Welcome to Gerbitz Quarter Horses website & Barb Gerbitz’s news page.

In the interest of motivating, educating and inspiring my students, friends and interested visitors in 2010.

I would like to welcome you to the May/June journal entry, on “What goes on in the horsemanship training barn.”  These journal entries will allow you to ride along with me and the horses that come thru the horsemanship training barn.  Articles are often inspired by the things I experience with the horses & people from month to month.

Once a certain level of quality is achieved in the horse, it is easy to say, “That’s good enough.” and not think about progressing further.

Graduating the horse on to the next step is important to the progress of the both the horse and handler.  It’s important for a handler to continue to learn what comes next in the process in order to refine their skills and broaden their knowledge base, so that training does not become stale or backslide.  We can always add refinement to the things that we work on with our horses until we achieve the ultimate goal which would be to become so connected through feel to the horse that the aids are imperceptible and the horse and rider or ground handler become united, working harmoniously together.

For myself, as far as being a life long student of the horse or aspiring to become a horseman, it is a part of the process which cannot be overlooked.

I have watched few great horseman achieve this state of being with horses and work on myself towards that way of working with horses everyday.  However, there was a time that I hadn’t a clue that these things existed and were possible until informed by those better horseman that these things were possible and then allowed the priveledge of riding a horse or two that could offer the experience of feel, synchronicity and unity which I had witnessed.

People who dare to go on and search for this refinement of feel, synchronicity and unity with their horses take time to  learn about how horses think, move, balance, learn and so on.  The learning of it all, is a life long endeavor which even the best horseman contend, never really finds and end.  But if you are up to the challenges, the rewards along the way, are alone, worth the effort.  There is no skipping ahead in this education and don’t be fooled by the appearance of feel, synchronicity and unity.  Horsemanship is working with a horse on their terms.  Meaning, communicating with them, as a horse, to another horse and all that it entails. And being willing to meet them were they are at, at any moment.  It is a conversation that you are having thru body language and feel.  It is presenting the horse with situations that allow the horse to make choices about where, when and how to be.  It will reveal all of your better qualities and all of your personal faults.   Horsemanship therefore becomes about personal development with the horse being the catalyst which allows us to see clearly who we are, if we dare to go there…

The Mentor

He said,
“The long and winding road,
never has an end…
The horse becomes your teacher,
to read and comprehend…
You reach a stop and starting point,
somewhere in between…
Where; the horse and man combine,
the horseman can be seen…”

~Barb Gerbitz

Thanks for riding along, see you next month…