Seriously Lighthearted
Do you ever get the impression that your show up at the barn and your horse is watching you with...
Big Dreams, Low Expectations
I've become a real party-pooper when it comes to talented young horses. It isn't that I can't see the potential;...
Trust: A Suspension of Disbelief.
You love horses. No, you really, really love horses. Because they are so amazing. We share videos of blind horses cared...
Circles: A Soft Bend
I'd led a sheltered life. I was thirty years old before I visited my first Saddlebred barn. I was just...
The Middle Path: Why Gaits Matter
Let's say you like to jump and so does your Arabian. Let's say you do endurance on an Appaloosa. Let’s...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Rounded
The whorl beneath a forelock, the velvet comma nostrils, the curve of a neck, the serpentine of a spine,...
Riding the Middle: My Horse is Lazy.
My horse is lazy. He won't go forward. He doesn't listen to my legs no matter what. Do I need...
Too Much Love: Is it Partnership?
Last week I answered a reader question about Making War on Horses and it got a predictably positive reception. It's...
Escape the Death Spiral: Asking For a Step.
Let me begin by defining a death spiral. It's asking a horse to do something he just avoided, by circling...
Photo Challenge: Layered
It began with a word so small and unspoken that it waited in a bitter slick at the back...
Helmets: When Complacency and Experience are Killers.
"She had a helmet on and she still got hurt," the woman said. Well, sure. I take vitamins and I'm still...
How to be a Brilliant Conversationalist: Horse Version
You know how the cat magically goes to the person with the allergy? Or she goes the person who happens...
Leadership Percentages and Confused Horses
Pause here. Look in his eye. He's sensitive and intelligent and looking for a partner who's his equal. If we're...
How to Relieve Your Horse's Anxiety
Growing up, only one person in our home was allowed to have a temper and the rest of us kept...
Redefining Work Under Saddle.
I had a blog request, in two parts. First: "[Does] training and working a horse inherently make a horse less...
Part Three: Riding Above Fear
This is what we knew then: It started with a dream of dancing hooves and a flowing mane. He was...
Things to Not Say When Someone’s Horse Dies.
I've been tinkering with this essay since my Grandfather Horse died five years ago, but it would have been ungrateful...
Part Two: Now I'm Afraid
[Part One: My Horse Betrayed Me.] Something bad happened. The details don't need to be repeated for me to understand. It...
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