Icelandic winter stroll! Photo by Åsta Røhr Kleiven.
It’s officially the first day of the last month of 2023! When I say time is an illusion, it applies to the fact that I usually don’t know which day of the week it is, but also to the absurd realization that yet another year has passed in a blur! Honestly, where does the time go?! Every year, December sneaks up on me, and I feel simultaneously that so much has happened, and also almost nothing has changed. The stability of a horsey life means that both are true; you wake up every day and basically do the same thing, but hopefully better than the day before by a fraction of a percent. The same, but entirely different.
U.S. Weekend Preview
Rocking Horse December H.T. (Altoona, FL) [Website] [Entries] [Ride Times] [Volunteer] [Scoring]
News From Around the Globe:
Meet the nominees for the USEA Board of Governors before casting your vote! Each year every member of the USEA receives a nomination ballot to submit nominees to the Board of Governors and during the Annual Meeting of Members, all members are invited to vote for those individuals nominated to serve. This year, there are three new nominees for the USEA Board of Governors and three nominees which have been re-nominated for a further term. [Nominees for USEA Board of Governors]
When your first coach at the age of six is Mike Plumb….well what can we say. Grace Swinson was horse-obsessed from birth, and spent her childhood breathing them in at her aunt’s farm, where there happened to be a certain elder Olympian riding. She didn’t go down the eventing route, but learned dressage and showjumping under his tutelage from the very beginning. It has served her well throughout her young rider career, and she still learns more from him every day. [Curiosity Takes Swinson to Mike Plumb]
In light of recent news from the dressage world, I thought it was time to drop this article again. It’s sometimes hard to see, but there are good horse people in every discipline, and those who are working hard to prove that compassionate, ethical training and management is the right answer. This article is about training happy dressage horses, but the theories and message are applicable to all horses. [Training the Happy Equine Athlete]
As I’ve grown as a rider, I have developed more and more appreciation for the lesson horse. I used to think that only finely tuned horses were the cream of the crop, but I now have a great appreciation for the horses that know how to teach lessons to riders in a compassionate way. In truth, every horse is a lesson horse to some extent, but some of them are better at it than others. [The Love of the Lesson Horse]
