Affirmative Training is Fine, But What-if…

  A few years back, a pretty well-known trainer made a statement about using force with horses. Flat out, the craziest thing I’d ever heard. The short version was if you wanted to lollygag around your pasture, and ride like a girl, fine… but if you competed, you had to win and that meant dominating … Read more

A Trailer of One's Own

WM trailer Nova

A horsewoman told me that, at sixty-three, she was the proud owner of her very first horse trailer. I let out a congratulatory yell and I’ve been smiling all day. Trailers add a layer of independence to the freedom we feel with horses.

Do you remember your first horse trailer? Mine was a navy blue two-horse straight load. It was the late ’80s and no one I knew wanted to show their horse but me. I’d been preparing for years, buying spare buckets and hay nets and trailer gadgets. Finally, I talked a friend into buying one together. It weighed a bit more than my truck–without horses in it. The inside had rust that you couldn’t really see because it had been spray painted silver. There was a tiny dressing room up front with saddle racks at an impossible angle and I could not believe my wild luck.

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