Horseman's Academy

Jake shares the intense journey of building his Foundations of Excellence program, centering on a wild story about debugging code at 4:30 AM, that led to a breakthrough "fever dream" about invisible architectures in both programming and horsemanship.⁠

After spending hundreds of hours fixing a $2 billion ed-tech company's broken "premium" software, Jake discovered that horse training problems often mirror coding problems: both involve hidden structures and legacy "spaghetti code" that sabotages progress. He explains how bad training ideas create mental architecture that actively fights against learning, using a real example of a dressage student who couldn't grasp the concept of allowing horses to make mistakes as teaching opportunities.

The episode dives deep into diagnostic horsemanship; the ability to see the load-bearing structures that are often hidden from view, understand first principles of how horses think and respond, and escape the "intermediate no man's land" where most riders get stuck fighting invisible problems they don't understand.

Get Foundations of Excellence:

https://www.lundahlperformance.com/foe

The horsemanship industry, for all its lofty ideals and bleeding-heart woo-woo mindfulness garbage, is failing to protect riders. Horse injuries have spiked 139% in riders 65+, despite total injuries across all age groups are lower. And the severity of the injuries has increased. This means that when falls happen, despite widespread use of modern safety gear like protective helmets and vests, traumatic brain and spinal injuries are actually MORE frequent. The data is clear: the modern horsemanship industry is failing to promote safety. Modern riders and horses are LESS well trained and LESS capable than ever. Helmets are the only thing holding back this flood of incompetence.

This episode is a call for a re-orientation of horsemanship instruction toward SAFETY and away from nebulous concepts like "connection" and "attunement". Because that stuff isn't working. And it's pretty hard to be "attuned" when your pelvis is broken.

[Citations]

Equestrian Related Injuries: A National Database Study | AOAO

https://aoao.org/2024/04/24/equestrian-related-injuries-a-national-database-study/

Sports and Recreational Injuries - Injury Facts

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/sports-and-recreational-injuries/

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Injuries Related to Individual and Team Sports: An Analysis of the NEISS Database Between 2017 and 2021 - PubMed

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37900862/

Sports and Recreational Injuries - Injury Facts

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/sports-and-recreational-injuries/

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Injuries Related to Individual and Team Sports: An Analysis of the NEISS Database Between 2017 and 2021 - PubMed

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37900862/

Injury Patterns and Associated Demographic Characteristics in Children with a Fracture from Equines: A US National Based Study

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/11/12/1443

Illustrations of three key branching points of the survey:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/llustrations-of-three-key-branching-points-of-the-survey-A-C_fig1_347862914

[PDF] Horse Riding Accident Statistics in 2023 (U.S. Data)

https://www.biamo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/HorsesOnly-Horse-Riding-Accident-Statistics-in-2023-website-article.pdf

Spinal Injuries from Equestrian Activity: A US Nationwide Study - PMC

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12250276/

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Injuries Related to Individual and Team Sports: An Analysis of the NEISS Database Between 2017 and 2021 - PubMed

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37900862/

Covid-19-and-final-2020-NEISS-estimates-March-December-6b6_edited20210607_0

https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/Covid-19-and-final-2020-NEISS-estimates-March-December-6b6_edited20210607_0.pdf

Injury Patterns and Associated Demographic Characteristics in Children with a Fracture from Equines: A US National Based Study

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/11/12/1443

Spinal Injuries from Equestrian Activity: A US Nationwide Study - PMC

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12250276/

Equestrian Related Injuries: A National Database Study | AOAO

https://aoao.org/2024/04/24/equestrian-related-injuries-a-national-database-study/

Equestrian Related Injuries: A National Database Study | AOAO

https://aoao.org/2024/04/24/equestrian-related-injuries-a-national-database-study/

Injury Patterns and Associated Demographic Characteristics in Children with a Fracture from Equines: A US National Based Study

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/11/12/1443

Sports and Recreational Injuries - Injury Facts

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/sports-and-recreational-injuries/

[/citations]

Many riders chase surface-level appearances and miss what true collection actually feels like: lift at the withers, hindquarters engaged, front end light. In this episode, Jake explains why face-checking cycles fail and how true self-carriage emerges when softness and steering fuse together through the neck rein. The key moment to introduce this concept to the horse is what he calls the "turning point" —a subtle give at the withers in response to indirect rein pressure, where guiding and gathering become one. If you can recognize and reward that shift, you stop babysitting your horse’s frame and start cultivating collection that carries through transitions, circles, and straight lines without constant nagging.

"Feel and timing” is a mysterious concept for many riders because no one ever explains what it actually is, or how to grow it. In this episode, Jake breaks it down into what he calls the "four-factor awareness model" — Softness, Acceptance, Balance, Rhythm (SABR). These four layers act like tumblers on a combination lock: at first you just reward basic physical compliance, then mental relaxation, then true balance, and finally rhythm as the capstone. SABR gives you a roadmap, both for teaching any maneuver and refining your own feel in the saddle. If you’ve ever wondered how expert trainers seem to “just know,” this episode decodes the structure behind that awareness.

Most riders never move past “apply pressure, get release.” In this episode, Jake breaks down the three evolutions of pressure every horse goes through—avoidance, acceptance, and seeking—and why staying stuck in stage one creates stiff, reward-hacked horses that look trained but aren’t. You’ll learn how to evolve your horse’s mindset from just escaping pressure to actually relaxing into it, and eventually to seeking connection and offering movements with initiative. If you want to understand how real softness, throughness, and that almost telepathic feel with your horse are built, this is the roadmap.

Approach and retreat is just the surface. Underneath it lies the real structure: Orientation. Attention. Engagement. In this episode, Jake unpacks the hidden behavioral code that governs how horses process fear, curiosity, and uncertainty. You’ll learn why most riders misread “the try,” how to spot the difference between attention and engagement, and how to avoid unintentionally training your horse to spook, stall out, or resist. If you want your horse to confidently navigate any unfamiliar situation—not just cross a bridge—this episode shows you how to build the mindset that makes it possible.

After a long silence, Jake returns with clarity, purpose, and a warning: the old horse training game is dead. In this raw, unscripted episode, he shares why he stepped back, what he's been building behind the scenes, and how the next era of horsemanship will be shaped—not by gurus or gimmicks, but by a new structural framework he calls the “ontology.” This is the beginning of something deeper, sharper, and more honest.

What makes an elite horse feel the way they do under saddle is their mastery of these 5 "skills that scale" — Drive, Direction, Coil, Collection and Compression. These 5 abilities influence every single thing we ask our horse to do, and the more our horse masters these skills, the more balanced and correct movement they demonstrate, and more effortless responses they give us. If you’ve ever watched a high level Reiner or Cowhorse perform and felt the hair stand up on the back of your neck, it’s precisely because great movement is beautiful to the eye. We can sense movement that is better by how aesthetically pleasing it is. The best performance horses in the world are fun to watch because the way they move and responds is, MECHANICALLY, better. And it’s precisely those mechanics that our training system offers. There is GREATNESS in your horse, and we want YOU to feel it.

A quick audio summarizing the two most important milestones inside the High Level Pathway training system. These keys open the door to teaching advanced maneuvers, and ultimately promoting any horse to riding one-handed in the bridle with ease. 

Discover "Foundations Of Excellence" at:

www.advancedhorsemanship.com

Understand this, and you understand the whole game. In this voice memo Jake emphasizes the often-overlooked benefits of the yield-to-a-stop exercise, a crucial step in our colt starting process.