My Soapbox for Equestrian Writings
As an equestrian I usually have a chuckle at the horse movies. It seems that none of the producers ever hires enough subject matter experts to keep inaccuracies from creeping in. While most family horse movies are formulaic, they can often be entertaining. Sadly the one we rented recently, “The Derby Stallion,” was entertaining only […]
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Not long after I got my Freedom I remember riding him in a lesson and feeling that he was going pretty well. He was hot but “packaged.” My trainer reminded me that if I was holding him together the entire time, I was losing the ability to communicate with him. She told me I had […]
Read MoreWhen I was growing up, “Thelwell ponies” were part of the lexicon. Those fat, willful ponies with their determined young riders captured the imaginations of young and old equestrians. Norman Thelwell (1923-2004) was a British illustrator who created the intrepid Penelope and her beloved pony Kipper. His first cartoon appeared in Punch in 1953 and […]
Read MoreI like riding in fields. That’s just as well as we don’t have an arena at the barn. There is one that’s about a 10 minute hack through the woods but I’ve found that my horses are more forward and more connected when they are not surrounded by fencing. Today I read another good reason […]
Read MoreLet’s face it, we’ve all known horses like Jigsaw and Peter Pan. And many of us can see glimmers of our own equestrian past in this very funny sketch from the British comedy team of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Enjoy!
Read MoreThis photographer at the Winter Equine Festival in Wellington, Fla., learned that the most dangerous place to be during a jumper class was not on the horse, but rather on the ground! Luckily it appears that horse, rider and photographer all escaped unscathed.
Read MoreI vowed to never buy another pair of boots without zippers after I was stuck in my brand new Konig dressage boots for more than an hour. Actually, I was stuck in just one. I had just gotten the boots and was wearing them around the house to break them in. My husband was out […]
Read MoreVernacular (ver⋅nac⋅u⋅lar) (noun): the language or vocabulary peculiar to a class or profession; jargon, argot, slang. We enjoy a sport that is rife with words imported from other languages and specific to esoteric concepts. Since many of us learn the terminology from reading in books and articles, when you add the challenge of pronunciation to […]
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