Riding Lessons: Seeing Your Horse Through New Eyes
A reader request: "I hope you will someday do an article on looking at the horse's ears and eyes to...
Horses Are Like Bad Boyfriends (Or Why the Wrong Answer Might Be Better)
Horses are like bad boyfriends because they only want to talk about themselves. Wait, let me explain. First of all,...
Is Your Horse Mentally Exhausted?
No other animal is quite like a horse; never fully wild and never quite domesticated. Engaged with us but never...
How to Focus Simply.
I had just finished a lesson when another woman I knew at the barn came up to me with a...
A Different Leg Cue
"My horse won't go forward!" the rider says. Many trainers respond with the traditional battle cry, "More leg!" What does...
Forging a Path: What to Do Next With Your Horse.
It's that time of winter when you half-think spring isn't real. Are you frustrated with how you and your horse...
Virtual Dressage and Girls in White Shirts
The FEI passed good rules this year, and the Olympic judging held to the high side. Dressage had things to...
The Problem with Pre-Corrections on Horses.
She enters the barn, looking left to right. What does she think her horse might be afraid of? First, let's...
Homeschooling Your Horsemanship
In one online class this week, a woman in Maine said it was 90 degrees that day and her...
Advice? Take a Deep Seat and a Faraway Look…
My young horse was lame, so my mentor asked if I'd like a lesson on her horse. It wasn't a...
A Short List of Things Horses Don’t Need Us to Teach Them.
If Edgar Rice Burro were to title this Bev Doolittle-like photo, he might call it Beauty and the Beast. He...
Contact: Wait Too Late… Then Panic
Dear Fellow Primates: It is our instinct to grab. It is our instinct to talk in imitation-semaphore with our...
Who’s Risk-Averse?
This week a stranger asked for my prayers. She posted a photo of an incredibly young girl with a crushed...
What Horses Want to “Talk” About.
What is it about the snout of an old horse? Especially a pink and black muzzle? How can it...
Making Peace with Anxiety
A caption for this photo? "Dressage rider doesn't grasp the fundamentals of team penning." How about "Dressage rider brings a...
Riding a Princely Trot
Is your horse uncomfortable in the trot? He might toss his head or maybe his strides are short and choppy....
Walk, The Queen of Gaits
Some riders keep to the walk, a sweet sashay that's almost a lollygag. They want their horse to stay...
How To Spoil Your Horse
Will we ever stop telling long-winded horse stories? No chance. We are besotted with horses; we need horse friends because...