Mystical, humorous or deliberately elusive – the terms we use in the horse business can leave a rider scratching her head.  I was a coach’s worst nightmare - “What do you mean by that?” I’d ask . I rarely got a meaningful answer.

When coaching ,I’ll often press a rider to explain a term they’ve used. If they struggle to put it into words, we’ll unpack the idea…

It Takes a Great Amount of Time

Instead of another boring tale of another boring ride on Bingo, this week I will describe WHY Bingo's rehabilitation takes so much time. When I started riding Bingo on April 6, 2016, my first impression of Bingo's conformation was that he was a total disaster as far as suitability for a fine riding horse. Bingo had a VERY high croup, his back definitely sloped…

Heading off to a show this weekend?.

(condensed from hunter judge, Laura Kelland ‘s May17 blog)

DON’T go to the show  if:

•  you aren’t getting excellent rides at home, …

Let's see...

I spent April travelling in Europe. I worked out a tour of sites I've long wanted to visit, for a variety of reasons. Of course horse-history is a big part of that, so I thoroughly enjoyed going to museums full of horse-armour and getting a definitive answer to a question that has bugged me for a long while, about the size of horses in the middle ages. It turns…

Rebel Without a Cause

This week we are having a heat wave down here in NC, hot and humid, the type of weather where sweat drips off of my face. Today I did not ride Mia because the dew point was 75° F, and it is supposed to get up to 97° F in the shade. All week I had been…

Bingo Obviously NEEDS his BOT Exercise Sheet

This year North Carolina is having a true Southern Summer. Hot, humid, highs in the low 90s F, heat indexes going up over 100 F. Yesterday it was already 74 F at 6:00 AM, and as the sun rose the temperature quickly increased. I rode Mia for just 25 min. and I was hot and sweaty. We only walked so Mia did not overtly sweat, but her coat was definitely…

Bingo Behaved During the Summer Horse Camp!

Two weeks ago Debbie had her Summer Camp for kids. This is the second year Bingo was used in the camp, before the first one I had been riding Bingo for 3 months, and he was not a good boy—he inverted and ran away with his little rider, who then fell off. He was wearing a soft rubber D-ring single jointed snaffle that year. Debbie did not use him the…