Blackburn Legacy Ranch

08/26/2025

Yay!!!!

Lows in the 40s for many! 🧥

08/26/2025

What a handsome dude. Butter Bean.

08/24/2025

Got to experience how in tune a certain horse is to danger this week and have a big bruise on my butt cheek to prove it. Let’s just say our arena needs some sand to soften the fall!

Weak at the Knees
I've shared that run ins with rattle snakes are a fairly regular occurrence around here over the years.
I like snakes, but with boundaries.
I hate it when they overlap because well, nothing good has ever happened when they do.
I've had animals bitten and that's never good.
So we have a détente any chance we get.
You guys also know that not too long ago I was in my tack room one early evening when I heard the unmistakable sound of a rattler telling me they were there.
It was dim in the room as it wasn't dark enough yet to turn on the lights, and I was fiddling around near the floor trying to fill a bucket.
Pretty sure I jumped up about three feet and over about four, slammed the door closed and called Pat for reinforcements.
It was several weeks before I could go in that room without my knees immediately feeling weak.
Unconscious, unexpected, but all the way weak.
For weeks.
My body knew something scary had happened, something bad could have happened, and it was still processing it.
This morning when I realized my knees weren't weak at all, I thought about horses and fear.
I think we hugely underestimate their capacity for fear.
It's their survival mechanism.
It's at the surface, not dampened down like ours is.
We'll willingly get in a closed metal box with a stranger without much thought at all.
Elevator to be specific.
So it's no surprise that our interpretation of survival is not as finely honed as the horse's.
And because of that, maybe we don't give enough space or appreciation for how they do life.
Maybe we think 'Oh, that's ridiculous, you've seen that post/dog/machine/flying monkey a hundred times you shouldn't be afraid of it by now!'
Maybe we think okay, you can spook at that once, but then, get over it already.
I know the snake in the tack room wasn't a usual thing.
I close the door for that very reason, and the only odd thing about this time was I'd cracked the window a bit for ventilation.
So who knows how, but I feel fairly certain it won't happen every day.
Fingers crossed.
But my body still responded to the scare for weeks.
And it gave me a physical appreciation for how threats, real or perceived, work in our bodies without our conscious thought.
Horses have stayed alive across all these years by that finely tuned sensitivity to danger.
The very thing we can be so frustrated by.
I'm grateful that my own weak knees gave me a renewed and physical appreciation for how life might feel through a horse's eyes.
How's your Saturday looking out there?
I hope you find some wonder in it.
I'd love to hear.
xox

08/22/2025

If you haven’t watched the movie about Temple Grandin, I highly recommend it.

Dr Temple Grandin is one of the best known animal scientists in the world. She grew up in America, and she is autistic, which means her brain works a little differently to most people’s. She often says she “thinks in pictures.” This helps her notice tiny details about animals that others might miss.

Most of her career has been spent improving how cattle are handled on farms, making systems calmer and safer. (Which is why many farms have safe handing pens for cattle on farms today)But her ideas are just as useful when we think about horses.

Temple reminds us that animals don’t see the world the same way humans do. A shiny puddle, a flapping jacket, or a garden chair in the wrong place might look like danger to a horse. Horses are prey animals, always on the lookout for threats. What seems silly to us can feel very real to them.

As she explains: “Horses have to see the same object from all angles. They don’t automatically transfer learning from one side of their brain to the other.” In other words, a horse that walks calmly past a wheelbarrow on the left rein may still shy at it on the right.

For coaches and riders, this matters. If a horse spooks or refuses, it isn’t “naughty”, it is reacting in the only way it knows. Our job is to slow down, let the horse look, and give it time to learn.

Temple also talks about how animals respond to pressure. A gentle aid, released at the right moment, helps the horse to understand. But rough hands, loud voices, or constant pushing only build fear. As coaches, that means showing riders how to be clear but kind, guiding, not forcing.

And this links horse welfare with rider welfare. A calm horse gives the rider confidence. A frightened horse makes the rider nervous. By putting the horse’s feelings first, we create safer, happier lessons for both.

Temple Grandin may have made her name with cattle, but her lessons about patience, clear signals for animals are pure gold for anyone who works with horses. When we see the world through the horse’s eyes, we become better kinder horsemen.

08/21/2025

Goodness. 😭

08/17/2025

When we bought our small farm I had so many ideas. Close to the highway to get all the sounds of semis and emergency vehicles. Three acres of woods with an existing trail used to train youngsters. A perfect place for a round pen or arena on top of the hill that was semi flat already. Some pretty decent pasture (the only thing I would change is some of the hills and dips, but that’s good for building muscle and sure footedness). And that arena area has some decent shade later in the day. But guess what? Apparently there are demons and boogeymen in the adjacent woods. Well…not really…it’s deer and foxes and guess what? They really ARE in there. So as I slowly get back into being comfortable riding again, I get to deal with spooks and those dang horse flies!! And…Piper WILL buck with horse flies. Fun times. One thing I can be thankful for just for today (because let’s be honest tomorrow she could make a liar out of me), she doesn’t seem to get too crazy with spooks or bucks. A quick spook and we are done. And she’s too fat to buck too hard…maybe I should keep her that way 😆😆

June helps keep us up to speed on what’s going on in the scary forest. And sometimes SHE is part of the scary forest.

Marti

08/16/2025

Horsemen’s terminology can sometimes be baffling. The term ‘own son’ can be one of these.

In the context of horse breeding, ‘own son’ (or ‘own daughter’) refers to a foal from a stallion, born and raised at the same farm where the stallion still stands at stud. If the horse was not born and raised on that farm, it would be considered a ‘direct’ son, or daughter. This term distinguishes the horse from those sired by the same stallion but not born at the owner’s breeding farm.

In short, ‘own son’ refers to a horse that the stallion owner bred themselves and not merely to the son of the stallion, who was bred to out of an outside mare. Personally, if the horse is lovely and functional in mind and body, a truly outstanding representative of the breed, I’m not all that impressed by who owns the broodmare. It is a term used for generational breeding operations, for the most part, meant to speak of longstanding quality.

This reminds me of another horse breeding term. A foal is ‘out of’ a mare, always… and ‘by’ a stallion. While seemingly unimportant, it is good, I think, to make use of the terms that have long accompanied knowledgeable horsemanship.

By the way, there is no modern ‘15.5 hands’, when it comes to horses. We are newly seeing the term all the time, in horse sale ads. This horse, if he is halfway between 15:0 and 16:0 hands, is correctly said to be 15:2. Using a semi-colon is no more unwieldy to text quickly, than using the decimal point. The decimal leaves those of us in the know wondering if you are among those who don’t know that four inches equals one hand… and that 15.5 is an erroneous way of saying he is 16:1.

What are some other horse terms that are often misused or confused?

Shown here, one of Sunny's baby pictures, just because. More son-of-a-gun than own son, perhaps... he was a show off, a busy body and just darned cute. He still is, I’d say.

Photo: Lea Kroll.

08/16/2025

Ohhhh Zeva girl. She had the most beautiful mane and one of her pasture mates chewed a big portion off…or rubbed it off scratching each other. I think Dunni did it. 😭

08/13/2025

Hank went to his new home today. It warmed my heart that his new name is Silas, chosen from the Bible. A few years ago I named our two fillies Selah and Shiloh from the Bible. We can’t wait to see how he does with his new family.

08/11/2025

We had a bath refresher course for our yearlings last night. They’ve been at a friends farm for a couple of months and came back home Saturday. Raven is really filling out and is such a pretty girl.

08/09/2025

Thankful for my praying cowboy, Tony Janes! Can’t wait to hear the rest of the song!

08/09/2025

Oh my goodness these are so cool!