Terry Golson

One thing that I’ve learned in the few short months that I’ve lived by this marsh in Maine, is that there’s a lot I’m not seeing.   You have to look closely to see what’s really there. What looks an abandoned field between the stone wall and the water is […]

More To The Table

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A horse has a lot of complicated moving parts, and often, when things aren’t right in how they’re moving, it’s because more than one piece has gone awry. Back in 2017, Tonka started twitching his head. Then he said it hurt to move. After a litany of diagnostic tests, we […]

Horse Neck Injections

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I’m at an art festival with my husband. We’re holding hands. I see something that I want to look at. I walk towards it, he feels where I’m going through our hands. He follows. He gets distracted by something and he stops, he pulls lightly on my hand so I […]

The Halter As Welcome Information

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Today’s blog is a public service message 🙂 Check your tack. I’m proactive about keeping my tack in tip top-shape. I don’t wait until it’s literally hanging by a thread. There are reasons for my fastidiousness. First of all, I’m a leather snob. I like my horse gear to be […]

Check Your Tack

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In my last blog, I wrote about how I felt that something wasn’t quite right with Tonka. He wasn’t lame. He was still letting me on (when he’s really hurting, he doesn’t), and he was game to do what was asked. But something was amiss. Was it how I was […]

Self-doubt Leads To…

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We all do it. We question whether we’re doing right by our horses. We question whether we’re riding them in a way that’s fair to them. We worry that their lack of physical perfection is due to something we’ve done, or haven’t done. We agonize over any pain or momentary […]

Self-doubt and Second-guessing

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Between the stone wall and the marsh, there is a blueberry barren.   Wild lowbush blueberries grow there.   I’ve been picking them by hand, separating the ripe from the unripe. Bent over. Where there are ticks and deer flies.   By the time my small basket isn’t even half-filled, […]

Sharing The Blueberry Harvest

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Susannah called me in because she wanted to be able to tack up her mare, Fawn, without her horse showing signs of worry. The first thing that I do is watch the baseline behavior, and then tease apart the components. Here is how Fawn reacted when Susannah stepped towards her […]

Standing Still For Saddling

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Susannah has an OTTB mare named Fawn. Fawn raced, not brilliantly, then was purchased by a family inexperienced around horses. A few years later Fawn went to a similar home. Then Susannah bought her. After a few months of getting to know Fawn, Susannah was ready to get to work […]

Catching A Horse Is In the Details

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