Colours in my life

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Q gets acupuncture

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There is a wonderful veterinarian-turned-acupuncturist that works in our area, and Q gets an exam and sometimes a treatment once every six months. With our latest saddle restuffing, I thought it was good timing to take a look. This lovely older gentleman has over 30 years of equine acupuncture practice (in addition to 20 years as an equine vet) and many a story to tell but the biggest stories come from his patients and his magic hands. While I have never tried acupuncture on myself, I have been successfully treated for many ailments with osteopathy and I believe in the body as a system that can often heal itself. So today was the day, and I watched him do several treatments before it was our turn. Q had no back pain or soreness, but his weakness in the left hind was flaring up and probably connected with the increased work on collection over the last few weeks. So, he got some needles and then I watched him slowly drift to sleep as he licked my arm slower and slower. After these
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Gloomy November

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I feel like I am in good company when I say that life and work has taken me away from riding these last few weeks. I finally made it back to the barn during an epic windstorm with over 1,000,000 homes without power. No surprise that I didnt ride that day. I did make it out to the woods yesterday for my first time in two weeks and boy has the scenery changed. From golden colors to barren trees, from sandy trails to muddy bogs, from blue skies to hail storms. It’s time to be well dressed, with jackets, gloves, and good socks. I have been dutifully practicing the long reins every day for 15 minutes, and Q is a quick study. We now do nice transitions between collected walk to collected trot, and during one of our teardrop turns Q offered me a leg yield to my squeal and delight. He stopped and raised his head to me, saying that if I was going to squeal that much he deserved a mint. I obliged. He also taught me a lesson today. Yesterday, I was doing our standard trick at the fri
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Riding English or Western? Which is safer?

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We had another trail accident this week, the fourth this season, that required an ambulance. All four accidents involved solo riders in English tack. Our club facebook posts were all atwitter about the safety of English vs Western tack. As an amateur rider having spent equal amounts of time in both types of tack under similar conditions, I feel reasonably confident in my perspective. Western tack is safer.  The saddle fork on a western saddle (also on an iberian, australian, and some endurance saddles) blocks a certain amount of the centrifugal force that comes with a sharp spook, hard buck, abrupt turn or stumbling horse. The stirrup leathers provide more stability and it is more difficult to get your foot caught in the stirrup during a fall. However, the bulk and heft of a western saddle can also make a wreck worse, such as riders getting bucked onto the neck and caught in front of the saddle, horse and rider falling and getting pinned under the saddle, boot stuck in stirrup with no
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Canter Protocol

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I do lots of different kinds of rides, with lots of different kinds of riders. But cantering always has me stumped. I have an established checklist of rules, but not everybody shares my view on this. Here is the short version I do not ride on trail with anybody who is not comfortable cantering their horse (at least in an arena). I don't want their first canter experience to be the spook and bolt when their horse sees a deer. I will occasionally make an exception to this rule for very short and controlled trail rides within proximity to the barn. I do not race. The order we start in, must be maintained until the end. No passing. With some of my trail buddies we will canter side by side, and it is glorious! I do not gallop. I have made a few exceptions to this rule with individuals that I trust, and on a trail I know well. The gallop stretch never lasts very long. I do not canter up ravines or anywhere I do not have a long line of sight. Again, I sometimes make exceptions to this on
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The complications of horses on multi-use trails

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The Sunday slump is real, and sometimes hard to get motivated for a ride especially if I am solo. But out I went because the footing was great and the weather mild and you just never know how many of those days you might have. My perseverance paid off as my phone rang while on trail and my buddy B joined me for a lovely jaunt. So instead of doing a 40 minute loop, I was out for 2.5 hours. 😃 We passed by my favorite spot I call the “winter ravine”, where we usually witness spring as the ice and snow melt over the creek and you get this beautiful view and sounds of a winter babbling brook. Of course, being a very mild January and February the thaw is a bit ahead of schedule this year. We saw lots of traffic over the weekend, particularly sleighs and skiers. I was even intercepted by this pair of skiers from France who were enchanted to share the trails with horses. We are so charming, n’est-ce pas? Riders (and horses) do seem to struggle with multi-use trails. Not all users
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