Gotta love a horse that thinks outside the box
Here’s a horse that understands that the object is to leave the rails up. How you accomplish that is open to interpretation! Love this cartoon from The New Yorker.
Read MoreTag: jumping
It feels so good when you get it right
On Monday I was schooling for the hunt. In my warm up rides I generally do a few transitions from canter to gallop and back to make sure I have brakes and then hop over a few fences. If I find I’m having problems I want to make sure that I fix them at home […]
Read MoreRiding in the rain . . . with glasses
To say that I’m near sighted is an understatement. My vision is so bad that I always travel with at least one spare pair of glasses. I certainly couldn’t drive without them, and riding without them is challenging. Contact lenses? My eyes gave up on those years ago! This has been a hard spring for […]
Read MoreRemind me never to complain about a ditch in the U.S. again
During the winter I like to watch foxhunting videos on YouTube to remind myself to look forward to spring. These videos, however, scared the pants off me. The legendary Scarteen Hunt in Limerick, Ireland, describes its territory as “bank and ditch” country. They aren’t kidding. Those ditches are big enough to swallow a horse and […]
Read MoreLessons remembered: Practise your jumping over ground poles
Developing your eye for jumping takes practice. But maybe you don’t always want to jump your horse — either your barn doesn’t allow jumping outside of lessons or your horse doesn’t need the extra pounding. Try jumping ground poles. It’s a lot harder than it looks! This is something we always did when there was […]
Read MoreUnderstanding conformation: how form influences function
There is no such thing as the perfect horse. However, how the pieces of a horse “fit together” can significantly influence how that horse performs and help that horse stay sound throughout its career. For any discipline the overall balance of the horse is important. However, when you start looking at different disciplines, you look […]
Read MoreIt’s almost Thanksgiving
But I’m going to give thanks today! I am grateful for having a horse that makes hunting so much fun. The last few hunts Freedom has been such a pleasure to hunt. He’s been calm, focused, sure footed and has jumped like a deer. I can’t believe how far he’s come just from the spring […]
Read MoreMy first horse: Bogie
Although I rode many horses in my teens and early 20s, I never owned any of them. My first horse was one that I bought from the New Canaan Mounted Troop. His name was “One Too Many” or Bogie. The story was that he had been the one too many horse in his original owner’s barn. […]
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