A Life Together Albert wouldn’t jump. Now I don’t mean spook jump, or play jump, or jump for joy. I don’t even mean jump big scary walls, or loudly painted coops, or huge spreads with bottomless water pits beneath. I mean Albert wouldn’t jump … period. He saw no point in it. He was designed…
The Introduction And now it is time for me to tell you a bit about the stately beast himself. When purchased, Albert was an approximately thirteen-year-old, 14.3 hand (everywhere), palomino, old-style quarter horse type gelding. John Gilroy had purchased him sight unseen from the description, ” … a big, dumb cutting horse who’ll cut right…
My Early Years He’s gone now – the all-consuming dream and obsession of my youth; the culmination of years of begging, scheming, and ecstatic toil; my first horse; my delicate little, green-broke, grey Arabian filly. Well all right, perhaps he wasn’t a filly, or grey, or even possessed of a single drop of Arabian blood,…
The canter is a three-beat, broken diagonal gait – outside hind, inside hind/outside fore, inside fore. We all know that. So what are all of those other faster-than-trot, slower-than-run variations we riders are subject to from time to time? Individual differences in equine carriage and conformation can account for a certain degree of variance in…
I had a revelation the other day. Out of the clear blue it came to me … why I am so comfortable and (if immodestly stated) quite good at teaching beginning students how to ride. I relate easily to inexperienced riders. My equestrian status for the vast majority of my horse-obsessed lifetime has been that…
In April each year comes the none-too-eagerly anticipated time when the horses and I are compelled to shed the fast-held remnants of winter’s relative inactivity and begin the slow, progressive trek back into summer’s energetic routine. In northern Minnesota, none but the hardiest and most determined (not to mention most masochistic) equestrian enthusiasts pursue their…