Condemning Abuse in Public is the Only Way to Stop It
About a year ago I was standing at the warm up ring during a Saturday Night Lights grand prix at the Winter Equestrian Festival when a very well-known rider crashed...
About a year ago I was standing at the warm up ring during a Saturday Night Lights grand prix at the Winter Equestrian Festival when a very well-known rider crashed...
Racing fans in general and Zenyatta fans in particular were disheartened to learn last week that 17-year-old Champion Street Cry daughter and 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta lost her...
Last week, superstar hunter rider Scott Stewart scored a perfect score of 100 on the wonderful horse Catch Me at the Winter Equestrian Festival in Wellington, FL. This is the...
It’s time to debunk a myth that seems to have seeped into the crevices of our beloved horse industry. When we look back over the last year, many of our...
Last month, we ran a series of letters to the year that was entitled, Dear 2020. This letter is from coach, color commentator and horseman of many hats Frank Madden...
"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." —James...
We Americans are inspired by our wild horses. We marvel at the sight of them living wild and free on our public rangelands, of stallions fighting for their family bands,...
Last month, the 82nd annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration wrapped up in Shelbyville, IN. It’s an event that’s been brewing with controversy for more than half a century because of...
I know readers come here to “lose” themselves in horses; for many of you to gain some distance, some relief, from daily stress, from real-life losses great and small. I...
Of all of the things I thought I’d be debating this fall (masks, political candidates, whether a hotdog is a sandwich), “is the word plantation racist” was not on the...
Due to COVID-19 canceling many of the bigger events, the local horse show I rode in this summer was better attended than usual. The tiny arena heaved under the load...
When equestrians think of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, we tend to think about how impossibly hard the show jumping and cross country courses were. Or we think of...
On Thursday last week, the usually placid surface of summertime Lake Michigan, gurgled and rose with life. Big waves wrestled awake by the storm the night before. The other swimmers...
This day, pre-pandemic, would have been the eve of the XXXII Olympic Summer Games. The world's best athletes would have descended upon Japan to take up the hope, the heartbreak, the glory...
When I was three months old, I was adopted from Peru by a single Canadian mother. I’m 31 now. I don’t speak any Spanish. I know nothing about my birth...
Scrolling on my cell phone, I see exuberant tweets and Facebook posts about riders working with their young horses during the free time created by the COVID-19 pandemic. With so...
I recently reposted an article written by a well known American Olympic equestrian on the subject of the lack of diversity in the English riding world. I posted it to...
I have found it encouraging to see equestrian media getting involved in the #BlackLivesMatter conversation—for a community that is disproportionately white, sometimes we don’t seem to want to engage in...
Right now, somewhere in North America, there is a girl sitting at home caught between awkward adolescence and the evening bell. She wears her paddock boots to the park, and...
Early mornings find me at Windswept Farm in Williston, VT where I board my Shetland pony, along with 24 horses. Social distancing requires tight scheduling so that only two or...