Welcome.......

Welcome to "All the Pretty Little Horses"...... a blog devoted to my ramblings and adventures in the wide world of horses and riding. I was introduced to horses and promptly fell in love with them in 1986 at the age of 6, when my brother bought his first horse, Cookie Cutter. Since then, my family and I have been immersed in it.
I am a certified Instructor through CHA - Certified Horsemanship Association in both English and Western riding, and have taught professionally since I was about 18 years old. I am currently not running a lesson program, for personal and other reasons; but hope to start again.
I grew up riding and showing hunt seat, and taught myself western riding later. I have trained horses for other people (although I no longer like to do it), and managed the farm and barn where I ran my lesson program; and kept a busy show schedule with my students and horses in training.
I adore raising and training foals and being there for a child's very first lesson experience most of all. I am also a leader of a 4-H group in the county where our barn is in NC.
Most recently I have embarked on a totally new journey of retraining "OTTTBS" - that is, off-the-track Thoroughbreds; which is nothing like I thought it was going to be! My husband used to ride in competitive, endurance-type trail rides in his home state of Michigan; now he rides the trails with me on his lovely OTTTB.
We lease a lovely barn in rural North Carolina, about 10 minutes from our home in Virginia; where our 7 horses reside. My parents also own a small farm where we keep some of my retired lesson horses, and others.
Although I am and always will be a Hunter-Jumper nut down to my core, I love expiramenting and trying all other forms of riding and anything "new." I have ridden and shown a Plantation Tennessee Walker; I love trail riding, and tried driving once.
I will be posting a little bit of everything on this blog, including photos and videos from my faveorite horse movies, and goings-on in my barn and stories about my horses; how-to's and product reccomendations, and nifty ideas to make your own horsekeeping easier, better, and sometimes, cheaper! Stay tuned for lots more....................