Welcome to the first post of The Thoughtful Horse. We seek to provide observations on horses and how they relate to our lives on more than a superficial level. Commentary and opinions will cover things equestrian, and may well spill over into creative, or political, or social, or metaphysical or spiritual musings.

We are a life-long horse devotee. We recall, as a child of 6 or 7, observing our sister's lessons with German dressage master, Fritz Stecken and pining to be riding, too. As a junior, we were fortunate to be under the considerable influence of some of the masters - George Morris (when he was starting out!), William Steinkraus, Gordon Wright, Victor Hugo-Vidal - learning solid, instinctive and efficient basics which served us both in the show ring and the hunt field. All of us who took our riding seriously relished the intense drilling and challenges of our lessons. How exciting it was to jump our first course, to be able to jump 'off our eye', to compete on an outside course, to learn lateral work, flying changes, to take care of our horses needs, to survive a particularly demanding clinic... all of our group were raised to be complete horsepeople.

Often, we would go for wild trail rides, or camp out with our horses. One cold, snowy Christmas Eve, we, along with a friend, mounted her two fuzzy horses bareback and proceeded to ride all over the western section of New Canaan, galloping down a newly dug road, trecking up and down massive piles of dirt, exploring the woods, ambling through backyards - :O! We were out for hours, until it got dark. It was the purest form of celebration, one of many.

Anyhow, some 50 years later, this passion has evolved and grown and continues to direct our life. Riding is not so frequent, but the feel, the memory remains clearly, available for us to pass on to our clients. We just might get around to writing a book, which is already titled.