The other day, I was coming back from a nice hack (also known as a trail ride) with my big Holsteiner mare. My friend had taken her five-year-old mare in training, and I had my highly reactive 10-year-old, and we had joked for much of the ride about whose horse acted...
One of the most basic tenets of wisdom passed down from grooms and riders through the ages is “no hoof, no horse.” While many other adages and wives tales have passed into disuse as our knowledge about horses has increased, this one has persisted. Even today, from the...
People picking a horse’s name think of many things when they are deciding. My horse’s name came to me before he was even born. Since his mother’s name was Aba, by breed registry rules her foal’s name had to start with A. I settled on Alegría for a girl and Aston...
Many people nowadays give their horses all manners of supplements for all manner of problems, some real and some whose sole purpose is to appease the owner. Some competition horses truly do need different amounts of micronutrients to keep up with the demands of a more...
Even though weight is a very taboo subject in the United States, and body image issues are rampant in the world of equestrian sports, addressing the questions of rider’s weight is important. While horses have a remarkable amount of strength, and are tremendously stoic...
There seem to be as many ideas about riding as there are people in the world. Some picture cowboys, galloping across the plains in the American west with fancy silver bits. Some picture the riders of the Spanish riding school performing advanced maneuvers on...
Who doesn’t love the spidery legs, the fuzzy mane and tail, the silky baby fur and velvety muzzle of a foal? The idyllic images of a mare and her baby running through the grass make the rest of the world disappear as the beauty of motherly love takes the viewer’s...
Virtually every horse person knows the familiar sounds of horses - happy nickers, snorts, munching hay, and of course, the clippety-clop of horse hooves. As symbols of good luck, many believe that horseshoes belong with horses automatically. At the same time, with the...
Ah, shedding season. When every grooming session becomes an upper body workout. When every grooming session is an exercise in transferring all your horse’s hair from his body to your own, and he looks just the same at the end after an hour as he did at the beginning....
Winter weather is the year’s best in rain, cold and wind. Those of us who have horses do not have the luxury of hibernating inside our warm houses until spring returns. We get to watch their best efforts to thwart our best efforts to keep them as warm and dry as we...
At best, a horse shaking its head can just be funny or annoying. At worst, it can be dangerous, unseating riders or yanking reins out of the rider’s hands. It is a symptom of frustration, either psychological or physical. It could be a response to flying insects,...
All horses love food. Mother Nature designed them to spend their days wandering from grassy spot to grassy spot, having a constant intake of grasses and plants, and domestication has not taken that drive away from them. In fact, the first indicator that something is...