“The bright intelligent eyes, the high whinny that never failed to answer a greeting, the fuzzy ears, one tipping in just a bit lower than the other — all of these were still and silent.” (more…)
“My first snippet of advice to you is to remember that the event is about you and your horse. That’s it. She’s your team. Lean on her.” Candace Wade survived her first-ever horse show as a late-in-life-beginner adult rider!
“My tiny personal goal and excitement was embraced by these lovely women. They got it. They got me. Out there in cyberland, to a person, these horsewomen were rooting for me.”
“I always thought that ‘warming up the horse’ was plodding around the round-pen or arena to get my schooling horse’s muscles moving and us kind of reacquainted.” Candace Wade shares her latest “late-in-life lesson rider” revelation.
“These are the places where we got our show legs, where we learned to memorize a pattern, or realized that we were really bad at doing so. These saddle clubs taught us about the types of riders we wanted to become.”
“Joey is currently up for adoption, and I have no doubt that he will find his perfect home, because, after all, chicks dig scars. Now ain’t that a kick in the head?” Ashley Francese tells the unlikely story about how a severe wound ended up saving a horse’s life.
“The drivers on the bench expertly turned the team into the in-gate, and the first six-horse hitch in twenty years rolled back into the fairgrounds with a quiet rumble like distant thunder.”
Most lifelong equestrians can probably barely remember a time in which they weren’t well-versed in everything equine. Sara Shelley pens a heartfelt tribute to the horse newbies who leap right in headfirst — without them, where would the horse world be?
An essay looking back at how mechanization replaced old-fashioned horsepower triggered plenty of responses from horse lovers. Those jobs haven’t gone away, Kristen Kovatch argues — just changed form.
Some of our greatest moments in the saddle come when we least expect them. Lorraine Jackson recounts the ultimate catch ride and reflects on the gifts she received from a horse named Happy.
If our clothing is viewed as a means of self-expression, a representation of who we are, then what do Candace’s multi-colored gloves and pink-laced paddock boots say about her as a rider? She explores the concept in this essay.
