The wish to quit eventing can arrive after one ordinary round: a score that stings, a rail that falls, or a cross-country fence that ends the day early. It can…
Posts
When you feel like quitting eventing
Building Trust With a Rescue Horse
A rescue horse usually arrives with a story that is only partly known. The time before entering your care belongs to another owner, a rehoming centre, or an…
Why a Walk in Hand Is More Than Just Exercise
There are mornings when the dressage boards come out, the float is already loaded, or my brain is busy replaying a cross-country fence. On those days, taking…
How to keep your horse healthy during spring allergies
Spring can make a horse’s usual routine suddenly difficult. Pollen from pasture grasses, trees and subtropical weeds, along with mould spores kicked up by rain…
Why I prefer wide, flat-bottomed irons for cross-country
After the precision of dressage and the calculated arcs of show jumping, cross-country turns neat flatwork into a negotiation with logs, banks, water and…
What I Learned from Riding a Cross-Country Course Backwards
The idea started with a fence I kept misreading. It was a low timber near the old gate at our local course near Goulburn in New South Wales, where the paddocks…
How to School a Horse That Cuts Corners in Dressage
A horse that cuts the inside of a dressage circle is usually trying to save time, not deliberately defying the rider. The shortened line may appear in…
Why I Warm Up My Horse Before I Get In The Saddle
There is a moment before every ride when I stand beside my horse and decide that mounting is not the first part of the session. The first part is the…
How to choose the right bit for a strong horse
When a rider tells me their horse is strong, I try to separate the horse from the label. Strong may describe a horse who drives forward under light contact,…
Core strength and staying centred over fences
Core strength is often discussed as though the answer to a wobbly jump is a tougher six-pack. The role of core strength in staying centred over fences is more…