moment to even consider it, but it is something we all share with each other🐴💪

A recent study has found that horse riding and care develops resilience, responsibility, and leadership, which are highly transferrable to the non-horse world...

Read more: https://eqlifemag.com.au/issues/issue-103/how-life-with-horses-makes-us-stronger

📷 Michelle Terlato Photography

First lessons are always my favorites! Rambus loves his job of teaching the kids the love of horses at 38!

I am so absolutely proud of these 2 teams today! They are the definition of hard work and dedication paying off! Had a wonderful showing at Heather Ridge today all scores ranging from 66 to 75! Congratulations, Gwen Murphy for putting in the 75 on your baby horse and congratulations Kelsey Rogers for getting your first 70!

Living the life in Hunter Land with this magnificent girl!

Another wonderful day for White Winds students! Gwen took her baby horse Connor to a show to just hang out and see the sights! He was a good boy and stayed relaxed all day! Next show he is getting ridden!
Kelsey and Marian Haires, My Lady Rose put in another spectacular day! Second place in both her classes with
a comical mix up where she had to ride the test on the spot! So proud how they have come along!

deactivating the AI meta
Signed in at 2:40 pm Tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule (aka... new name META) where they can use your photos. Dont forget the deadline is today!!!
I do not give META, Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my photos, information, messages or publications, past or future.
With this statement, I'm warning Facebook that
it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. The violation of privacy can be punished by law.
Here's how to do it:
Hold your finger anywhere in this message and copy will pop up. Click on "copy". So go to your page, create a new post and put your finger anywhere in the blank field. Paste will pop up and click Paste.
This will bypass the system...
He who does nothing consents.

I am so proud of my student Jennifer and her horse Xena! After great adversity dealing with vehicular malfunctions on the way to her test she still pulled off a 63.9 in her First Level Test 2 giving her the scores needed to Qualify for BLM Championsips this Fall! Congratulations guys! Let's get that final score for Regionals!

The greys were out in force! Wonderful day yesterday at Carolina Horse Park War Horse! Caitlin had a wonderful ride on her pony V***ns Defying Gravity getting 3rd after Dressage and 3rd overall! One unfortunate tick of a rail kept her out of 1st place! On to Beginner Novice next show!
Kelsey put in 2 beautiful tests On Marian Haires My Lady Rose earning her a 1st and 2nd place!

I am so proud of my riders and the hard work they put into doing well! Congratulations again!

Well said!

Who Are We To Judge??!

Introduction
When Alois Podhajsky was the director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, he sometimes noticed that someone watched him during the morning workouts with a disapproving eye. So he sent his groom up to the gallery to relay the message: “The Colonel couldn’t help but notice that you disapprove of his training. He is inviting you to come down and ride his horse for him because he would love to learn a better way.” Not surprisingly, nobody was brave (or incautious) enough to take the bait and say: “By God, I’m going to get up on this horse and show him how it’s done!” That’s a very clever and very effective way to silence the peanut gallery who thinks they are so much better than the riders in the arena who are actually trying their best to do a good job with their horse.

The Dilemma
In social media, where it is very safe to criticise others (especially when you hide behind the anonymity of a screen name) because you never have to put your money where your mouth is and demonstrate your own skills, this leads very quickly to the debate whether one has to be able to ride and train to a high level in order to criticise someone else. Or whether the critic has to be able to demonstrate how to do it better than the person who is being criticised.
This would mean for instance that only an Olympian would be allowed to criticise another Olympian. It is pointed out that restaurant critics are generally not 5 star chefs, art critics are not world class artists, music critics are not world class musicians, and literature critics are not Nobel prize winning novelists or poets. This is true. Even an inexperienced lower level rider can watch a performance or a training session and either like it or dislike it. They may find it so inspiring that they want to emulate it, or they may find it so horrible that they would rather give up riding altogether than riding like that. - And either way, their judgment may be right or wrong. I have noticed over the years that no matter how brilliant a ride(r) is, there will always be people who find it horrible, and no matter how horrible a ride(r) is, there will always be people who find it wonderful. Go figure.
On the other hand, I remember Egon von Neindorff telling me that only someone who has trained horses to a certain level himself or herself can truly understand what it takes and how challenging it is to do this kind of work. This is true as well.
Learning to ride and train horses is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted, and I have heard this sentiment from many others who are highly skilled in other challenging professions. It takes everything we have, emotionally, intellectually, physically. We pour our heart and soul into it, all of our time, energy, passion, money, everything. We tend to be our own worst critics, too, because we are trying our very best every day to reach our own (sometimes impossibly) high standards, and we are constantly confronted with our own shortcomings, the horse’s challenges, sometimes challenges of scheduling, barn environment, and other factors that can be difficult to control. Typically, nobody is more aware of our mistakes and failures than we are ourselves. Nothing is more frustrating or more painful than not living up to our own expectations. We really don’t need anyone else to point our shortcomings out to us. Most likely, we are already working on them. Constantly.
There is also a surprisingly high number of riders suffering from “Impostor syndrome” (a belief that we are inadequate and incompetent despite evidence that we are actually quite skilled and successful). It’s certainly something I have always struggled with.

My Own Opinion
I think it is perfectly normal and acceptable to form an opinion and to like or dislike the way someone else rides based on what we know. It can be highly instructive to watch others ride and to try to understand what they are doing, what they are trying to accomplish, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it. We learn the most from watching the positive things that are worth emulating while ignoring the bad parts that are inevitable in every ride.
I object strongly to people who put themselves on a pedestal of moral superiority, pretending to be concerned for the welfare of the horse, when in reality they simply use their criticism of others as a way to compensate for their own fears and insecurities. They tear others down in order to appear in some way superior. They dehumanise those whom they criticise which is a form of verbal violence and a precursor to inflicting physical violence. Their zeal is similar to that of religious fanatics who torture and kill people who don’t share their exact same beliefs.
It is one thing to speak out against an abusive form of training, such as the infamous Rollkur, but it’s quite another to commit acts of violence, verbal or otherwise, against people whose riding one disagrees with.
These people often have a very one-dimensional view of the situation they are judging. They only see that a photo, a video, or a ride deviates from the ideal they hold in their mind’s eye. Never mind that it may be an ideal that only truly exceptional horses and riders are able to achieve after many years of training. Apart from very obviously abusive situations, there are always many factors involved, such as the horse’s conformation, personality, age, training history, the rider’s journey, and sometimes the pressures of the situation. Ideals and expectations have to be adjusted in order to come to an assessment that is fair to both horse and rider. Ultimately, only the rider and horse themselves know the challenges they have had to overcome, and how big or small their accomplishment is. A poor performance for one horse and rider may be absolutely brilliant for another. As always, it depends on the situation and the individual horse and rider.
Every horse and every rider are a work in progress. Nobody’s training is ever finished. Every rider makes mistakes. Every rider makes wrong decisions. Hopefully, we all recognise our mistakes and try to learn from them. We all do the best with what we know. When we know better, we hopefully do better. Even the best riders in the world have ugly moments. That’s just the reality of life when two imperfect beings are living and working together. No marriage consists only of the honeymoon. No horse-rider relationship is always harmonious and without disagreements. No horse is always on the bit, through, round, supple, balanced, straight, etc. There will always be moments where the horse is temporarily above the bit or behind the vertical, braced or stiff somewhere in his body, unbalanced, crooked. Sometimes this happens from one stride to the next. Sometimes it’s almost imperceptible. Sometimes it’s just for a brief moment. Sometimes it’s very obvious, a complete loss of balance resulting in a loss of control. The important thing is how we deal with these situations and what we learn from them.

A Possible Solution
I think we all need to learn to be kind to ourselves first in order to be able to be kind to others. Our perfectionism, the pain of our own failures, the shame we feel every time we can’t live up to our own expectations, and our own impostor syndrome can easily lead us to lash out when we see someone else make the same mistake we are struggling with or that we used to struggle with. Putting someone else down may temporarily dull our pain, but it will not solve the real problem - our own shortcomings and failures. Only working on ourselves honestly and steadily will do this. It’s a kind of zen practice, or a type of self-development with the goal of becoming the best version of ourselves as a rider and a human being we can be. Both go hand in hand.
We should resist the temptation of feeling in any way superior to someone else who is making a mistake or who isn’t as educated and skilled as we are.
We have to make peace with the fact that we are and always will be imperfect, that we will always make mistakes, that sometimes we will fall short of our own expectations, sometimes we will not be able to live up to our own standards. And we should extend the same courtesy to others. Give them the benefit of the doubt. See the positive in our own riding as well as in others. See the challenges that we had to overcome in our riding and with a particular horse. Try to see the challenges that others had to overcome. We have to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make, and then try to do better next time. We should also forgive others for the mistakes they make, and encourage them to do better next time.
We also need to stop treating any and all mistakes as the end of the world, as abject cruelty to the horse that will ruin him forever, or as an indication that we or whoever is making the mistake is a horrible rider and a terrible human being who will never learn.
Mistakes are learning opportunities. Obstacles are challenges that need to be solved. It’s a much better use of our time and energy to work on finding positive solutions than to dwell on negatives.
We need to distinguish between actual abuse and unintentional mistakes that happen to everybody. We can still be advocates for the horse in situations that warrant it, but most of all we should try to do the best we can with our own horses so that we can lead by example - which is the most difficult thing to do. Sniping at others and pointing out their mistakes has very little value because it doesn’t help anybody, least of all the horse. It only poisons the atmosphere further and makes people more paranoid, more stressed, and more defensive, which actually makes them ride even worse and communicates itself to the horses.

Congratulations to the White Winds Farm team for a great time last night at the NCDCTA gala and a great showing at the awards! Last night was about honoring our wonderful equine friends who help us with all our accomplishments.

I am so proud of the camaraderie and support we show each other!

It was also a special night to honor a special mare, Tahara Kismet. Run free, pretty girl, I hope your Blue made it to you! Gwen Murphy, such a bittersweet Congratulations on the last night.

Congratulations to Michele Novack and Marian Haire for both of your mares ribbons! I am so proud of all their accomplishments!

On to a new year! Good or bad it's always a journey, not a destination!

About ten years ago, give or take, the NEDA clinician at U-Mass Amherst was Klaus Balkenhol, the legendary coach of the German gold medal dressage team.

One thing that he said changed forever my opinion about the concept of "warmup."

Klaus said that when he gets on a horse, whether out of a stall or out of a paddock, he always just walks calmly for a MINIMUM of ten full minutes. He joked that you need to time this with your watch, because ten minutes will feel like 20.

He also said that as the horse learns that this will ALWAYS be the case, that the first ten minutes, AT LEAST, will be calm walking, every single time he is mounted, that the horse will learn to start out with less anxiety about the upcoming work.

Then, after the walking, Klaus said that the initial trotting should be to establish forward rhythm, and only after this is obtained should the rider gradually take up more rein connection.

Klaus said that too many riders (I think he was directing this at me!) think of the warm up as something to be gotten through and dispensed with swiftly, so that they can get to the "real" work. Klaus reminded the audience that the warmup is just as integral a part of the "real" work as any other part.

Guilty as charged, sir. But I have reformed! Thank you!

First Day of Devon a success! On to Parade of Breeds this afternoon!

Dressage at Devon!

A Huge congratulations to Kelsey Rodgers and Gwen Murphy on their stellar performances yesterday at War Horse!

Kelsey rode Rio in her first combined test coming in 4th place!

Gwen had an amazing day where all the hard work of the last months finally clicked! Kismet kept herself together to put in 2 firsts and a second place in her First level dressage tests! This is a combo to keep an eye on!

Thanks to everyone who came out to help and support our riders! It made for a fun day!

Welcome Colton (grey) and Walker (paint) to the farm as new school horses! They will need some time to settle in but should be a wonderful addition to the farm! Thank you Diane Miller!

Congratulations to Elizabeth Ochoa and Rio on a wonderful performance yesterday at War Horse! She was second in Dressage with a 33.3 and had a fabulous stadium round but just tipped one rail (rio pick up your feet!) down to put them in 4th at Starter!. This in no way takes away from how very proud I am of the both of them and how far they have both come!

Congratulations to Gwen Murphy on Rosie and Marian Haire the owner for basically catch riding her in Training 3 and First 1,2! She came in 1st and 2 seconds! Watching you figure out this Dressage stuff has been a pleasure!

I am so proud of horses and riders!

Camp fun! Painting a pony learning pony parts!

Fun Day with Sandhills Kids Farm Camp!

Anyone who has been trying to call! The phone was saying not a working number. It has been fixed (hopefully). Sorry for the inconvenience!

Congratulations to White Winds Farm riders! We had a wonderful day at the Carolina Horsepark yesterday!
We have a new Beginner Novice Team! Congratulations to Caitlin and V***n for completing their first Beginner Novice! You have worked so hard for this!

We have a new rider who has been bitten by the bug! 🤣🤣😉 Congratulations to Kelsey and Rosie on their first show! And their First place standing!

And Congratulations to Gwen and Kismet for successfully doing their first First Level test with a great score and Third place finish!

Well done everyone!