Riding out in nature under a full moon can be a wondrous experience. It’s quiet, your senses are heightened, and you become fully immersed in the stillness of your environment. Horses have much better night vision than humans and if you can’t see the trail, you just have to loosen the reins, put your full…
If you live in the frozen North, like I do, you either: (1) go south for the winter (or north for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere), (2) don’t ride in winter, (3) embrace the beauty of a new snowfall or the glistening of ice on trees, and ride out in almost any weather, or…
Just like humans, every horse has a unique personality and they express themselves differently around different horses. When my (Monica’s) horse, Tupelo, rides out with his 23-year old buddy Ritz, he acts like he is dying if I ask him to canter for more than 15 seconds. On the other hand, when we ride out…
Loading a horse that does not want to get on the trailer can be extremely frustrating. You are really excited about going on a trail ride, perhaps you are meeting others and have gotten a late start, and then your horse doesn’t want to load. Erghhh! And of course, when we get tense, it only…
If you live in a cold climate, you know how difficult it can be to keep your ears warm when riding in the winter. While you might be able to fit a hat or headband under your helmet, they interfere with the fit, diminishing the helmet’s ability to protect you in a fall. Some experts…
If we could speak “horse” or horses could speak our language we could help them so much by learning what parts of their body hurt, which joints are stiff, or what makes them tense or anxious. Then again, could we even answer these questions about our own body? To some extent, yes, but we are…
I have a great trail horse. He’s part Dales – a breed known for it’s courage, and part Shire – giving him a calm disposition. And part Paint, making him gorgeous, but I digress…. People like to call him “bomb-proof” but in fact he is not, and I am glad of it. A bomb-proof horse…
Do you have any idea what your horse experiences in the trailer? Most of us load our horses, drive to our destination, and, as long as we don’t hear kicking and our horse is in one piece at the end, we figure they are just fine. That’s how I always felt. The only signs that…
The Horse Trail Chicks have an annual tradition of spending a week or so with our good friends Elizabeth and Erin riding at the Horse Trails at Otter Creek in northern New York. We always book our cabin at least 12 months in advance. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were not sure if we…
