Author Archives: Rebecca Didier

She left her family and all she knew behind, got on her horse, and rode west. Sounds like a song about some long-ago adventure, doesn’t it? It was only 40...

Long gone are the days when we could consider our horse’s fitness the only point of concern when it comes to our athletic endeavors together. Sure, he has to collect...

I remember the first time I read the statistic: I was more likely to get seriously injured riding my horse than I was riding my motorcycle. At first I rejoiced,...

The question of “social license”—acceptance or approval granted to a particular group from the community at large—is all over the equestrian sphere at the moment. When our sports involve another...

How many of us have had the image of the Training Pyramid ground into memory? Whatever our sport, if we are any good at it and wish our horses to...

We’ve all been there—on the horse who pokes his way around the warm-up ring, needs leg, leg, leg coming into the combination, or brings up the rear on every trail...

I flash back on occasion to the early years of my horse-trailering experience—begging rides from acquaintances, loading my 4-H project pony into whatever rig might be passing by our driveway...

If you own and ride horses, you spend a good amount of time sleuthing—trying to figure out why they might be behaving a certain way at a certain time or...

We riders often have laundry lists of the qualities we value in horses. These can be general, like most competitors wanting athletes in their barns, and they can be specific,...

Who doesn’t want the best of top international training and instruction in their home ring? We all can just imagine what a little access to the tips and tricks that...

When you’ve been riding horses for as long as you can remember, there comes a day when you wake up and say to yourself (or your horse), “What’s next?” Sometimes...

We all remember our early interactions with horses or our first riding lessons, but have we ever wondered what our parents were thinking? In his memoir A Man Walks Into...

Division I collegiate riding coach Sally Batton has spent over 30-years perfecting her methods specifically designed to refine and polish riders, whatever their level. It has won her and her...

Anyone who has ridden in the hunters has wondered at one time or another why one horse pinned higher or what mistake might have kept them out of the ribbons...

Who hasn’t had a horse who’s always “in your pocket”? The one who pushes and rubs and walks super close? We tend to either love on this horse because his...

For years, Andrea Kutsch filled stadiums with spectators as she demonstrated remarkable transformations in “problem horses” using the Natural Horsemanship training methods she'd learned from leaders in the field. But...

When you ride numerous horses over the course of your life, you’re bound to experience some with, shall we say, “challenging” behaviors. It is these horses, as much as the...

Growing up in a small Maine town, Chris Lombard had never ridden a horse—never even touched one. But on one fateful night, as what he'd thought was a happy twenty-something...

We horse people often have a bucket list of equestrian adventures we’d like to have. Trying different disciplines, visiting famous farms or venues, galloping along a beach—all of these are...

For ten years, I did Pilates, loving the flexibility and tone and core strength I gained in an hour-long class that, for me, was the equivalent of meditation. Breathing, isolated...