Scoring Horsemanship Points in Seabiscuit

I watched the film adaptation of Seabiscuit, the brilliant book about the overachieving little thoroughbred racehorse by Laura Hillenbrand. It stars Chris Cooper, Jeff Bridges, Toby Maquire and several bay Seabiscuit lookalikes. A great flick for horse lovers who may, like me, will spot good […]

Don’t Touch My Horse!

Amy Skinner runs Essence Horsemanship and is a frequent guest columnist for our sister site, NickerNews. Read her columns here. Here, she writes about the need to understand horses’ sensitivity to touch: People who come to my barn are probably befuddled by my posted sign: […]

The Mustang Emergency and how we got here

Friday, the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, a group charged with making recommendations to the Bureau of Land Management regarding its Wild Horse and Burro program, agreed to potentially euthanize tens of thousands of equines in holding facilities. Their recommendation undoubtedly hit horse lovers […]

The Case for Cowboys

Not everyone thinks cowboys are the pillars of good horsemanship. In some quarters, they have a historical reputation of neglectful, even abusive handling and care. But as an observer of several years, I can testify to the contrary. Indeed, on average, I’ve seen better care […]

Horses and riders struggle for OR respect

The cover of a recent outdoor gear catalog showed two men riding horses. Marvelous, I said to myself. An outdoor recreation company acknowledges horse riders! Alas, the story inside made no mention of riding. We assume the pretty steeds delivered the men to a remote […]

Straight Dope on Dopamine

Working with neuropsychologist Dr. Steve Peters, I’ve become more familiar with how brain chemicals represent themselves physically and behaviorally. These chemicals are present in horse brains, human brains, and are often referred to as neurotransmitters or neurochemicals. The expression of the neurochemical, dopamine, is one […]

What David Foster Wallace can teach you about riding

I’m just back from a cross-country, truck camping trek: 6,200 miles, 11 states, and dozens of hours of listening to books and music. The work of David Foster Wallace, the amazing writer of fiction and non-fiction who died in 2008 at age 46, is a […]

Beth Austin weighs in on rider fitness & core strength

As part of our Focus on Fitness, we spoke with accomplished physical therapist, Beth Austin, of Santa Cruz, California. A runner and dancer, Austin rode often as a girl and has an excellent sense of the horse-rider partnership. The therapist and seminar leader works with […]

The Death of “Natural Horsemanship”

Natural horsemanship is dead. Long live natural horsemanship. Natural horsemanship is a trending phrase that got attached to a style of work and a way of connecting with horses that Bill and Tom Dorrance offered up a few generations ago. It involved working with the […]

A word about Remuda Readers

Whether you’ve subscribed to the Remuda Reader program or not, here’s something you should know: Beginning next year, Remuda Reader – the program of exclusive, password protected content – will increase from $10 to $20 per year. Still pretty darn affordable considering what we deliver: […]