JHA Riding Academy

05/23/2026

This could be the most important thing that you see us post! Its an epidemic this year, and these things are as lethal as a venomous snake in the wrong senerio! Please not only read it, but share it! Make sure we get the word out about these tics and the disease they carry!

It's summer! Time for camping, hiking and getting outside to play. Don't let those pesky annoying ticks stop you. Here's how with a simple homemade solution!

Repellent for your pets:

For pets, add 1 cup of water to a spray bottle, followed by 2 cups of distilled white vinegar. Ticks hate the smell and taste of vinegar, and will be easily be repelled by this ingredient alone. Then, add two spoonfuls of vegetable or almond oil, which both contain sulfur (another natural tick repellent).

To make a repellent that will also deter fleas, mix in a few spoonfuls of lemon juice, citrus oil, or peppermint oil, any of which will repel ticks and fleas while also creating a nicely scented repellent. Spray onto the pet's dry coat, staying away from sensitive areas including eyes, nose, mouth, and ge****ls. When outdoors for an extended period, spray this solution on two to three times per day.

For you and your family:

In a spray bottle, mix 2 cups of distilled white vinegar and 1 cup of water. To make a scented solution so you do not smell like bitter vinegar all day, add 20 drops of your favorite essential oil.

Eucalyptus oil is a calm, soothing scent that also works as a tick repellent, while peppermint and citrus oils give off a strong crisp scent that also repel ticks.

After mixing the solution, spray onto clothing, skin, and hair before going outdoors. Reapply every four hours to keep ticks at bay, and examine your skin and hair when back inside to make sure no ticks are on the body.

If you have ever shared anything, please click share on this! WE must get the word spread about the dangers of Ticks and how to avoid them!
~share~share~share~share~share

04/18/2026

Lucky to have some great boarders with us ❤️

Now that I finally own my own barn after years of boarding, there’s SO much I didn’t realize as a boarder that I TOTALLY get now, Jamie Sindell writes.

Dear Barn Owners of My Past:

I would sincerely like to apologize for believing it was appropriate to grab hay whenever I wanted. I had to stuff Precious Pony’s face full. Heaven forbid she stands for an hour deprived of hay. What I didn’t realize is that Precious wasn’t wasting away. Hay is freaking expensive. Every. Single. Flake. Is money.

It was obnoxious to snag hay. If I believed you were truly starving Precious, I owed you a conversation. Sorry!

I also extend an apology for not thanking you regularly. I now comprehend what it takes to haul my butt out of my cozy bed on a frigid morning. I feel the pain of wrestling a frozen hose and slinging manure pucks into the wheelbarrow. I would absolutely prefer to skip chores and arrive in my heated vest to ride Precious Pony. You never had the choice to ditch the horses and sip a latte by the fire. Instead, you were out there caring for the herd.

In the summer, scorching fly-filled days when sweat soaked every fiber of your clothes, you ensured the horses stayed comfortable and healthy. I’m genuinely sorry I didn’t express my gratitude enough or bring you a Strawberry Acai on the regular. What I understand now is that one thank you or kind gesture makes a stressful barn day less painful.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say MY BAD for believing everything in the barn should look like an Instagram reel. Days the stalls weren’t done ASAP, water was lowish, or the ring wasn’t dragged with a pretty pattern…. Well, now I recognize crap happens! You have a life beyond Precious Pony, and gasp, maybe even a family to care for too!

Things come up. I’ve had sick kids upchucking into bowls, a spouse stuck at the airport, and busted-frozen pipes cramping my watering style. Crazy days make it extra hard to get everything looking just so. If the horses are regularly getting good care, blips aren’t a crisis. Precious Pony will survive to trot another day!

Turnout! Ugh. I was a brat. When I believed Precious Pony MUST go out to frolic, but the fields were a mucky mess, that wasn’t my call at your barn. In fact, Precious Pony would not only destroy your sopping fields, but she might pull shoes or come in limping.

Currently, my fields are moats. Every time the horses gallop through the mud, I cringe. Turnout all the time isn’t always feasible or a solution.

I am also sorry if I didn’t respect your barn rules. Your barn is your pride and joy (when you can muster up joy after caring for Precious Ponies all day). I know I now savor my crossties clipped, halters hung on a bias, and aisle neatly swept. At the end of a longggg day, these details matter. Forgive me for the days I left my brushes strewn about or my muddy blanket heaped in a mountain on the floor.

Finally, my biggest regret… I wish I lent you a hand more often. On days you were overwhelmed and rushed, I wish I hadn’t zipped out of the barn. An extra set of hands for turnout or holding Precious Pony for the farrier goes a long way. Presently, those extra free minutes mean I can grab my daughter from preschool on time instead of dashing in late, a hay-covered-mom-failure.

Let’s face it. Most people don’t board because it’s a cash cow. They do it because they love horses, even if down the line they become a little jaded. If I disagreed with some of YOUR decisions at YOUR barn, I hope I was respectful and kind. If I wasn’t, shame on me. No matter how strongly I felt about Precious Pony’s care, hushed whispers among disgruntled boarders wasn’t the way to go.

Now, when I take on a boarder at my farm, it is my choice. Though I will tolerate the owner and love Precious Pony like my own, at the end of the day, I own this joint. I want respect. You deserved the same.

Sincerely,

Jamie Sindell (Exhausted Owner of Wish List Farm est. 2022)

📎 Save and share this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2024/04/17/dear-barn-owners-of-my-past/

03/03/2026

By the time most riders touch their horse, the horse has already begun organising around the state the human body is bringing into the space.

You can often recognise it in the approach if you know what you’re looking for. In the tempo of the walk. In how quickly the hands move. In whether the breath is moving or held. In the overall quality of the person’s presence, whether their attention has arrived with their body or is already somewhere ahead trying to manage an outcome.

Most nervous riders believe the anxiety becomes relevant when something goes wrong. When the horse fidgets at the mounting block. When the transition runs. When the ride doesn’t go to plan. But the physiological conversation starts much earlier than that, and it is not happening at the level of intention or mindset. It is happening in muscle readiness, in timing, in posture, in the quality of the exhale, in how much of the body is available for feel and how much of it is preparing for impact.

This is why trying to “ride more confidently” rarely changes anything on its own. You cannot paste confidence on top of a system that is in survival. A braced body gives earlier, holds longer, grips before it needs to, and releases too late. It moves faster than it feels. It tries to control because it does not feel safe enough to wait.

To the horse, that does not feel like a rider who needs reassurance. It feels like unpredictability.

The shift is not from fear to fearlessness. The shift is from activation to regulation.

Horses do not need us to be emotionless. They do not require a blank slate. What unsettles them is a body that is saying two different things at the same time. The rider who is trying to be calm while the breath is locked, the jaw is tight, the thighs are gripping, and the nervous system is preparing for something to go wrong. There is a profound difference between a rider who is breathing and present while feeling afraid, and a rider who is trying to suppress fear while their entire system is in defence.

When a rider regulates before they engage, the changes are often first felt in the human rather than seen in the horse. The world slows down. The horse becomes easier to read. Timing appears without being manufactured. The hand stops holding when nothing is happening. The leg stops supporting when there is already balance. A different quality of conversation becomes possible.

Not because regulation replaces training, soundness, history, or skill, but because it determines the quality of the interaction those things are going to happen inside.

This is why the work starts before you touch the horse.

A five-minute pre-ride regulation

To help shift your state.

Minute 1 – Arrive

Stand still.
Feet hip-width apart.
Knees soft.

Name:

3 things you can see
2 things you can hear
1 sensation in your body

Let your eyes move. Let your head turn.
Bring your system into the present instead of anticipation.

Minute 2 – Breathe down

Hand on your ribs.

Inhale through your nose for 4.
Exhale through your mouth for 6 to 8.

Do not force the inhale.
Let the exhale lengthen.

A longer, slower exhale tends to shift the system toward a parasympathetic state, which for many riders is accompanied by a drop in heart rate, less global bracing, and a greater sense of physical availability.

Minute 3 – Release the brace

Clench for 5 seconds:

jaw
shoulders
hands
inner thighs

Release for 10 seconds.
Twice.

Teach the body the difference between holding and neutral.

Minute 4 – Find your vertical balance

Gently rock:

forward → back → side → side → centre

Let the weight drop into your heels.
Let the back of your neck lengthen.
Let the sternum soften.

Organise your body before the horse has to respond to it.

Minute 5 – Set a relational focus

This is not a performance goal.

Choose one:

I will breathe before every transition
I will move slowly enough for both of us to stay soft
I will notice when I brace and come back

Something you can return to when you leave your body.

When this changes, many riders begin to notice small but consistent shifts in the interaction. Often the horse stands a fraction longer. The eye softens sooner. The back becomes easier to influence. Transitions stop feeling like something that must be managed and start feeling like something that can be shaped.

Regulation does not train the horse in that moment, it makes it more possible for the horse to remain in a state where learning, balance, and connection can happen, if the rest of the picture is also in place.

A regulated rider on a horse that is in pain, dysregulated by environment, or lacking foundation will still meet those realities. But they will meet them with better timing, clearer feel, and less escalation. They will add less survival to a system that may already be carrying too much of it.

And that, in itself, changes the trajectory of the work.

Regulation does not replace the work.

It is what makes the work possible without adding more survival to the system.

12/19/2025

The benefits of having fit horses are almost too numerous to mention. Fit horses will have fewer injuries, longer careers, more rapid recovery time, and be better able to cope with all the demands of travel and horse show life. Whether your goals are maintaining fitness, increasing fitness, or enacting a rehabilitation program, many riders overlook probably the most underutilized fitness technique: the mindful walk.

A proper walk, one with forward momentum that positively pushes off all four limbs, has so many benefits. When beginning a ride, this walk will get your horse’s blood flowing and limbs loosened, diminishing risk of injury and strain in the workout to follow. While at the walk, you can establish boundaries and keep your horse focused and listening and set the tone for the full ride. By changing your outlook on the walk and using it as a tool to your advantage, you can develop a more productive ride and improve your horse’s performance. You can include exercises like ground poles to improve topline and allow your horse to think through exercises for themselves.

If you’re looking to increase your horse’s fitness or rehabilitate from an injury, incorporating a second walk into your horse’s program to focus on strength and mobility is more beneficial than you might think. Especially if a horse is stalled during their horse show or rehab regimen, a second ride at a proper walk can have on not only your horse’s physical strength, but their mental well-being as well. By having a second ride only at the walk or focused at the walk, you’re not stressing or straining the recovery or fitness process- you’re providing more natural motion to increase muscle strength while minimizing impact and risk of injury.

Start at a working walk, putting your horse in the bridle, and complete all the movements your horse knows how to do. Practice walking forward, extending and shortening the walk, working at a medium walk, performing a haunches in, leg yield, half pass, haunches out.

Bending their necks aids in loosening their muscles—ask your horse to come around as far as they can on both the left and right side until they soften. Once they complete at the halt, begin working on this exercise at the walk. This will help them learn to listen, and can also help to identify pain responses.

Backing up can illuminate any weakness or lameness issues—if your horse cannot back up in a straight line, that is an indication of something to work on. When horses walk, they rotate their pelvis underneath them, so that when they walk off correctly they can get their weight off of their front end.

Things to note when completing walking fitness: keeping your horse six feet off the rail and riding straight, rotating the footing you work on: working in the arena, in the grass, and on pavement. Performing the working walk on concussive and various surfaces (including but not limited to rings, grass, pathways, and driveways) can help to build muscles around all injury-prone areas in your horse’s legs.

If you can’t include a second ride, give yourself as much time as you can to walk at the start of each ride and warm-up carefully and mindfully listening to your horse.

📎 Save & share this article by Abby Funk at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2022/09/13/mindful-riding-walking-fitness/

12/16/2025

So great I had to share

It’s Not Riding Season, It’s Character-Building Season.

Owning a half-tonne panicking hamster is already a full-time emotional rollercoaster. Add winter — the dark, the cold, the sideways rain that somehow finds the back of your neck — and suddenly drowning yourself in the nearest puddle feels less like a cry for help and more like a practical solution.

Now on top of the usual concerns about keeping said hamster the right way up, breathing with most of their limbs in tact, you now have to do this while the hamster is fresher than a can of Febreze in the freezer and your fields alternate between a strange soup like consistency and frozen solid with ruts more impressive than Lando Norris’ bar bill.

Winter horse life has slowly crept up on you and before you know it you’re changing 75 soaking wet rugs, trying to de mud the hamster so that you can then find the time to de hair it, spending 4 hours a day wading across the soup field that you swore was once a flat surface in the dark and pi***ng rain trying to catch said hamster that has decided to park up the other side of the swamp and totally refuse to move.

And today — today — was the day you were going to ride. You promised yourself. But by the time you’ve retrieved the hamster from the swamp, peeled off seventeen layers of rugs and mud, lost feeling in your fingers, and realised it’s now pitch black and minus a million degrees, your horse is giving you full dragon side-eye like, “Touch me and I will ruin your life.”

So you know what? Maybe not today.
But also — your hamster is fed. It’s warm. It’s cared for. It’s healthy. And despite everything, you showed up again.

Winter might steal your daylight, your dignity, and your will to live… but if the horse is happy and alive at the end of the day, you’re doing just fine. Now go home, thaw out, dry off and forgive yourself. You can ride tomorrow. Probably.

12/09/2025

Well said!

“They’re just children!”

No. They aren’t.

👉They are the future generation of adults.

👉They are the future generation of our sport.

They are the future caregivers of our beloved horses.

👉They are the future teachers of the following generation.

‼️Stop spoon feeding them.
🧡Make them figure it out on their own.
‼️Stop making excuses for them.
🧡Hold them accountable.
🧡Ask them to analyze their own mistakes and how to fix it the next time.
🧡Ask them why something happened instead of giving them the answer.
👉Make them carry their own saddle.
👉Make them pick up a pitch fork.
👉Make them work a weekly feed shift at the barn.
👉Make them pack their own show clothes.
👉Make them clean their own tack.
👉Make them prep their own horse.
👉Make them handle a colic, and then Go over what contributes to colic.
👉Make them rehab a horse, and teach them how that horse got injured, and how to prevent it.
👉Make them work with an auction horse.

✅Let them fail, so they learn humility, and how to regroup.

✅Teach them to have grit.

✅Teach them actions have consequences.

✅Teach them to own their mistakes. 

✅Teach them to overcome challenges instead of passing the buck.

✅Teach them how to respect the horse, and everyone that contributes to that horse’s welfare.

✅Teach them to do right by the horse.

✅Teach them how to make things last instead of throwing it away and buying new.

I know it sounds harsh, but if we do not start preparing the next generation of adults properly, we will not have a generation of adults; We will have a generation of spoiled, overgrown children who have to ask ChatGPT how to do everything instead of thinking for themselves.

It takes longer to have those conversations and takes more effort to be that kind of mentor, but I promise you, it’s worth it 🧡

10/31/2025

And she’s home! Our winner of the Mackey USA backpack packed with a sweatshirt, a frog treat bag and frog socks! Congratulations Amy! Thank you again Mackey USA for your generous donation!

10/27/2025

We’d like to thank Mackey USA for donating the treat bags with colored spur straps to our 6 costume winners!
We’d also like to thank them for donating a tote bag filled with there fly boots, fly mask and sweatshirt.
Sadly the last item donated which was a backpack, medium hoodie, frog socks and a frog treat bag was won by one of our own clients who is still out of town, photo to follow once she returns home this weekend!

10/17/2025

We’d like to thank Counter Canter Designs for donating 3 fun colored rope halters

10/17/2025

We‘d like to thank Ted's Flooring & Interior Design for donating a beautiful grey 2’x3’ rug