It’s a bright shiny green day
Today is just picture perfect. The trees and the grass are so green in the sunlight that they just glow. Freedom gleamed like a new penny. Great way to start the day!
Read MoreCategory: horse back riding
Do you let other people ride your horse?
Sometimes people ask if they can borrow my horse. Well, not so much with Freedom as he can be a handful and doesn’t always look like that much fun. Loaning your horse out is a tricky thing — there are liability issues, for sure, but also territorial ones. I know one person who said they’d […]
Read MoreLessons Remembered: Keeping your horse underneath you
It may seem rather obvious, but you want your horse to stay balanced under you when you ride. You don’t want to be behind the motion or listing to one side or the other. The good news is that your horse wants to stay under you and actually will do its best to help you […]
Read MoreThinking about “Self Carriage”
Saturday was another glorious day of hunting in New England. Perfect weather, perfect foliage, perfect footing. It doesn’t get much better. The fact that we were only about 20 miles west of Boston, in Framingham, made it all the more special because of its incongruity. You just don’t think of Framingham as a place with […]
Read MoreA few ways to trap deer flies (if you’re not too embarressed)
For the past two weeks the weather has been sweltering. Tonight, it was merely hot. I thought I might sneak in a ride after dinner. The problem wasn’t the heat, it was the deer flies. They started to swarm around my car as I left my driveway. The horses were standing in the barn when […]
Read MoreToo tired to crib
We had a great hunt on Saturday. The weather was perfect, the footing was great, and the territory was beautiful. Freedom started out nice and calm in the second field. He was nice and calm with no jigging. In fact he was so well behaved that I decided to move him up to the first […]
Read MoreWho’s riding your horse?
When I was a kid a neighbor of my grandparents kept horses in a pasture down the road from their house. I dreamed about slipping into that pasture one day, jumping on one of those horses bareback and going for a joy ride. I never did that but from what I’ve read on the Chronicle […]
Read MoreShould bitless bridles be allowed in USEF competitions?
Currently bitless bridles are not allowed in dressage competitions and are considered unconventional tack for hunters. You do see them in eventing (for the show jumping and cross country phases), in jumpers and in endurance competitions. Increasingly I’ve seen discussion about the merits for changing the rules, especially in dressage, to allow the cross-under style […]
Read More