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....

  I'm a big fan of slow feed nets for my horses.  Not only do they slow down my hungry hippos, keep them busy and their bellies full until morning, they also help reduce waste.  I used to simply hang a net or two in each stall, but filling them got to be a chore, so I fixed half the net to the bars to make them easier to fill and then tied the pull-rope off to close them.  That worked well for a while until I saw a neat idea on another site and decided to give it a try. Someone had woven two poles through either side of the top of the net so it could be opened and closed like a sandwich bag.  I bought a few Freedom Feeder nets because of their size and square shape, got some dowels from the hardware store and made some up.  I used the big sturdy snaps I normally hung my hay nets with, which have a 1" ring at one end, to slide over the ends of the dowels.  They were secured to the wall with some screw eyes.  Then all I had to do to fill a net w...

--> I’ve been thinking about the role and responsibility of the seat and leg aids in “on the bit” and whether “on the bit” is dependent on those aids from the rider or simply influenced and/or refined by them at a later stage of training.  I got to wondering about all of this because all of the horses I start are given considerable training from the ground long before they are ever backed, and that ground work continues in addition to ridden work as a part of their training for the rest of their careers.  An important part of that ground work for me is introducing the horse to contact with the bit and the rein effects before riding in hopes of developing the best possible relationship between horse and hand, while also developing the correct form and balance needed for their later ridden work. Contrary to popular belief, longeing is not just a way to give horses a little exercise when you’re too busy to ride (though that’s not a bad thing) and it shouldn’t be the way ...

I love getting my www.thehorse.com e-mails, as they are usually filled with interesting news and information for concerned horse owners/trainers like me. So I was a bit dumbfounded by this recent article title: Study: Horses Prefer Less Rein Tension It stated: “According to a new study by European equitation scientists, horses might prefer to avoid rein tension rather than just get used to it. And beyond a certain force threshold, rein tension can cause conflict behavior . To make the most of training and to keep the horse's mouth sensitive, riders need to know when to apply less rein tension, generally when the horse displays conflict behavior.” When I read the title of this study I thought to myself, “uh, no shit, Sherlock.” Like a previous study stating, “ Study: Shelter-Seeking Behavior Most Common in Poor Weather Conditions ” this was not a major newsflash. But it was a topic near and dear to my training, so I read on and, to my great unsurprise, t...

Well, the World Equestrian Games have finally ended and I've had a chance to watch all the tv coverage and catch up on a few un-televised performances online. There were some bad moments and good, some shocking rides and some inspiring. But more than anything, there were some amazing horses (who are the real athletes here but are too often were overlooked in favor of their "celebrity" riders and trainers.) So my favorite moment of the entire event had to be this one: Upon becoming the winner of the showjumping gold through a challenging format in which the top four riders had to ride each of the top four horses with little preparation, Philippe Le Jeune (Belgium) put in an impressive series of rides on all four horses.  But even more impressive, to me, was his reaction afterward when he joyfully hugged and kissed the horses who won him the gold. It's not often you see a rider at that level show any affection or even gratitude toward their horses.  Usually...

--> Have you ever tried to ride a long-necked horse with short reins?  I’ve been thinking about what effect this can have on riding since getting Grady.  For those who don’t know Grady’s story, He's and 18hh Irish Sport Horse I took in last year after he had begun refusing to jump for his previous owners and was left to rot in a paddock.  He was an eventer, trained to second level in the “new” dressage method and competed regularly until something went wrong and he refused to jump anymore. So, they got rid of him.  And I took him on in hopes of rehabbing him. He’s got an enormously long neck and, when I went to try him, I rode him in a bridle that had a standard set of reins on it.  I found this incredibly difficult to deal with because I wanted to start my ride on him in a long, loose frame which required a long rein.  But this was impossible. When I first get on any horse, I always let them walk around on a long rein.  I like them ...

My father sent me an interesting article from the New York Times today. While some riders are catching on, some dressage riders still succumb to their immature fear of looking like "dorks," for wearing a helmet.  High school peer pressure is alive and well, even at the highest levels of the sport.  And these people are heroes and role models to some... Has no one clued them in to the fact that they look no less dorky riding around on prancing carousel-like horses wearing top hats of all things?  No one is going to look cool in one of those things.  "Dorkiness" kinda comes with the territory, and we've all signed up knowing that.  Get over it.  As my dad said, in his own special way: "Anyone who doesn't wear a helmet is a helmet."

--> I came across this wonderful drive here at the 7MSN Ranch ( I know, I haven't been posting or commenting much these days, but I do still read your blogs! ), and decided I would have to participate in honor of my best friend Molly, an Australian Shepherd I found through a rescue program 17 years ago.  And she’s still going strong – Go Molly!!!   From the websi te : For each blog that posts about the PEDIGREE® Adoption Drive through September 19 th , PEDIGREE® will donate a bag of their new Healthy Longevity Food for Dogs to shelters nationwide. It’s simple: Write a post, help a dog. Thursday, September 16 through Sunday, September 19,  the Pedigree BlogPaws bloggers will host a Blog Hop, to help raise awareness for the “Write a post, help a dog” effort. That’s it. No fine print. Unprepared? Go back to your blog and invest five minutes in adding yourself to the list. You’ll feed dogs in need and feel great about doing it...

I have posted before on the position known as the “ turning seat ” and its necessity for balance and positioning through bends and in turns. The theory, in a nutshell, is that the rider’s hips and shoulders should be parallel to the horse’s hips and shoulders respectively.     Prevailing wisdom tells us that, while bending, the horse’s inside hip comes forward and inside shoulder comes back.    Therefore, the rider’s inside hip should be positioned slightly forward and inside shoulder should come slightly back (and outside shoulder slightly forward) to match those of the horse. It sounds like a perfectly reasonable theory, and in practice it seems to work.    But it may be based on a false assumption. Jean-Claude Racinet (among others, I am sure) makes the point that, when flexed laterally, the horse’s inside shoulder does not come back, but forward! Most assume the horse’s shoulders and hips remain perpendicular to the spine no mat...