RELAXED AND FORWARD: Since 2010, an archive of weekly horse training essays. My dogs say it's their turn now. Happy to oblige, it's all affirmative. Including words from a gray mare on the fine art of aging cantankerously.
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...
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