We had a teensy tiny winter weather event here in New Jersey yesterday, which meant that the roads were fouled up for my early morning riding lesson and cleared up by the time my daughter needed to leave for the afternoon soccer game. Sigh. So, the girls had the day off and plenty of time on their hands, as evidenced by this communication from Sugar, which I found in my tack…

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If you, like me, subscribe to Practical Horseman magazine, odds are you might also be a devotee of George Morris' monthly column called Jumping Clinic. Each month, readers faithfully turn the pages to see which four riders he picks and what he has to say about their equitation, their horse's jumping ability, and their turnout.

 

 

Just about every month one finds George bemoaning the prevalent habit today's riders have of jumping ahead of their horses.…

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Okay, so I recently posted about how wonderfully well our last horse show went.  Well, just so you don't think I'm getting too big for my breeches, I'm going to share with you some pics from other shows, so you can see how things normally work in our world.



My mare, Sugar, is a master of the Rider Over-Ride.  Typically happens when we are approaching an oxer that she finds particularly impressive.  Or maybe it's an oxer that I find…

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As you can tell by the superlatives in the title, I'm about to go overboard.  Much gushing about the Sainted Bay Mare will follow, so here's your warning to either pull on your waders or abandon ship now!



Last Saturday we showed at the Sussex County Farm and Horse Show in the Pre-Preliminary division.  Granted, 3' or thereabouts may be small…

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This past Sunday 14 year old Grace Pilkington walked through fire to rescue her best friend, a 13 year old Thoroughbred named Hershey.  She and her mom were driving through Nashua, New Hampshire, when they noticed smoke coming from the trailer window.  They pulled over, and rushed back to find steam from a ruptured water cooler that ad caught fire.



Despite the flames, Pilkington immediately ran into the trailer, and as her mom lowered the gate on the trailer,  led her…

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Wow, if you'd told me on Day One that I'd ever be ready to go home, I'd have laughed at you.  Be that as it may, Day Five of HITS-on-the-Hot-As-Hades-Hudson IV saw me ready to head south on I-87.  However, before I did there was that small matter of Short Stirrup Hunter classes we needed to attend to. 



Thankfully they Horse Show gods decided to move the classes up from early afternoon to just before 11.  In my …

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It's actually Sunday morning, the last day of the show, and I'm writing this while the kiddo is happily singing in the shower. The joy in her voice as she belts out whatever lyrics come to mind is the reason we did this whole away show thing. Ridiculously expensive as it it is, it's a chance for Mom and kiddo to live our passion for a little while, have some lengthy quality time… Continue

 

On Sunday, July 17th, 2011 arguably one of the greatest eras in

international show jumping was brought to an end with the retirement of the incomparable Shutterfly. Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum decided to retire her 18 year old super-gelding after he won the 1.55 meter Warsteiner Prize at the CHIO Aachen World Equestrian Festival while he was on top,…

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