Horses are very sensitive and perceptive. You don't have to be physical with them.

The horse needs to respect you, but sometimes people confuse respect & fear. And they're not the same at all.

Someone might steal your childhood, but they can't steal your will. There is a point where you're given the opportunity in life to stop blaming everyone else and start taking responsibility for your life.

It's a process and it's a matter of understanding the horse and through any of these little projects you have a beginning, a middle and an end. And if you made up your mind early when he's still scared, you'd think that wasn't working at all. Sometimes it might get darker, before it gets dawn. You might have to work at it a little bit in order for it to come out the other side.

Not all horses are going to be show jumpers, not all horses are going to be dressage horses. So you have to sort of find where the horse physically fits into what might suit him, but all horses can be comfortable and all horses can have good, solid fundamentals.

As a rider, you must slowly and methodically show your horse what is appropriate. You also have to discourage what's inappropriate, not by making the inappropriate impossible, but by making it difficult so that the horse himself chooses appropriate behavior. You can't choose it for him; you can only make it difficult for him to make the wrong choices. If, however, you make it impossible for him to make the wrong choices, you're making war.

When you're younger, you ride with 90% physical and 10% mental. But if you could learn how to use 90% mental and 10% physical you'd be better off.