My Soapbox for Equestrian Writings
Freedom got new glue on shoes today. He always yawns a lot when the farrier comes; I think the stretches feel good. Today, though, he needed a little help to get relaxed. In the process, he did a great rendition of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. Of course, he could have just been reacting to the […]
Read More
If the Tevis Cup (starting in just a few days) isn’t an intense enough competition for you, consider the Mongol Derby — a race that replicates Genghis Khan’s horse messenger system over 1000km of Mongolian steppe. If that doesn’t sound challenging enough, your mounts are semi-wild horses, which you swap out every 40 km and […]
Read More
This great graphic, which was posted by the Arkansas Equine Foundation on Facebook, is the best illustration I’ve seen that illustrates how long it takes for a horse to become fully mature — essentially not until they are six. It makes you think hard about the sports where we ask them to perform at ages […]
Read More
How much fun it was to meet a friend and take an early morning ride. The bugs were miserable in the woods, but out in the open you barely noticed them. It’s easy to kill an hour or so hacking in the summer sunshine, letting your horse grab a snack along the way (Zelda was […]
Read More
One of the challenges of riding in a treeless saddle is protecting your horse’s spine. With a treed saddle, the gullet keeps the rider’s weight off of the sensitive nerves and protect the horse’s spine. When the first treeless saddles were introduced, most of them did not have integrated gullets; spinal protection was offered by […]
Read More
Everyone’s read about the Larry Nassar scandal with the US Gymnastics team. Now equestrian sports are getting their turn under the microscope of sexual misconduct. In June, California trainer Rob Gage committed suicide after being banned for life for sexual misconduct with a minor. Last year, the New York Times Wrote an expose on Jimmy […]
Read More
Last week, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Prevent All Soring Tactics Act (PAST), a bill (333 to 96) that aims to stamp out soring in the Tennessee Walking Horse industry by ending self-policing and strengthening penalties. Backers of the anti-soring bill will now press for the legislation to be brought before the […]
Read More