Oh, La Baule, I love you so much. Jumping International de La Baule in La Baule, France is a perfect horse show. There is one ring, one beautiful grass ring....
It is a truth universally acknowledged that one can be brilliant at riding a horse or brilliant at love-making, but not both. “And I don’t ride,” I often add suggestively...
“McLain.” The old man was looking me dead in the eye. We were both perched on the edge of wide stone steps that formed an oval amphitheater with a wide...
Finally, the day dawned at the Royal Windsor Horse Show when the stakes were high enough. I think about "stakes" a lot. In sport, and in life. In the movie...
“Step back! Step back! (Unintelligible) is coming through!” “Who?” “(Unintelligible)!” “Who’s that?” “PRINCE Edward!” “Who?” The woman looks at me like I’m crazy. “I’m sorry, I’m like…super American.” A group...
Tore up from the floor up is the phrase that keeps occurring to me. Here I am with shaking, hungover hands trying to write this column, the very last of...
I was lying on my stomach on the hotel bed paging through photos on my computer, tears streaming down my face. I was crying because horses are so beautiful. I...
“Your brain is three pounds of Jell-O.” The doctor was speaking, holding a colorful model of a human brain in her hands. Is my brain three pounds of Jell-O? I...
I want some drama. “If I were you I’d get off the phone with me right now and start calling every hand surgeon from Miami to Jacksonville,” says the doctor...
We are in the thick of it. Mid-WEF, thick like syrup. You have three places to go every day, and more in the evening. Nights go late at fundraisers, galas,...
You think you know the game. A rider enters the ring. She is riding a horse. Together, they negotiate a series of obstacles—jumps—and come out with a score based on...
A menacing face hangs over the arena—huge eyes hollowed out by shadows. It is Ben Maher, looking as grim as anyone ever has. Flash! Boom! Pow! Bam! A veiny hand...
A regiment of kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing Scotsmen enter the ring. Dozens-strong, unexpected, they give every neck whiplash as all eyes turn to them, a triumphant parade of pomp. A small troupe...
Another week of cold. We've all been reduced to one thought, if you can call it that: “It’s cold.” Our conversations, if you can call it that, consist of “I’m...
Somewhere in the reclaimed swampland of the Everglades, that glorious river of grass (although it’s actually sedge, not grass, and it’s technically a marsh, not a swamp), a columnist is...
Winter carnival season is upon us! That is the Winter Equestrian Festival, a 12-week staycation for humans and equines in Wellington, Florida, just outside of West Palm Beach, northwest of...
The Rolex Grand Prix of Aachen 2024 is in the books and the winner is André Thieme and his longtime partner, DSP Chakaria. The packed stadium of 40,000 people thundered...
