20/07/2025
If You Only Ride on Good Days, Youâll Never Have a Good Horse
Look, I get it.
Itâs cold. Or itâs hot. Or itâs windy. Maybe your horse is feeling fresh. Maybe youâre feeling tired. Maybe you had a long day at work, or your back is sore, or your schedule got away from you. Maybe you just donât feel like it today.
But let me tell you something that doesnât get said enough:
If you only ride on good days, youâll never have a good horse.
Because the truth is, consistency trumps comfort. Horses donât get trained on the days you feel like it. They get trained on the days you show up â especially when you donât.
Training Isnât a Special Occasion
Training isnât something you do once a week when the weather is perfect and the birds are singing. Itâs not a special occasion. Itâs not a vacation destination. Itâs a daily investment.
And Iâm not talking about riding six hours a day, seven days a week. Thatâs not realistic. Iâm talking about showing up consistently. About doing something, even if itâs small. About putting in reps that matter. About not letting three, four, five days go by with that horse sitting idle â especially if that horse is still learning, still developing, or still working through problems.
Because every day you skip? That horse is learning something anyway. Horses donât stop learning when you stop showing up. Theyâre just learning without your guidance. And thatâs when bad habits form. Thatâs when regression creeps in.
Progress Comes Through Repetition â Not Randomness
Iâve seen it a thousand times. Someone rides once on Monday, then not again for a week. The next ride feels like starting over. And it is. Because you are.
Youâre not building a habit. Youâre just reintroducing a concept. Again. And again. And again.
You ask your horse to stand quietly at the mounting block â and he does. You skip three days. The next time heâs dancing around again. You think, âHe just wonât stand still.â No, he will â he just forgot. Because you didnât follow through.
You work on lead departures. They start getting better. Then it rains for four days, and you donât touch your horse. Next time you saddle up, heâs cross-firing again. Itâs not the weatherâs fault. Itâs the inconsistency.
Horses learn through repetition. That means what you do today â and what you do tomorrow â and what you do the next day â thatâs what builds the horse you end up with.
And if the repetition is broken? So is the progress.
Your Horse Doesnât Care If Itâs Windy
I hear this one all the time:
âIt was too windy.â
âHe was just fresh today.â
âThere were trucks going by and he was jumpy.â
So what? Thatâs life.
Youâre not training your horse to ride in a vacuum. Youâre not preparing for a world where everything is controlled, quiet, and calm. Youâre preparing for reality. And reality is messy.
If you only ride your horse when the conditions are ideal, youâre setting them up to fail in every situation thatâs not. Youâre reinforcing the idea that the only time they have to listen, the only time they have to focus, the only time they have to be calm is when the world is perfect.
And thatâs just not how it works.
You donât get a broke horse by avoiding tough days. You get a broke horse by working through them.
That doesnât mean you pick a fight. It doesnât mean you punish nervousness or push past what your horse can handle. But it does mean you show up, you assess where your horse is, and you work through it with fairness and consistency.
The Horses That Change Are the Ones You Show Up For
Iâve had plenty of horses come in to be started or retrained that had all kinds of baggage â buddy sour, barn sour, spooky, pushy, reactive. And you know what changed them?
It wasnât one magic ride. It wasnât some fancy tool or trick.
It was showing up every single day. Working through things every single day. And not just the good days, either. Especially not just the good days.
Some of the best rides Iâve ever had didnât start good â they ended good because I stuck it out. Because I didnât quit when it got hard or frustrating. Because I didnât make excuses. I made progress.
Youâre Building Habits â Even When You Think Youâre Not
Every day you choose not to ride, youâre teaching your horse something.
Let me say that again, because it matters:
Every day you choose not to ride, youâre still teaching your horse something.
Youâre teaching him that the rules are flexible. That the routine doesnât matter. That the pressure comes and goes without reason. That todayâs behavior might slide, depending on your mood.
Or worse â youâre teaching him to get away with behaviors that you donât correct because youâre not there to see them.
You donât build a broke, consistent, respectful, relaxed horse by accident. You build that horse through intention. Through structure. Through showing up â even when itâs inconvenient.
You Donât Have to Ride Hard â But You Do Have to Ride Often
Iâm not saying every day has to be a boot camp. You donât need to lope perfect figure-eights every single ride. But you need to do something.
Some days that might be groundwork. Some days it might be riding out for 15 minutes just to keep the muscle memory fresh. Some days it might be reinforcing a mounting block routine or working on softness at the walk. It doesnât always have to be intense. But it does have to be consistent.
And honestly? Those short, simple, focused rides are often the most productive ones.
Final Thought
Youâre not going to build a dependable, willing, broke horse on the back of fair-weather rides. Youâre not going to progress when you let life dictate your schedule more than your commitment does. You donât get confidence â in yourself or your horse â by waiting for the perfect day to show up.
You get it by showing up anyway.
The people with the best horses arenât just lucky. They arenât just talented. Theyâre consistent. They ride when itâs cold. They ride when itâs hot. They ride when itâs windy. They donât let a little weather or a little inconvenience or a little resistance get in the way of the bigger goal.
So if youâre waiting for everything to feel just right before you put your foot in the stirrup â youâll be waiting forever.
Ride today. Especially because you donât feel like it. Especially because itâs not perfect.
Because thatâs how good horses get made.
