Tag Archives: horses
Ring in the New Year! Kiss a Horse (or bake treats)
Happy New Year! I kissed a horse and I liked it. Ok, I do that all the time. New Years’ Eve, no exception. Clearly, in this photo I’m not shivering in negative 20 degree Celsius winter temperatures in Ontario, Canada. In this photo, I’m at the Farmer’s Pantry pick-your-own-apple farm (last fall) located in Clarksburg, […]
Loving the Fall Trifecta: Horses, Country Fairs, and more Horses
Thursday at the Norfolk Fair, it’s all about the jumping, with some heavy hitch, wagon and junior single-horse hitch driving competitions happening nearby. After 11 am, hordes of school kids flood into the fair to see the livestock, biggest pumpkin competition and poultry barn – including a new category: rainbow chickens.
Travel Waterloo, ON: Mantracker, heart pounding horse adventure
On the eve of your 50th birthday, do something that scares you. Something that makes your heart beat out of your chest while holding your breath. I did and big surprise, it involved horses. Imagine running on foot through bushes, hiding in tall grass and making a break for it through the woods as oilskin-coat-clad […]
Travel Myrtle Beach, SC: A Mid-summer Morning’s Dream Ride at Wampee Stables
Wampee Stables is all about trail riding. Actually, it’s all about the horses that just happened to do trail rides, and only trail rides. At this farm, it’s like saddling up at a friend’s house – a friend who considers his horses family. “Sadie is the only horse here that gets this excited about treats,” […]
2017 – Year of the Horse for Canadian Equine Fans (or a disconcerting milestone…)
Happy New Year! 2017 marks an important milestone in Canada’s history: it’s the country’s 150th anniversary. And horses (at least for me) are a big part of this celebration. That’s right: the country I call home is younger than most of Europe’s historic hotels (and some stables), but the 1867 establishment of confederation marks Canada’s […]
Heavy Horse Hitching – Fall Fair Competitions Demystified Part 1
Heavy Horse Hitching competitions are something I know nothing about, except that those who participate are dedicated. Really dedicated. You have to love driving a team of draft horse around a ring for about 15 minutes in order to transport several large draft horses and a full sized wagon big enough to move the contents […]
Travel Las Vegas: Tournament of Kings – the Thunder that Rocks Horsey Girls
If you’ve been to Medieval Times, the Tournament of Kings is similar – it opens with feast hosted by a king and attended by a wizard who set the story stage. Actors and dancers fill the arena more than horses, and dinner – Cornish Hen or ravioli if you’re vegetarian.
Southern Ontario Fall Fairs … with Horses. Gotta have horses.
Fall Fairs intended to celebrate the bounty of harvest (even though the food consumed is deep-fried from a truck rather than fresh from the ground), and there are many across the continent.
Most follow the same format: a midway of crazy often over-priced rides, much guilty pleasure unhealthy fried food, barns of competitions for the best cookies, quilting, knitting, wheat … you name it along with competitions for the biggest vegetables grown – one tone or more pumpkins being the most popular.
Travel Florida: Beach Riding in St. Lucie County by Jennifer Merrick
Hayes grew up ranching and passed on his love of horses to his daughters who “were riding before they could walk”. They now also work at the family-run tour company. Although they do excursions of all kinds, it’s the 90-minute beach tour that is the most popular.
RCMP Musical Ride: Horses, Heart and Magnificent Hanoverians
You haven’t seen precision riding until you’ve seen the 32 riders of Canada’s RCMP Musical Ride. You haven’t seen beautiful Hannoverian/thoroughbred crosses until you’ve seen the 36 horses that travel with the RCMP Musical Ride. And you really can’t call yourself Canadian until you’ve seen … ok, you get the idea. If you’ve seen the […]
Horsetrotting.net is a BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Award Nominee – Again!
Always a bridesmaid … not yet a bride. For the second year in a row, horsetrotting.net is nominated for a BlogPaws Nose-to-Nose Pet Blogging and Social Media Award in the “unconventional pet” category. What’s an unconventional pet? Essentially, not a dog or cat. (For the record, I have one of each). I’m thrilled regardless of […]
Hagersville, Ontario: Whispering Hearts Horse Rescue
The tack shop is open and it’s for a good cause. Need another reason to buy more horse stuff? Whispering Hearts Horse Rescue in Hagersville, Ontario (about 30 minutes west of Hamilton) renovated a barn and stocked it floor-to-ceiling with ten years of donated Western and English second-hand horse tack. A wall of saddles, piles […]
Travel Ontario: Cowboy Up in Caledon
I had the nerve to do it: I signed up for the ‘Cowboy Up’ two-hour trail ride and lunch option at Rawhide Adventures Inc. It’s a cattle ranch and trail riding operation along the conservation lands of the Bruce Trail in Mulmur, Ontario about 60 minutes from Toronto. Approximately 110 heads of grass-feed cattle roam […]
Travel (Toronto): The Royal Rocks Part II: Eventing Jumping Finals
I’m not sure if Indoor Eventing is my favourite equestrian event. Riders race through a jumping course designed to resemble outdoor obstacles – water features, platform jumps, and wide pie-shaped blocks of gravel – at breakneck speeds. And the risk of breaking necks (and legs) seems high too … too high for my taste, anyway. […]
Travel, Caledon, Ontario: Pan Am Games Equestrian Jumping Finals
The Pan Am Equestrian games wrapped up today (along with other sports) and the Canadian Jumping team was riding high after yesterday’s Team Jumping gold medal win. After a disappointing first round, they needed no or few faults in round two to not only improve their score but also secure a place in the Rio Summer Olympics. Showgirl, ridden by Yann Candele in his hometown of Caledon, Ontario, was purchased by the Canadian Equestrian Team to help improve the team’s chances of qualifying.
Equine Events – Horse People, Mark your Calendars!
Horsetrotting.net has updated the ‘events’ page of the site, so here’s your 2015 list of places to go and horses to see (in Canada) this summer. In the comments sections, let us know what you love (or don’t) about any of these horse events and/or advice you have for other horse-loving globe trotters heading to […]
Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Fossil Horse. What if horses were the size of dogs?
“Did you know horses were once as small as dogs?” My nephew said when his brother noticed the amount of dog, cat and horse art scattered on my household walls. “It’s true,” he insisted. “Millions of years ago.” Ok, I said, a bit skeptical become sometimes he gets superhero stories and science a bit mixed […]
Waterloo, Ontario: My First Norwegian Horse and Belly High Snow Drift
Not many trail ride operators offer winter rides, and that’s looptoo bad because there’s two advantages to heading out into the sparkly snow: a one hour ride is long enough because toes start to freeze, and there’s no problem with your horse grabbing bites of grasses. Well, there’s almost no greenery around – my mount, the adorable […]
Horsetrotting.net: New Year, new resolutions. Right?
Last year at this time I wrote about travel riding aspirations rather than resolutions: dream rides I’d love to take around the world. Well, guess what? I’m still dreaming. None on the list materialized, but I haven’t given up. Somehow, sometime, you’ll read post about the week I spent at a Spanish riding school or […]
Horsetrotting.net 2014 in review
For anyone interested, here’s the annual review for http://www.horsetrotting.net. There’s some interesting information including the fact 2000 people viewed the blog last year (great) and the most were from the U.S. (hmm) with Canada and Brazil (really?) close seconds. Does Brazil love horses? Maybe. I’ll be checking that out. In the meantime, I will continue […]
