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Train Your Own Horse with Stacy Westfall — Outdoor
Train Your Own Horse with Stacy Westfall

Stacy Westfall teaches people how to understand, enjoy and successfully train their own horses. In her podcast, she shares all of her knowledge in her area of expertise: horses. She offers insights into issues that riders face in their own minds as well as the way they are viewing the challenges and goals they have with horses. She shares tips on becoming a better rider as well as a better leader for your horse.
Discover how you can understand things from your horses point of view so that you can enjoy the learning process with your horse. When you are able to understand what your horse is experiencing mentally and physically the process of learning new things becomes more enjoyable.
Your goals may be showing, trail riding or simply enjoying life with horses-all of which Stacy enjoys herself.
She shares her own struggles and successes to allow listeners to understand that everyone experiences ups and downs.
Through her podcast, website, YouTube channel and social media Stacy answers questions about: Fear, when to sell a horse, goal setting, safety, ground work, trailer loading, lead changes, reining, spins, stops, western dressage, ranch riding, when to get help, lessons, clinics and improving your safety, success and enjoyment of horses.

Copyright: © StacyWestfall.com

Latest Episodes:

Handling stress when you can't ride your horse. Apr 15, 2020

Show notes

Episode 74: Have you ever had a reason that stopped you from riding? Maybe you were injured? Maybe your horse was injured? I find that when I look back there have been many reasons that I have missed time or gone 'off schedule' for a number of unplanned reasons. For some of us, this is happening now with the pandemic. When 'big' things happen in my life I try to see how they might remind me of smaller events that I have successfully navigated. In this podcast, I give several ideas on how to handle

boarding and not being able to visit your horse
stress over missed riding
how do horses retain their training during time missed
how can riders stay positive in times like these

Empowering riders, respecting space, finding balance between go & whoa aids Apr 08, 2020

Show notes

Ep 73: Listen as a caller describes how she changed her lunging experience in a matter of days. Stacy outlines the steps that made this 'leap' in learning possible. Hazel calls in and asks how to get her school horse to respect her space more. Stacy gives her three different suggestions. Amy has questions about how to get her ranch horse to 'wait' a bit more during the trail obstacle phase. Stacy explains how she teaches this type of 'wait' using three different examples: lunging, riding a nervous horse and when teaching the sliding stop. Stacy's goal is to empower the rider through education.

Why lunging horses? Benefits and warnings. Apr 01, 2020

Show notes

Ep 72: Question: You referenced lunging in your podcast and videos. I was hoping you could talk more about it. Perhaps elaborate on how you go about it and what you're looking for and feeling for from the horse? Answer includes: Why lunge at all?

Where it comes in useful.
How to use it to teach rhythm.
Why lunging has a bad reputation.
Why people struggle to learn to lunge (or avoid it).
How the line should feel in your hand…and more.

Put yourself in the role of the horse Mar 25, 2020

Show notes

Ep 71: How are you doing? Before you answer that question, I'd like you to pretend that you are a horse. What's the first image that comes to mind? An Arabian? A racehorse? An overworked driving horse? During this podcast, I share with you my idea that maybe it is helpful if we view our situations from a slightly different angle. It is also interesting to sometimes use the horse training techniques on OURSELVES. Are you rocking the teeter-totter? Are you working the emotional AND physical cycles? Where are you getting your release from pressure? What other lessons could you bring to your life that you see with horses?

Using More Leg on Hot Horses Mar 18, 2020

Show notes

Episode 70: Question: After warming up and we're beginning to work, I have a really hard time keeping his gait consistent, usually start out slow and easy. But as we continue on, he has a tendency to increase his speed and will tense up and occasionally throw his head. Whenever I ask for a change of gait, especially downward transitions in, it most often happens during the lope. It also happens when I'm lunging him prior to riding, and I would like to know your opinion on how my contributing to his craziness and inconsistent gait and how can I do better at helping him relax and slow down? A: Stacy explains that there are many things to consider including: lack of balance between riders hands and legs, riders 'correction' causing more problems, riders concept of how 'light' a horse 'should' be, rider not planning ahead, horse 'trying too hard'.

Training Horses for Others vs Training Your Own. Mar 11, 2020

Show notes

Episode 69: Question: "I was wondering how you keep your motivation for riding your own horses when you are training other people's horses. I feel like I have to have a lot of motivation for everyone else's horses to keep them going and keep them working towards their goals. But I have a lot of trouble working my horses." Answer: There are many ways too look at this. Here are a few to consider. Look for similarities or contrasts between your goals with your horse vs your customers horses.

Do you plan to show in the same discipline with your horse?
Do you plan to keep this horse forever or sell?
Do you feel judged by 'others' if you work your horse before customers horses?

This podcast goes deeper into this subject.

How to Teach a Horse to Spook Mar 04, 2020

Show notes

Episode 68: How to teach your horse to spook, in three easy steps! 1) start with a horse with lack of experience or holes in the training 2) try not rock the boat… 3) when the horse has doubts, reduce the pressure or request Thanks for humoring me there. Sometimes when I'm thinking about a subject…I try to consider all angles and this time, I decide that telling this story backward would be interesting. I really do go through the steps of how to teach a horse to spook...but I then follow it up with how NOT to teach your horse to spook. I hope you find this episode structure slightly entertaining, possibly revealing…and somewhat interesting!

Teaching horses tricks...or problems? Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

Episode 67: Can training horses to do tricks like rearing, bowing or lying down cause problems? I answer this question by using examples of six different horses to illustrate my answer...which is sometimes yes and sometimes no. I also explain how I decide which horses are better candidates than others...and how timing does matter. I discuss a comment left on the show notes of the last podcast and expand a bit more on the idea of dismounting as a way to avoid problems. In keeping with the seasons theme, 'What's going on in my barn.' I also take you behind the scenes and fill you in on the training progress with Willow, Gabby and Presto.

Q&A: 5 tips for trail riding young horses & goals during pregnancy Feb 19, 2020

Show notes

Episode 66: Today I answer two listener questions. Question #1- "My question for you is how you can tell when your horse is ready to go on its first trail ride. What kind of skills do you like to have in the arena? And then what do you practice on the first trail? Right. How do you know when to call it quits and what are your goals on your first time going out?" Question #2- "My question is about balancing training your horse, being a mom and also being pregnant. I'm on my second pregnancy now and I'm just going to get it extremely hard to work with my horse regularly. My last pregnancy, when I got too big to ride, I did groundwork but I feel like they got really bored. I'm just wondering if you have any more ideas or what you did to make it more interesting for them and what you did."

The Tipping Point in Horse Training. Feb 12, 2020

Show notes

Episode 65: What is a tipping point in horse training? Why does it matter? How would it help with spooking? In today's episode, I discuss the idea of tipping points and how they impact my outlook on training. I see smaller tipping points where the small day after day lessons finally result in a bigger change. I also see larger tipping points, where clusters of training ideas come together to form even larger tipping points...which is when training gets really fun. I also discuss Resistance (a reference to Stephen Pressfield's book) and my new course, The Complete Guide to Improving Steering and Teaching Neck Reining.

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