Category Archives: Memoir

A million Christmases ago my mom gave me a Newmarket quarter sheet. It was my Santa present, which is to say the best present of the day. It was beautiful....

Like many young adults in their mid-twenties, Alicia Shread, 25, from Clarksville, Maryland, is focused on building a prosperous career. While horses were always a hobby for her, after spending...

“Twenty-two percent of millennials say they have ‘no friends,’” claimed a Vox article from 2019. While that stat was pulled from a poll of fewer than 2,000 people, the truth...

It is well chronicled here on Horse Network that I, Gretchen Lida, have depression. I can be a sad sack who happens to love horses. Like clockwork, the worst spells are usually...

He’d been purchased some years ago from a Mennonite family. When my boss went to see him, he was looking for something safe and reliable; he asked if Lucky was...

"You look cute in that," the person I love said when he first saw me in barn clothes. There was hay in my hair. The ratty t-shirt and jeans I...

While at the Dublin Horse Show in 2018, I got a sense of how many horses occupied Ireland and felt staying an extra week would allow me the time to...

After 20 years of riding other people’s horses, I finally have one of my own. As I latched her stall door for the first time, a familiar sense of worry...

We hung on tightly, leaning forward as the horses climbed. Already we’d gone through more difficult terrain than I could have imagined—bogs that sucked at the horse’s feet, mud that...

The horse world lost a legendary figure this week.  Willie Leahy was the quintessential Irish horseman. He was the largest breeder of Connemara ponies in the world and also Field...

I sometimes hesitate a little to recount my experiences on September 11, 2001 because my personal losses were not as horrific as those of others. But they were profound. I...

What is it about horses we love so much? That is a question I’m not entirely sure how to answer. When I started this piece, I thought I’d do a...

When I was very young, one of my favorite cartoons was “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” On Saturday mornings I would never, not by choice anyway, miss the adventures of the...

Travel. Something we’ve been dreaming about for the past year and a half. Perhaps now that the world is on the verge of reopening, it’s time to get back into...

Mason Phelps was a lifelong equestrian whose contributions to horse sport are as far reaching as they are varied. An Olympic athlete, groom, trainer, event manager, governance leader, media executive...

If you were to meet me, I doubt your first impression would be one of a matron, and you’d be right. I’m not a caregiver or a mother and I...

You always know there is something up on a horse farm by the amount of sleep the people appear to be getting. Good or bad, the delirious slur of their...

My childhood memories are a blur of horses and ponies, horse shows and Pony Club, trail rides and riding lessons. I don’t remember much about school or friends that didn’t...

On Saturdays I have been volunteering at a COVID-19 mass vaccination site. It has been strangely magical. There is a buzz of hope, agency, and human connection there that I...

In my youth, I pointedly pursued activities that I perceived as “macho,” and horses were decidedly not one of those. Who knew that it would take horses to ultimately teach...