In the midst of preparing an article on how to teach the rider what they should feel when asking for the ultimate yield from the horse, an aha moment came. The awareness came that maybe this is what we are seeing when we see riders asking for a yield from the horse at any price. [...]

“Very few modern riders are taught the old and perfectly correct cavalry way of holding the reins. That is both curb reins in one hand, but the bridoon reins separated. In itself, the present day customary 2:2 division of the reins is not wrong, but riders ought to understand that it imposes perfect stillness of [...]

Lately, I have been ruminating on the word, ‘expression’. It started with an article in Dressage Today by Michael Klimke, son of the late Reiner Klimke, and a trainer and successful competitor in his own right. The article is titled ‘A Horse That Goes On His Own’, but on the cover it is represented as [...]

Everything about who and what you are as a horseman is defined in the muscles of loins, in the passage of hooves of this one special horse. Everything about what you know sits there in front of you in gleaming coppery coats and flickering ear tips. And then the sublime art, the passion, the wings of all of who and what you are, is gone.

“It is often thought that the dressage or the high-school rider – employs some complicated and mysterious system of his own, which no ordinary horseman could hope to understand and which would be useless for ordinary riding purposes at any rate. That, of course, is not so. The principles involved are extrememly simple in themselves [...]

This is a salute to the personal strength in each woman who loves horses. …I Ride ________________________________________ A Simple Statement. I ride. That seems like such a simple statement. However, as many women who ride know, it is really a complicated matter. It has to do with power and empowerment. Being able to do things [...]