Client Horse Spotlight: JB Blue Label
It’s more than training… it’s rebuilding trust, confidence, and connection.
This is JB Blue Label, or as we call him at the barn, James. His owner Lilia has loved him since he was a weanling. She even put his very first ride on as a two-year-old.
JB is now 8 and since his two year old year life has thrown her some challenges. Lilia went through a major hip surgery that changed how she could ride and made it hard to feel confident again. In April 2025, our barn owner suggested we start lessons together with JB. My first thought was “Well if I can get through 2024, maybe I can help her get through her hip surgery.”
I can safely say that year may have been the worst in my professional career. January 30 I was struck in the face by a client horse. My front teeth were knocked out, my pallet was broken, and so was my nose. I also had a pretty good concussion and a case of whiplash that would come back to bite me later. March 20 I was thrown from another client horse and walked away with a ring evulsion (don’t worry, I’m no longer dumb enough to wear a ring while around anything with 4 legs.) May 22 my lung collapsed after a dry needling appointment (this is the aforementioned later. The dry needling was to treat the earlier whiplash, as recommended by my physical therapist.) Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I made some very poor choices, met, and became involved with the barn owner from Hell, and I truly mean “separated from God.”
Thankfully I have a great relationship with my therapist and The Big Man himself. That year He and I had a lot of hard conversations in the middle of the night. I finally read the Bible, and I mean the whole thing Genesis to Revelations, and made a serious effort to understand it. Around the time the ranch I was working for started calving, those middle of the night talks really took hold. I finally found peace, watching first time mothers do the hardest thing they had ever done. In freezing snowstorms to boot.
Calving ‘24/’25, roughly 3:30 am
January came around again with no injury to mention. So did March. By the time April came around I had met my new and current barn owner and began to find some semblance of confidence again, mainly because of Lilia. All of the tools I learned that past year found their place in her and by proxy, my program.
Since April, I have watched Lilia step back into the saddle with more trust, more connection, and more joy. Though there are still challenges I’m blessed to say that she has found a home in my program and will be showing JB next year.
As far as JB is concerned, he had his own troubles. I do believe he was quite content with living as more of a pet than a riding horse. We discovered he had a low grade lameness in both hocks which may have contributed to training time cut short in his younger years. Thankfully, our performance vet is very good at what he does. Although JB has quite a bit of training time to catch up on, he is an incredibly high achieving gelding and a gorgeous mover.
This is what makes the work worth it… seeing a rider and horse find their rhythm again and being part of that journey. Lilia and JB have a lot ahead of them, and we’ll be cheering them on the whole way.
