Blogs

BY BLOG EDITOR LAUREN MAULDIN This week Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain became two of the over 30,000 Americans* that will commit suicide this year. In the aftermath of their loss, social media flooded with...

BY DIANNA BABINGTON During the recent winter circuit in Wellington, there was a lot of chatter among professional trainers and riders regarding the arduous task of finding and keeping qualified help to manage barns and...

BY JESS CLAWSON A toxic trainer can kill someone’s love of riding faster than just about anything. From verbal to sexual abuse to simply playing favorites, trainers who are negative influences in our lives do...

BY PUBLISHER PIPER KLEMM As I sit through the United States Hunter Jumper (USHJA) Affiliate Meeting, we’re hearing a lot about outreach. There’s the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA), the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA), local...

BY LAUREN MAULDIN Here are some things you can commonly hear come out of my trainer's mouth (often during my own lesson): Don't rock your hips like that. That's so ugly! Stop that! You're ruining my horse! Of...

BY PONYMOMAMMY I read the article, several times in fact, and I have a few things I’d like to add. Now it is entirely possible I misread the intention behind it, and I am by...

BY MEGAN HOFFMAN Do you ever meet someone and know that they will change the course of your life? That’s how it was when Ziggy and I met Liza. We knew we were in for...

BY RENNIE DYBALL A couple weeks ago, I went to my local tack shop for spur straps and somehow found myself in the dressing room, mentally debating whether to buy a new show coat that...

BY LAUREN MAULDIN Recently I was asked what inspired me to become an equestrian. I didn't have a great answer. Like most of us battered adult amateurs, I've loved horses since before I could remember....

BY MEGAN HOFFMAN Late last year, I shared the story of my son, Ziggy. How he went from being bullied in school, to finding his happy place in the barn. While...

BY MACKENZIE SHUMAN This year at the Colorado Hunter Jumper Associations Medal Finals, I was able to sit down with the two judges at the end of the show and ask them a few questions...

By Averill Pessin The Battle Ax Loud, brash and unapologetic, you'll always know when the Battle Ax has a client in the ring.  She holds up the order, is the loudest ringside and is the undisputed...

BY INTERN OLIVIA TAMBURRO  For my second clinic with George Morris, I immediately began preparing by cracking the spine of my copy of Hunter Seat Equitation and taking the stirrups off my saddle. When it...

BY PUBLISHER PIPER KLEMM, PH.D. Standing in the bleachers by the pony ring at The Devon Horse Show this year, I got a waft of an unwanted, familiar smell – cigarette smoke. I looked up...

BY LAUREN MAULDIN Poor is a relative word, and horse people know that. I can't deny the huge luxury it is to have a horse, any horse. In a...

BY BLOG EDITOR LAUREN MAULDIN Even though I've been riding for well over twenty years, nobody would ever consider me an authority on training, equitation, or really anything to do with horse showing. And that would...

BY LAUREN MAULDIN I have always been cognizant of my weight when it came to riding. Even though I didn't grow up horse showing, all it took for me to realize I was "too big"...

BY BLOG EDITOR LAUREN MAULDIN Last week, I shared an article to our Facebook page from the July issue of The Plaid Horse about body image in our sport. Later in the day, I went...