“How many helmets have you had to replace?” It’s a common, inside-baseball question among competitive equestrians. Because—let’s face it—most, if not all, of us have suffered falls and blows to...
First, to follow up from True’s recent injury, he is much better. All the swelling is gone, no further sign of infection, and the two open wounds are clean and...
Horses’ brains need some variety in their activities. Because of that, I bring trail horses in for arena work at times, send jumpers out to explore the neighborhood, and teach...
Equine injuries, drats! True came to me in pasture turnout the other day with two bleeding wounds—a double puncture and scrape to the front of his knee and a scrape...
I love questions that get my mind whirling, and someone asked me a good one the other day: “How many repetitions are necessary for a horse to learn something?” Well,...
Our footing is fixed, and True’s ready to continue with jumping gymnastics of the kind I described a few weeks ago. These are best explained in Jimmy Wofford’s classic book,...
Having stepped back from championship-level competition in 2021, four-time Olympian Beezie Madden is like the Tracy Chapman of show jumping. We don’t get to hear or watch her ride nearly...
Anyone paying a modicum of attention to horse sport the past two years knows that the equestrian industry is on the hot seat—with good reason. We have reached a level...
True and I have been working on hopping a wide variety of low jumps from a canter and (independently) starting over easy one-stride gymnastics. I had hoped to tell you...
I don’t mean “keep it easy.” Easy and simple are two different things. Nowadays, it’s common to start young horses over fences by setting obstacles that are needlessly complicated instead...
True and I have been cantering low hops over the past few articles. Soon we’ll raise them and get to some two-foot obstacles—still quite low, but a little bit more...
True and I have been cantering single and double ground poles lately, as described in the last couple articles. He is very good now at cantering a single pole, and...
To add interest and build confidence, I like to introduce young horses to ground pole patterns once they’re comfy trotting and cantering straight poles in a line. You can find...
True is now comfortable and relaxed when trotting ground poles one at a time, in successions of four or six, flat or raised a few inches, and in various patterns....
Some of the early articles in this brain-based training column were devoted to teaching True to jump. I got away from that goal temporarily for many reasons. Most important, I...
Let’s chat about training by non-edible reward a little more. It’s more effective and longer lasting than most other forms of training, motivates the horse to perform, and enjoys scientific backing....
I advocate training by non-edible reward as often as possible. It’s effective and long-lasting, and it encourages a horse’s motivation and builds his trust. But training by non-edible reward means...
In Horse Brain, Human Brain, and in all my columns and posts, I allude to layers of lessons for horses. Too often, we think of only the surface aspect of what...
We all have our quirks, right? One of mine is the belief that arenas are for horses and riders. Period. Well, all right, ground handlers or instructors are tolerated if they don’t...
