Good morning this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and today I wanted to introduce you to Cher who is a two year old that is owned by Carrie Underwood. Cher was raised and bred here at our barn. We started giving her lunge lessons about two weeks ago. Notice how I am lunging her with just a simple cavesson with no bit in her mouth and no tack on her back yet. I want to make sure the horse moves correctly first before adding any kind of constriction, like a girth.

What I wanted to show you was, when a horse is allowed to, a horse will stretch on it’s own because it is natural for them. Today is actually the first day that she really stretched over her entire topline. So I want to see if I can show you that for the second time. This just happened for the first time only 10 minutes ago, so I grabbed the camera. All of a sudden, she discovered the stretch and how easily she can move, and now is going around the circle beautifully and bending. Her neck looks like it has gained two feet in length! Look what beautiful confirmation this horse has!

Understand how important it is to start a horse like this, especially here on the west coast where horses don’t have pastures and they aren’t able to move around like they should. So it is very good especially for a two year old to stretch like this. I haven’t forced her to do this, I just let her do it on her own naturally like she should be moving. It’s humans who stop this from happening. When I am finished, I always reward them with a treat in the ring. A little sugar cube goes a long ways in making the horse feel good about what it’s doing.

So once again, this is Carrie Underwood’s horse Cher, I am sure that you will be seeing quite a bit of her in the future. This is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and we will see you next time!

Art2Ride Carrie Underwood Cher classical foundation dressage San Diego horse training stretching Will Faerber