Alas, My Hopes Were in Vain

This January I will have ridden only once, my lesson last week.

Last Sunday it was too cold and the ground was too frozen.

Debbie called me on Wednesday just as I was starting to get ready to ride. It had rained a lot the night…

A horse's nutrition for the most part these days is largely dependent upon the experience, knowledge, but most importantly the "attitude" of its owner.  Attitude plays a key factor in almost everything we do, and often determines our successes or failures in our relationships, our work and, in this case, the horses we love and care for.

As I continue to work with horse owners in helping them with balanced nutrition plans for their horses, I find that it is…

I fell in love with horses all over again this week. Yes, it was a pretty short fall and yes, it does happen every week. And no, it never gets old. Does my enthusiasm make me seem less professional?

It has been also been one of those weeks when most of my clients are having challenges with their horses. Some of the challenges are old ones and some are brand new but regardless of origin or cause- a challenge is an opportunity by another name.…

… and Grace gives herself a promotion.

Dressage borrows lots of language from ballet -after all, we are the dancers of the horse world. Pas de Trois is a dance of three. I have commandeered that phrase to describe riding lessons as a conversational dance between horse, rider and instructor. All three participants have to be heard for the dance to succeed.

I am always…

It’s generally considered good manners in the barn to graciously take the blame anytime your horse is less than spectacular, and give your horse all the credit after a good ride. But it is more than manners, it is also a rider’s responsibility.…

It started last Saturday. Although we’d had what seemed to be a quite successful session, with Brody circling much more consistently and in a more relaxed manner, I could see the first signs of annoyance during handgrazing afterwards. On Thursday, Brody had surprised me by responding to every “Aaaand UP!” by lifting his head from grazing and looking to me for the next direction. But now only…

Things are really moving with Brody! In a sometimes baffling, inconsistent way, but I’m enjoying the progress and trying to recognize Brody’s ideas and efforts to help me understand how to improve our communication.…

After a hectic week and a couple days of rain, Brody and I were both ready for some playtime. Wanting to make the most of it, I popped in my “Level 2 On Line” DVD for some inspiration and heard Pat Parelli talking about the importance of fun, for both human and horse. It’s like he’d read my mind—working on various exercises had begun to feel like……

So I have been working twice as much at Hadlow College for the past few weeks, which has extended my repetoire to classroom teaching. Holding the attention of 10-15 young minds is a challenge so much preparation has been needed on my part, to grasp fully the subjects for teaching and also to plan the session so that it is interactive, interesting and importantly full of learning hooks. Fortunately the way I have been trained to teach so far has been following the lines of the UKCC…