Glenshee Equestrian Centre

 “If I didn’t have the pulley rein…”  - Stephanie Simmonds, Practical Horseman, March 2011 …uh, you’d have to learn to ride?  Doh. These days I seem to read your publication mainly as an exercise in voluntary frustration.  Until now, I have never felt the overwhelming need to respond to any of the many asinine articles I find there for two simple reasons:   1. Who has that kind of time?  Nearly every article in your magazine contains something ridiculous or just plain offensive, and people need to sleep and eat ; and 2.  It would be a futile effort, as I know my voice is one among a minority of riders out there who genuinely care about good horsemanship, not just ribbons.  Honestly, I don’t know why I continue to subscribe.  I suppose it’s more akin to rubbernecking a car wreck on the highway.  I read your magazine much in the same way some people read the “National Enquirer”—for the shock value and a few lau...

A lot of horse blogs are doing a valentines’s day tribute to their horses with stories about how they came to fall in love with their equines.  Normally I’m kind of anti-valentine’s day on principle, but this year I feel like I have to take a moment to remember the day I met my best friend of 18+ years, a dog named Molly.  All those years ago, I went to visit my aunt who worked with an aussie rescue and was keeping a young dog at her home until she could be placed.  I had no intention of getting a dog of my own at the time, but the moment I walked into her living room, this little black and tan dog with white paws and a freckled nose leapt over the side of her pen, ran over to my side and rested her head on my knee.  She was adorable and sweet and she wouldn’t leave my side the entire visit. I was convinced she must have been trained to do that or something, but my aunt swore to me the dog had never done anything like that with anyone else before....