Horse people often joke that the barn is a vortex, where “a couple of hours” can easily turn into an entire afternoon and evening. That’s because time at the barn...
“Roma victa!” If you’re a fan of the Academy Award-winning movie Gladiator, you’ll no doubt recognize Maximus Decimus Meridius’s famous battle cry (‘Rome victorious!’) in the opening scene as he leads...
Robin Howie always wanted to rescue a horse. When her internship at Days End Farm Horse Rescue wrapped up, she ended up with two. As told to Alice Collins/Jump Media....
In an industry growing more out of reach for Americans every year, trainer Adrienne Grasso is trying to spark change. The Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) coach is using her platform...
It can be difficult to imagine top trainers and riders in their earliest moments of development, times when they may have been still acquiring basic horsemanship knowledge and learning the...
From its inception, #WeRideTogether has been firm about the fact that safeguarding sports is everyone’s responsibility. Now, a free online course is helping to bring the organization’s message to a...
When Ulyssa was finally confiscated by law enforcement in March 2023 after years of living in less-than-ideal conditions, her future appeared uncertain. The 13-year-old pinto mare had been living alone,...
The more we travel to shows, the more overwhelmed I am by the amount of money required to play our sport. My family runs Millbrook Farm in Elizabeth, Colorado, and my...
“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...
