
Welcome to my weekend coffee share where we share what’s been happening in our life with old friends and new. I am up north visiting my daughter and her girlfriend gifted us with these beautiful flower bouquet’s. What a great way to start my post with these flowers, as I just love them. Flowers of any kind always make me smile! 😀
I drove up to Orcutt, CA where my daughter lives and I am staying with her while I attended Monty Robert’s The Movement, 2022 ~ Happiness, Health & Horses! His Flag Is Up Farm is located in Santa Ynez Valley which is just minutes away from Solvang, CA. My daughter is about 30 miles north and so the drive was not bad to get to the clinic. It was an all day event for both Friday and Saturday and I am spending Sunday with my daughter and friends and will head home Monday. I have some time here and thought I would share the photo’s I took of this weekend and the training seminars.

We started out with this 3 year old Arabian filly who has had very little to no training, just growing up in a pasture. Within 2 days he had a rider on her back using his gentling methods. He is on a mission to change the training techniques across the globe for non-violent training for all horses. It doesn’t matter if they are wild mustangs, young horses needing to be “broke” he hates the term breaking horses, we should be gentling them as we speak Equus to them and get them to want to be with us and learn from us. It is all so amazing what he shares and his methods are tried and true and he wants to rid the world of violence, if only he could. He helps groups of people with PTSD and holds training seminars for corporations and anyone needing to see how horses can heal and help teach us patience and confidence.



We had a seminar on hoof care and the woman in the photo is Ada Gates-Patton the first and only woman journeyman farrier of thoroughbred horses in the nation. She also inspects the shoes of every horse taking part in the Rose Parade. I also have a photo of Monty talking to us here as we were waiting for the farrier to trim the horse. Her background and knowledge was so amazing to hear about and she was Monty’s farrier for many years. I won’t go into her whole background but she gleaned so much information to us about horses hooves, it was so educational and something I am so grateful to learn about. Ada explained to us what she was looking for after the trim on the horse for a balanced hoof.


We broke for lunch which was provided each day and we enjoyed the beautiful grounds of Monty’s farm. It is so tranquil there and a huge farm! There are horses everywhere, in pastures or paddocks. He has transition horses from gentling mustang’s to off the track thoroughbreds that will be retrained for a new career. He also has young thoroughbreds there for training for the racetrack. He will get them started and use to the starting gates and they will be sent back to their racing trainer. Such a busy place but you would not know it with how peaceful it is there. ❤

We are back in the round pen where Jamie did a “join up” with this thoroughbred who was recently retired from racing and will be retrained for a new career. She is a beautiful young mare and started out a bit nervous but settled right down while being worked with in the round pen. This is what Jamie does at her farm in Oklahoma getting retired racehorses from Horse and Hound Rescue and that is how I got my horse Midnight Murphy, a retired racehorse but he never made it to the track because he was too slow!
It was so wonderful to finally meet Jamie in person and as we exchanged hugs it was such a pleasure to see her training in action and all she has learned from the great Monty Roberts. She will be continuing his legacy as they train more and more people in his methods. There are Certified Monty Roberts Trainers all over the world. Monty is 87 years old and he has accomplished getting all of this training online with I believe hundreds of video’s and with my participation at this clinic I get 3 months free for Monty’s online university training.


The above photos are of Mark Bolender a famous trainer in his own right being an expert on extreme trail and mountain trail competitions. He has designed mountain trail courses all over the world and he has designed and put in a mountain trail course at Flag Is Up Farm in the infield of Monty’s racetrack. This is Mark’s famous horse Checkers. A National Grand Champion I think more than once and he is now a Breyer horse (You can buy a plastic Breyer horse of Checkers!) Mark is riding him bridle-less with just a rope around his neck. Very impressive as he navigates the bridge. He even turned around on the bridge! There are many components on the trail course and I did not take photos of everything there. I’m finding that there is so much to share, maybe I’ll just share more photos and less words!

Friday was a long day as we had wine and cheese and a concert in the evening. Templeton Thompson and Sam Gay sang to us as we enjoyed the evening. It got a bit chilly with a strong breeze but it was beautiful music and a fun time!



The next day was gentling mustangs in a special pen Monty had built so that the wild mustang’s could be gentled and all could stay safe. In the stalls that you can see they are standing in they can be touched all over with a long stick and a glove at the end which mimics a hand. These wild mustang’s have been there for about 6 weeks now and believe me, you could tell they were still pretty wild. But they were trusting too, and you can see Jamie rubbing on one’s shoulder as he enjoys the scratches!


Day 2 and Monty uses a dummy rider to get the young Arabian filly to accept a rider. She did buck a lot at first with the dummy on it’s back. It is secured and has weighted boots to mimic a rider. It does not fall off but she was very good when a rider did get on which was so wonderful to see. His gentling methods are truly amazing!


Here I am standing next to Monty Roberts. I didn’t want to interrupt him as he is always deep in conversation explaining away as there are always so many questions. Haha, this photo works as I am kinda shy anyways! And a photo looking out to the pastures. So pretty! I’ll end here as there is just so much to share and I did not upload all my photos of the weekend. I think you get a pretty good taste of my horsey adventures and I am enjoying spending time with my daughter too! We are off to a seafood restaurant in Pismo Beach. YAY! I just love Sanddabs and that’s what I will have for dinner! YUMMY!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for stopping by!
Horse Crazy and Happy Cowgirl,
~Diana ❤