For a couple of years in college, a fellow horse-crazy buddy and I volunteered at a guest ranch, helping at their fall festival. We tacked up horses, helped manage them....
"You read to fire your heart aflame. You read to lop the top of your head off. You read because you're the bravest idiot around, and you're willing to go...
A couple of months ago, I posted my old dressage saddle on Facebook Marketplace. I measured it, took pictures, and posted it with the brightest colored saddle pad I owned...
After finishing the season of HBO's The Gilded Age, I once again found myself adrift without a show to look forward to in the evening. In these times, when the word...
When asked what kind of horse I dreamed about, I rarely answered an Andalusian, Friesian, Buckskin, or Blue Roan. I turned and said, "a broke one." When I finally bought...
There is a photo of me on my first ride on my grandmother’s last homebred. I am about 12, still in my Sunday church clothes: a button-down shirt, and clean...
"Why aren't there more boys who ride horses?" my classmate asked. I was in a creative writing class, and it was my turn to be "workshopped." Basically, everyone had read...
My friend's seven-year-old asked Santa for a pony this year. When she told me this request was on her child's Christmas list, my friend and I both let fly a thick layer...
On the morning of November 6, several hours after it was announced that Donald Trump won the presidency, I went to the barn to see my horses. While some people...
In my junior year of college, I was given a piece of advice that would change my life forever. It was the final day of the Collegiate Horsemen's Association's Annual...
Dearest Gentle Reader, This author was among the 45 million who inhaled the newest season of Bridgerton on its opening weekend. While there is less horse riding than I would...
I hate looking at photos of myself. So when equestrian photographer Laurie Thomson posted a candid picture of me and a Gypsy Vanner on Facebook last year, I picked myself...
On one of those deliriously early, horse activity-related mornings, my friends and I decided to talk about the apocalypse. In true, dark, millennial fashion, we somehow conjured up an image...
“Arab, Brabant, Cleveland Bay, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Fell.” When sleep eludes me, I list off horses in my head. I come up with a breed for every letter of the alphabet,...
Before the trailer pulled up in front of the boarding barn with my precious cargo inside, I would have told you I was ready for horse ownership. I have ridden...
"Do people ever think you wear those ironically?" the chiropractor asked as I lay on her table. I was rocking a pair of navy riding pants and a t-shirt. The...
The first time I watched the 1987 film Amadeus I cried. Not because of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's untimely death. I cried because I related to Antonio Salieri, the in-house composer of...
“Well, at least the robots won’t train horses,” I joked to a fellow English teacher as we chatted about the rise of Artificial Intelligence-generated college essays and programs like Moonbeam...
