About C-Horse
Horses are prey animals, humans are predators. We as humans need to be aware of this whenever we are around our horses. By nature, we aren't meant to get along, but we can and we do! We need to make sure that we communicate with them in a language they can understand. When we can learn to do this, our partnership with our horses can be truly magical.
At C-Horse Training and Holistic Horsemanship, my goal is to inspire you to become a partner and leader for your horse using natural horsemanship techniques. Natural horsemanship is not about petting and loving the horse and hoping that they will respect you and do what you want. It is about establishing you as the horse's leader. In a herd situation, horses will naturally create a pecking order by moving each others' feet in different directions. They do this with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) body language. This is what I will teach you to do, through a series of unmounted and mounted exercises.
Now for a bit about myself. My name is Emily Craft, and I love God, my wife, and horses. I was born and raised in Escondido, CA, and have lived here the majority of my life, other than the 5 years I was in Utah for college. I began my horsemanship journey at the age of 10 when I begged my parents for horseback riding lessons. My wish was granted and I was given a month's worth of riding lessons for Christmas! I was instantly hooked! I started out riding English, and from there went on to play polo for a few years. When I started high school, I stopped taking riding lessons and mostly rode with a friend who had 2 great Arabians that could do anything! We rode on trail, set up all sorts of obstacles to jump, and competed in V-Spurs Gymkhana shows. It was through those shows that I met Lori Hall-McNary, who gave me my first horse at the start of my junior year of high school, a 14 year old, green broke, rescued Arabian named Baskwyn, who I called Jazmyn.
Jazmyn came to me a very spooky and high-spirited mare, the perfect challenge for me, so I thought. I dove right into getting her used to a saddle on her back and went on from there. I was riding her one day, about a week after I'd first thrown a leg over her, at a walk, and went to give Lori a thumbs-up, and Jazmyn promptly spooked and bucked me off. I realized then that I definitely needed to be more thorough with my training, on the ground and under saddle. I kept working with her, just trying different things to see what would work, and eventually got to where I could ride her at any gait, out on trail, in the arena, and compete in gymkhanas. In 2010, I graduated from high school and headed up to college at Southern Utah University to pursue my Bachelor's degree in Agriculture and Associate's degree in Equine Studies, and of course, Jazmyn came with me.
While in college, I kept Jazmyn on my aunt and uncle's beautiful 100 acre ranch with their 5 horses. About a month after moving there, my aunt and I went out for a trail ride, and Jazmyn stepped on a stick, spooked, and bucked me off. My aunt took off after her (after making sure I was OK, which I was, thankfully) and we had a discussion at dinner that night about needing to re-start Jazmyn to make her a safe, dependable trail horse, and that's when I was introduced to natural horsemanship. My aunt shared many DVDs and books with me, and helped me apply the different groundwork and riding exercises to my horse, and we both saw immediate results. When she'd spook, she'd calm down quicker, and it would be a much smaller jump than full-on bucking fits like she used to do. After many, many hours of work, we got Jazmyn to be a dependable trail horse, and she went on to be a babysitter for a 3 year old girl.
After I saw such amazing results with Jazmyn, when I came home to California to visit, I worked with some of Lori's horses and saw the same results. One of these horses was Charger's Lucky Romance (Lucky). He was a rescue horse who had been neglected and needed to be restarted. He now has a successful career as a lesson horse at Lori's ranch.
In August 2017, my horsemanship career broadened again when I accepted a job as a therapeutic horseback riding instructor. While working at this barn, I have had a lot of practice working with horses who are very lazy and dull and need to work on moving their feet with a little more energy. Also, these horses must be extremely well desensitized to many different objects and obstacles, and from this experience, I have learned to be extremely thorough with desensitizing.
After working with so many horses and getting the same results, I really became dedicated to helping horses with problems become safe, dependable partners for their owners. I truly believe that God was watching out for me with Jazmyn, otherwise I would never have survived that experience, and He was helping to direct me down the path to become a better horseman.
I would love to come meet you and your horse, and help you start your journey towards a safe and successful partnership!
After I saw such amazing results with Jazmyn, when I came home to California to visit, I worked with some of Lori's horses and saw the same results. One of these horses was Charger's Lucky Romance (Lucky). He was a rescue horse who had been neglected and needed to be restarted. He now has a successful career as a lesson horse at Lori's ranch.
In August 2017, my horsemanship career broadened again when I accepted a job as a therapeutic horseback riding instructor. While working at this barn, I have had a lot of practice working with horses who are very lazy and dull and need to work on moving their feet with a little more energy. Also, these horses must be extremely well desensitized to many different objects and obstacles, and from this experience, I have learned to be extremely thorough with desensitizing.
After working with so many horses and getting the same results, I really became dedicated to helping horses with problems become safe, dependable partners for their owners. I truly believe that God was watching out for me with Jazmyn, otherwise I would never have survived that experience, and He was helping to direct me down the path to become a better horseman.
I would love to come meet you and your horse, and help you start your journey towards a safe and successful partnership!