Relaxed & Forward Blog

Bend… Like a Crescent Moon.

I arrived at the barn mid-fight. The barn manager was refereeing a dust-up between a trainer and a boarder who...
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Touchy About Bits.

Confession #1: There was a time that I would have sold my soul for a spade bit with 12" shanks....
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Touchy About Contact

Question from a reader with a mouth-sensitive green horse: " ...when I watch a video of me riding I worry that...
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Circling Back: How We Became One.

We were hooked and it was written all over us. The first weird looks passed between our parents. We were...
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Photo Challenge: Easy Being Green

  I’ll take this gray rain to wet a controlled burn in my lungs that’s taken my air and dropped...
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What Are Your Legs Doing? (Half-halt Help)

  How are the half-halts coming? Does a breath and a light thigh pulse work? Or are your legs exhausted by the end...
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Photo Challenge: Atop

  It's an inherited seat; elders and babies ride loose in time, strong and vulnerable and not quite domesticated. Sky-tall and exquisitely...
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The Mysterious Half-Halt

Thanks to a request, I'm writing about the half-halt. Ever notice how every definition you read starts with the disclaimer that it's the...
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Photo Challenge: Wish

We felt them close before we had skin; from an infinite prairie the vibration began. A slow rolling nicker rumbled,...
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Do You Communicate Like a Coyote?

Some of us baby-talk and cuddle our horses like they're twelve-hundred-pound teddy bears. Some of us enter the pen with...
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Part Two: Norman, Is That You? (The Reactive Horse)

Last week, I wrote about horses who are The Strong Silent Type. This horse is the opposite. Describing him sounds...
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Part One: The Strong Silent Type (Of Horse)

I've said it before: While growing up, I saw She Wore a Yellow Ribbon more often than I saw my...
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What To Do When Your Horse Is Wrong

It started small. It started the way it usually starts; the rider pulled on her horse's face. It's a fundamental disagreement:...
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Photo Challenge: Shadow

I mean to blur the edge, a half-stop between dark and light, of the distance between us. He's walked on from this...
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Thin Horses, Body Scoring, and Inconvenience.

Start here: There is no rule that says when a horse's age goes up, his weight needs to come down. Age is no excuse...
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Photo Challenge: Solitude

    Out on the fringe of wrong, and late, and forgotten, and just not being a match, hold and...
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Email Subject Line: "Do I Want a Horse?"

February 2nd, 10 pm, 12 degrees. There was dense fog all day. We didn't see the sun and the temperature stayed...
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Energetic Tidiness in the Saddle.

Some of us climb into the saddle and have all kinds of crazy dangerous things happen--right out of the blue. We...
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