Ride Report: Eagle Canyon 2023
Eagle Canyon 2023 was a fabulous ride…but not the one I expected.
Horse Stories
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My horse is a barometer of my availability. To really be with her, I must settle into this moment.
Ride Report: Owyhee Tough Sucker 2023
Ledger pranced past the vetting area with arched neck and flagging tail. He was boiling to let loose. I wouldn’t have put it past him to buck. One-rein stops had held him back several times in the last two minutes. Let’s race! Storm clouds rose, steely and menacing, from their crouch on the horizon. A …
The Collected Rider: Finding the Balance Between Ambition and Acceptance
Life is meant to be ridden like a dressage horse in the ring, balanced astride the power of direction. Focused. Effective. But also ready to adjust at the slightest cue. To halt or bend or pirouette. Ever as prepared to pivot as we are to gallop on.
Yea, Though I Walk: An Equestrian’s Journey Through Fear
Most equestrians have, at some point, struggled with fear. This is the story of a terrible fall that shook me to the core and how I regained my horse riding confidence.
The Golden Pony: A Horse Story
A little girl lives a quarter mile up my road, on a three-acre plot with a battered farmhouse and tumbledown fence. She runs to the mailbox when I ride by, and she calls me “Highness” when she thinks I cannot hear. It is embarrassing, but sweet. I have not been an adult too long to …
The Sweaty Equestrian Top Popular Posts
From horsemanship to horse stories, these are The Sweaty Equestrian readers’ favorite posts of all time.
Ledger Sees a Ghost: Old Selam Day 2 & 3
Alrighty, then. Having survived Day 1, Ledger and I donned our tights and tack for Saturday’s LD. I’d made a tentative plan to ride with friends from the day before ~ the ones with the young Arab and the adorable mule ~ having first extracted a promise that they wouldn’t wait around for me if …
A Knight’s Tale: Ledger’s First Ride at Old Selam
Friday, September 3, 2021. In the forest near Centerville, Idaho. Early. Breakfast goes down on a queasy stomach. I slept some, between long bouts of tossing and turning. I’m not super nervous ~ Ledger has good training, I know these trails, and we’re only going 25 miles ~ but first rides are first rides, and …
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On the Wings of a Storm
I paid less than $400 for Aaruba. His breeder wanted quiet Arabians, and Aaruba wasn’t. No, Aaruba was the plain gray, high-headed, wide-eyed, last straw that sent his sire to the vet for gelding. I first saw him on the kind of windy, muddy day that whipped his mind to wildness. Still a leggy four-year-old, he flashed about the makeshift …