Welcome to another edition of the Next Level Horse.  Here we bring you the stories of the horses we have in training and their owners.  At Next Level Horsemanship we train all breeds and help horses and people from various disciplines. Cole the Therapy Horse This month we highlight Cole.  This beauty came to us from our friends at CATRA (Capital Area Therapeutic Riding Association).  They are a great organization that help people with disabilities improve both physical and mental health through equine therapeutic riding.  CATRA’s horses need to be very good natured and the owners, Ben and Shirley, do a wonderful job of finding the right horses for their program. Sometimes when they bring a new horse into their program it needs a little help from us before it can do a good job as a therapy horse. Not only do therapeutic horses need to be calm and have a great foundation in basic training, but they also need to be especially tolerant of things we may overlook in other horses.  Cole is a draft cross, a big fella with a kind eye.  He had been ridden before but needed to polish his skills to be better in CATRA’s program.  […]

The Next Level Horse Next Level Horsemanship.

Welcome to another edition of the Next Level Horse.  Here we introduce some of the horses we have in training to give you some insight into their stories and those of their owners.  At Next Level Horsemanship we train all breeds and help horses and people from various disciplines. In 2017 we became an approved “Storefront” for the Bureau of Land Management.  This is a new program by the BLM designed to bring wild Mustangs further east of the normal holding facilities to make it easier for individuals to adopt.  In our program, we take up to 25 horses in a single shipment from the BLM and hold an adoption yearly at our facility in Port Matilda, PA.  Some of the horses are purchased or adopted and leave immediately with their new owners and others stay with us for gentling and further training with Suzanne and the experienced team of Next Level Horsemanship. Eleanor was one of those Mustangs.  Of the 14 Mustangs from this event that stayed with us for training, Eleanor  was particularly challenging to bring along.  All Mustangs are definitely wild but some relinquish their instinctive behaviors sooner than others and Eleanor was determined to keep us […]

The Next Level Horse: Eleanor Next Level Horsemanship.

At Next Level Horsemanship we train all breeds and don’t discriminate by discipline. If your horse needs improvement we can help make him or her a better partner for you. In a new series, The Next Level Horse, I’d like to introduce to our fans and viewers the variety of horses we care for in our training program. In the past we have trained anything from mules, to Quarter Horses, Arabians, Warmbloods, Fresians, Tennesee Walkers, Draft breeds and beyond. Today I introduce Jake. Jake is a Quarter Horse owned by a super nice couple located near Altoona PA. Jake had very good ground manners when he arrived at our farm but he came to us because the owners noticed that he was sometimes spooky and insecure outside. Additionally, the owners had not yet done any cantering on Jake and wanted us to help advance his skills under saddle. And so Jake’s journey began. After a few days of refreshing the groundwork and introducing some new groundwork concepts we began riding Jake to find a very polite and well mannered horse under saddle. Although he was willing he just didn’t have what I would call a lot of “buttons” or well […]

The Next Level Horse: Jake Next Level Horsemanship.