mini manifesto

I've been thinking about what "horsemanship" means to me lately. What ever my horse, and whatever I'm doing, I want my horse to move in a healthy manner, to be handy, and to like his life. You can work on some very seemingly simple things, and if you are very good at them, you might turn that into piaffe, or into a fine bridle horse, you can take it to jumping, or showing, or hunting or trail riding or working in harness. But horsemanship is horsemanship, and the basics are the basics. You can do a lot worse than be really really good at the walk.