We were taping the show about 40 miles north of Houston at a beautiful center with a covered arena (we needed it) and a rehabilitative center. Our show topics were learning the cues and training a young horse to side-pass, canter departures, desensitizing an explosively cinchy horse, collecting the canter, reprogramming a hard-to-catch horse and a rider learning to jump. All six episode went smoothly, except one of them was, once again, supposed to be on water crossing but the horse inexplicably walked right into the water (for the very first time) so we had to change the topic.

Horses have an uncanny knack for making a liar out of you, have you ever noticed that? Have you ever bragged on a horse, only to have him totally embarrass you moments later? Have you ever spoken poorly of your horse, only to have him act like a total angel? There’s a lesson to be learned here and for us, the Horse Master crew, we learned this lesson a long time ago—always have a back-up plan.

I really liked all the horses (and riders) that were at the shoot, but the one horse that stands out to me was the hard-to-catch one. Because he wasn’t really that way by design. He had just figured out this very fun game, called “make the human run all over” and thought it was his obligation to play it. I could see right away that he wasn’t going to be difficult to reprogram, unlike some hard-to-catch horses, and I was right. He just needed new rules explained to him and then he was happy to play the new game called “come to the human.” He was actually very sweet and bright, just a little misunderstood.