For as often as we’ve watched horses run and thought them the most beautiful of all creatures, we should know better. For as often as we have pretended to be horses, you’d think we’d be honest. For as often as we’ve sat in the saddle with a dream and a wide open heart, you think … Read more
Because they’re doing construction down the road. His previous owner says he once spooked at a llama. The wind is blowing. There are strange sounds in the woods. The neighbor is mowing their lawn. There are kids playing just outside the arena. Motorcycles might go by. Dogs are barking behind the fence. The farrier was … Read more
Gray Mare memories: It was one of the first clinics I ever attended. The clinician was famous; I signed up for three fifty-minute lessons that came to more than I paid for my horse. It was a huge amount of money to me. The night before the clinic was to start, we all went to … Read more
Calming signals are an animal’s emotional response to their environment, expressed in body language, sometimes in increasing anxiety moving toward a flight, fight, or freeze response and sometimes decreasing anxiety while returning to a relaxed or restive state. It’s the most natural thing in the world for a horse to feel stress. It might be … Read more
What is it about the snout of an old horse? Especially a pink and black muzzle? How can it seem so wise to me? Or is it that over thirty years with this horse, I finally got wise to him? I confess that I disregarded his opinion in the early days. Disregarding the opinions … Read more
Restless eyes behind closed lids, the early hours lay flat, dull to these scurrying thoughts. Rise to use the bathroom and the dogs do not stir. Pull on a barn coat and muck boots to go out and walk the farm. Keep to open ground, small steps feel for uneven earth, head dropped back … Read more
The trouble with being stoic, like any stoic horse will tell you, is that you don’t have fewer feelings; you just try harder to hide them.
Last week, I wrote about horses who are The Strong Silent Type. This horse is the opposite. Describing him sounds like reading the judge’s comments on a marginal dressage test: Tense in the back. Tight in the poll. Hollow. Too quick. It doesn’t stop there. He has twitchy eyes, a furrowed brow, and he clenches his jaw. … Read more
Season change. It’s an epidemic and surely contagious. Especially if your senses are about 200 times keener than a human’s.