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Begin and Begin Again
An exciting follow-up from the bestselling author of How Good Riders Get Good and Know Better to Do Better.
We all start somewhere with horses. As a toddler on a pony. As a teenager with friends who ride. As an adult who always loved horses, but life just got in the way…until now.
Some of us start over. We sell our horses to go to school, to have careers or babies (or both). We decide to quit dressage and start reining. We fall off…and get back on.
There are all sorts of beginning places, and they can be for the first time or after a “gap.” They can mean you are beginning, or your horse is. They can mean you barely got started, or you started badly. Renowned horseman Denny Emerson knows all about the importance of these beginnings. Through an impressive career in the saddle that spans decades, he has worked with all different breeds, competed at the top international levels of eventing and endurance, lost horses and found new ones, taught young riders and adult amateurs, traded Western tack for English and back again, been injured…only to rehab, climb back in the saddle, and start over.
In his third book, Emerson once again masterfully intertwines his entertaining reflections from a life embedded in the equestrian world with serious philosophical questions faced by the industry today and practical advice honed by his immense experience. Readers will
How to make your beginning with horses easier…and how to make it harder.How having the right horse versus having the wrong horse can affect a beginning…or mean you should begin again.The importance of a team (family, friends, trainers, coaches) you trust and rely upon.Ways to identify how you learn, see, hear, and feel, and how to apply that knowledge with horses.The need for knowing how far you want to go and how much are you willing to give up to go there.With inspirational stories of beginning and beginning again from top equestrians, as well as personal reflections from “regular” horse people around the world, these pages promise to inspire a start or a change, and provide a roadmap we all can follow, whatever our ambitions. Emerson reassures us that it doesn’t matter where your beginning point is—start where you are. And, even better, there is a do-over button—you just have to decide to push it. This book is for every horse person who continues to dream of something else or something more, and just needs someone to “Begin.”
We all start somewhere with horses. As a toddler on a pony. As a teenager with friends who ride. As an adult who always loved horses, but life just got in the way…until now.
Some of us start over. We sell our horses to go to school, to have careers or babies (or both). We decide to quit dressage and start reining. We fall off…and get back on.
There are all sorts of beginning places, and they can be for the first time or after a “gap.” They can mean you are beginning, or your horse is. They can mean you barely got started, or you started badly. Renowned horseman Denny Emerson knows all about the importance of these beginnings. Through an impressive career in the saddle that spans decades, he has worked with all different breeds, competed at the top international levels of eventing and endurance, lost horses and found new ones, taught young riders and adult amateurs, traded Western tack for English and back again, been injured…only to rehab, climb back in the saddle, and start over.
In his third book, Emerson once again masterfully intertwines his entertaining reflections from a life embedded in the equestrian world with serious philosophical questions faced by the industry today and practical advice honed by his immense experience. Readers will
How to make your beginning with horses easier…and how to make it harder.How having the right horse versus having the wrong horse can affect a beginning…or mean you should begin again.The importance of a team (family, friends, trainers, coaches) you trust and rely upon.Ways to identify how you learn, see, hear, and feel, and how to apply that knowledge with horses.The need for knowing how far you want to go and how much are you willing to give up to go there.With inspirational stories of beginning and beginning again from top equestrians, as well as personal reflections from “regular” horse people around the world, these pages promise to inspire a start or a change, and provide a roadmap we all can follow, whatever our ambitions. Emerson reassures us that it doesn’t matter where your beginning point is—start where you are. And, even better, there is a do-over button—you just have to decide to push it. This book is for every horse person who continues to dream of something else or something more, and just needs someone to “Begin.”
- GenresHorses
336 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2022
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March 15, 2026
Begin and Begin Again
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
USDF Book Club Overview
The USDF Book Club invites members to engage with dressage through the written work of leading professionals and authors in the sport. Each quarter, USDF selects a book and hosts a live webinar with the author, including audience Q&A. Participants can earn USDF University Education Credits, and Regions and GMOs compete for prizes based on participation.
For more information on past sessions available on-demand and what’s coming next, please see the USDF website.
This quarter’s selection was Begin and Begin Again: The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses by Denny Emerson.
The webinar was presented by Amy Senior, USDF Education Administrative and Program Coordinator, and hosted by Reese Koffler-Stanfield and Megan McIssac of The Dressage Radio Show on the Horse Radio Network.
Denny opened the session with characteristic humor:
“Thanks for buying my book—somebody had to.”
Overview
At its core, Begin and Begin Again is about finding your place in horse sport—then having the courage to change it when that place no longer fits.
Now 84, Emerson still rides despite decades of wear and having more than a few serious broken bones. What has changed is not his commitment, but his expectations. He no longer does what he did at 25 or 45; instead, he continually adapts, finding versions of the sport that feel safe, satisfying, and sustainable. The message resonated strongly with the hosts, particularly Reese, who spoke openly about how aging has changed her own relationship with riding.
Emerson framed this as a universal reality: at some point, every rider must adapt or step away. Beginning again is not failure; it is survival.
Fear, Horses, and Fit
A significant portion of the discussion focused on fear and horse–rider compatibility. Emerson was blunt: riding a horse that makes you anxious drains the joy from the sport.
Many riders know, on some level, that their horse may be too much for them—but love, guilt, and identity make change difficult. Riders hang on, white-knuckled, substituting groundwork for riding and normalizing dread as part of the routine.
Emerson offered a simple test:
If you drive to the barn with anticipation, you likely have the right horse. If you feel dread and routinely find reasons not to get on, something is wrong.
The solution is rarely willpower. It is usually a better match—and a support team willing
to help you face that truth.
Reinvention and the Rider’s Responsibility
When riders need to pivot, resistance is common. Emerson suggested that successful reinvention starts with understanding what needs to change in the rider, not just the circumstances.
He described four components of a rider:
Physical capacity, which can be improved within limits
Emotional health, including frustration tolerance and perfectionism
Knowledge base, which can always expand
Horsemanship instinct, which develops through time and exposure
Fatigue, he noted, is often mistaken for resistance in both horses and riders. Many training problems are conditioning problems. Horses need time, walking, and fitness before being asked to perform sustained work.
This tied into a discussion of Losgelassenheit, the German concept of looseness and absence of tension—physical and mental. Riders cannot demand softness if they themselves become tight, rough, or impatient.
Community, Barn Culture, and Access
Emerson spoke at length about the loss of the “barn rat” culture, where aspiring horse people learned by immersion, working, watching, riding whatever became available. Liability concerns and economics have eroded those pathways, leaving fewer opportunities for hands-on learning.
During the Q&A, an older rider asked how to begin again after losing her horse. Emerson advised starting with lesson barns and school horses, resisting the urge to buy before confidence and clarity return. He acknowledged the growing scarcity of such barns in the U.S., contrasting it with Europe, where affordable riding schools are more common.
He suggested that organizations like USDF could help by identifying and promoting schooling barns. The Arabian Horse Association, he noted, already maintains such a list.
This led to a broader conversation about community. Emerson emphasized volunteering, joining GMOs, and actively welcoming newcomers. Dressage, he said, too often appears insular and unapproachable.
His benchmark was simple:
If a 14-year-old horse-crazy kid walks into your environment, do they feel welcomed?
People gravitate toward disciplines where they feel seen and encouraged. Interest follows kindness.
When asked what he hoped readers would take from the book, Emerson reflected on how horsemanship ethics have changed since his youth. Horses were once viewed as tools to be dominated. What he wished he had learned sooner is that horses are prey animals—highly sensitive and easily intimidated. Kindness, not force, produces true responsiveness. Horses feel everything. The goal is not control, but trust and lightness.
Final Thoughts
Fifty-eight people attended the live webinar—out of nearly 30,000 USDF members. While winter schedules and late hours undoubtedly played a role, the modest turnout was a reminder of how often valuable educational opportunities go unused.
As riders, continuing education is not optional. Programs like the USDF Book Club offer rare access to experienced voices willing to share hard-earned perspectives. Leveraging the educational opportunities USDF offers though our GMOs is a perk we should all be using.
The next USDF Book Club selection is “How to Ride the Horse You Thought You Bought” by Anne Buchanan. Watch for details on registration and scheduling. USDF Education Credits are available to members who attend the webinar and submit the required keywords.
Beginning again, it turns out, can apply to more than riding.
Begin and Begin Again
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
Welcome to the USDF Book Club! This program aims to immerse members in the world of dressage through the published works of some of the industry’s top professionals and authors. USDF presents a book a quarter, with a live webinar with the author, including Q&A from the audience for each book. USDF University Education credits can be earned, and there are prizes for the Region and GMO with the highest participation rates. More information about the USDF Book club can be found here and here.
Today’s offering is Begin and Begin Again
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
Presented by: Amy Senior Education Administrative and Program Co-Ordinator, USDF, and the hosts of the The Dressage Radio Show (the long-running dressage podcast on the Horse Radio Network), Reese Koffler-Stanfield and Megan McIssac.
Denny’s first comment: Thanks for buying my book, somebody had to.
Ellen’s Overview: Denny’s book is all about how important it is to find your level of comfort. He’s 84 years old, busted up all over, and still rides. But he doesn’t do what he did when he was younger, he just keeps finding places in horse sport where he feels safe and confident.
Inspiration: getting older, and getting busted up. Coming to the realization that what you can do when you are 15, or 25 or 35, you can’t do at 84. You have to adapt or get out of it.
Book resonated with Reese, because her body is getting older.
Chapter about Fear: Nobody likes to get hurt, the problems we get into with horsees, you have a niche with a horse, and there are people who are with the right horse, and there are people who have horses that are too high octane for where they are. If your horse makes you worrry, its hard to make a change. If you are a dog person, if someone says you have the wrong dog, youre not going to get rid of it.
You might even know you have the wrong horse, its hard to get rid of a horse your love. People get on white knuckled and you stay with the horse you love. You can say to someone they need to get a different horse, but that’s not an easy thing to do.
It sucks the joy out of riding if you are scared to ride your horse. Instead you only do groundwork, etc. Doubly hard if you are hurt. Trepidation is real, and it takes the fun right out of it.
Best way to fix it is, try to ride a horse that is better suited to you.
If you are driving to the barn with happy anticipation, you have the right horse. If you have a sense of dread, and then you lunge the horse, maybe I won’t get on him today, if that’s the norm, it’s a clear signal that maybe not the best horse. Use a support team, talk to your trainer.
When you have riders who need to pivot, students resist and don't look forward to change. How to have a more positive outlook when you begin again.
So many different ways. I had a discussion with trainers who said, there are rider has 4 components, physical self (body, how strong, how agile - you can change that to a certain extent by getting fitter, stronger), emotional well being (hangups, they get easily frustrated, impatient, perfectionaists, they want it right now - you can decide to change that), intellectual side (how much do you know - you can learn more), “horse whisper-er” some people “get” horses, and some people don’t. If you don’t have that, you need to work on it, spend more time with horses.
When you ask about people pivoting, people need to better understand what it is they need to change about themselves.
A lot of us don’t get: the degree to which fatigue comes across as resistance. If we were to be driven out to local gym and made to lift weight, pushups, etc, we get on a horse, and we start to train him, we;ve done 15-20 minutes, horse gets heavier, we drill more, the horse may just be saying that they are tired.
Get your horses fit - do more just walking. Give the horse a chance to be fit enough to do the work we are requiring.
Lostalicenhieight - lassen (loose), it’s a lack of tightness. The abcense of tension. You as a rider, you can’t get tight, you can’t get rough,
Losgelassenheit: key German dressage concept meaning looseness, suppleness, and absence of tension both physical and mental.
Talk about Barn Rats. There were decades when people who had the horse bug could spend all day every day at the local barn, immersing themselves in all things horse. Working, paid and unpaid, riding whatever became available, but learning by repetition and exposure. What killed the culture of the barn rat is liability. How can you be a horse person without immersing yourself?
QA from audience: Older woman, lost her horse three years ago - how do I begin again?
Find a school horse barn and start riding in lessons.
Plaid Horse, increasing scarcity of the local riding school with school horses. In Europe, they have a stable with affordable riding in every small town.
Don’t buy a horse until yoy have your feet back. Tennis courts everywhere, basketball courts everywhere. Something as specialized as riding, you need horses. That’s the barrier - you can’t just go out and do it. And appropriate horses.
Denny suggests USDF compile a list of places that are schooling barns
Arabian Horse Association has a list of barns that have Arabian school horses.
This is a network game - join your local GMO and volunteer at shows. USDF articles, don’t be unfriendly to people who attend shows to watch. English riding disciples have an aura of being unfriendly, insular, and snooty.
If you go to an Endurance ride, they are the friendliest bunch of people you will ever meet. Dressage shows don’t have the same feeling.
This segued into a discussion of community in the Dressage world.
The 14-year old girl test - you love horses, you just don’t know what kind of horse. If you go to a hunter jumper show and somebody is nice to you, you’re going to ride hunter/jumper.
How do you get people to be interested in your thing? Be nice to them.
QA from audience: Denny, if you want us to take one thing away from your book, what would it be?
One thing to take away from the book: In the 1950s, when I got my first pony, everyone 53 years or older had been born inthe 19th century, horses were used as utility vehicles..The absolute ethic across the board was a horse was something that was made to mind. Show that pony who is boss. I wish what I had learned so much sooner is that horses are a prey species, creatures of flight. They can be easily intimidated. But be kind to horses. There is so much rough stuff, so much pulling heads, kicking, a horse can feel a fly land on it. You want a horse to move off your most delicate aids.
In total, 58 people attended the webinar, with Denny live. 58 out of 30,000 USDF members. Particularly given that is is winter in the northern hemisphere, the webinar was at 8pm EST, it is a bit of shame that more people don’t engage with the USDF book club opportunities. I’m guilty of it myself, so I get it, but as Dressage riders, we need to be as educated as possible. Taking advantage of opportunists that present themselves is so important.
The next USDF Book Club is How to Ride the Horse You Thought You Bought by Anne Buchanan. Watch this space for more information on timing and how to sign up! Please note, USDF Education Credits are earned by members who watch the webinar and send keywords in to USDF book club hosts!
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
USDF Book Club Overview
The USDF Book Club invites members to engage with dressage through the written work of leading professionals and authors in the sport. Each quarter, USDF selects a book and hosts a live webinar with the author, including audience Q&A. Participants can earn USDF University Education Credits, and Regions and GMOs compete for prizes based on participation.
For more information on past sessions available on-demand and what’s coming next, please see the USDF website.
This quarter’s selection was Begin and Begin Again: The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses by Denny Emerson.
The webinar was presented by Amy Senior, USDF Education Administrative and Program Coordinator, and hosted by Reese Koffler-Stanfield and Megan McIssac of The Dressage Radio Show on the Horse Radio Network.
Denny opened the session with characteristic humor:
“Thanks for buying my book—somebody had to.”
Overview
At its core, Begin and Begin Again is about finding your place in horse sport—then having the courage to change it when that place no longer fits.
Now 84, Emerson still rides despite decades of wear and having more than a few serious broken bones. What has changed is not his commitment, but his expectations. He no longer does what he did at 25 or 45; instead, he continually adapts, finding versions of the sport that feel safe, satisfying, and sustainable. The message resonated strongly with the hosts, particularly Reese, who spoke openly about how aging has changed her own relationship with riding.
Emerson framed this as a universal reality: at some point, every rider must adapt or step away. Beginning again is not failure; it is survival.
Fear, Horses, and Fit
A significant portion of the discussion focused on fear and horse–rider compatibility. Emerson was blunt: riding a horse that makes you anxious drains the joy from the sport.
Many riders know, on some level, that their horse may be too much for them—but love, guilt, and identity make change difficult. Riders hang on, white-knuckled, substituting groundwork for riding and normalizing dread as part of the routine.
Emerson offered a simple test:
If you drive to the barn with anticipation, you likely have the right horse. If you feel dread and routinely find reasons not to get on, something is wrong.
The solution is rarely willpower. It is usually a better match—and a support team willing
to help you face that truth.
Reinvention and the Rider’s Responsibility
When riders need to pivot, resistance is common. Emerson suggested that successful reinvention starts with understanding what needs to change in the rider, not just the circumstances.
He described four components of a rider:
Physical capacity, which can be improved within limits
Emotional health, including frustration tolerance and perfectionism
Knowledge base, which can always expand
Horsemanship instinct, which develops through time and exposure
Fatigue, he noted, is often mistaken for resistance in both horses and riders. Many training problems are conditioning problems. Horses need time, walking, and fitness before being asked to perform sustained work.
This tied into a discussion of Losgelassenheit, the German concept of looseness and absence of tension—physical and mental. Riders cannot demand softness if they themselves become tight, rough, or impatient.
Community, Barn Culture, and Access
Emerson spoke at length about the loss of the “barn rat” culture, where aspiring horse people learned by immersion, working, watching, riding whatever became available. Liability concerns and economics have eroded those pathways, leaving fewer opportunities for hands-on learning.
During the Q&A, an older rider asked how to begin again after losing her horse. Emerson advised starting with lesson barns and school horses, resisting the urge to buy before confidence and clarity return. He acknowledged the growing scarcity of such barns in the U.S., contrasting it with Europe, where affordable riding schools are more common.
He suggested that organizations like USDF could help by identifying and promoting schooling barns. The Arabian Horse Association, he noted, already maintains such a list.
This led to a broader conversation about community. Emerson emphasized volunteering, joining GMOs, and actively welcoming newcomers. Dressage, he said, too often appears insular and unapproachable.
His benchmark was simple:
If a 14-year-old horse-crazy kid walks into your environment, do they feel welcomed?
People gravitate toward disciplines where they feel seen and encouraged. Interest follows kindness.
When asked what he hoped readers would take from the book, Emerson reflected on how horsemanship ethics have changed since his youth. Horses were once viewed as tools to be dominated. What he wished he had learned sooner is that horses are prey animals—highly sensitive and easily intimidated. Kindness, not force, produces true responsiveness. Horses feel everything. The goal is not control, but trust and lightness.
Final Thoughts
Fifty-eight people attended the live webinar—out of nearly 30,000 USDF members. While winter schedules and late hours undoubtedly played a role, the modest turnout was a reminder of how often valuable educational opportunities go unused.
As riders, continuing education is not optional. Programs like the USDF Book Club offer rare access to experienced voices willing to share hard-earned perspectives. Leveraging the educational opportunities USDF offers though our GMOs is a perk we should all be using.
The next USDF Book Club selection is “How to Ride the Horse You Thought You Bought” by Anne Buchanan. Watch for details on registration and scheduling. USDF Education Credits are available to members who attend the webinar and submit the required keywords.
Beginning again, it turns out, can apply to more than riding.
Begin and Begin Again
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
Welcome to the USDF Book Club! This program aims to immerse members in the world of dressage through the published works of some of the industry’s top professionals and authors. USDF presents a book a quarter, with a live webinar with the author, including Q&A from the audience for each book. USDF University Education credits can be earned, and there are prizes for the Region and GMO with the highest participation rates. More information about the USDF Book club can be found here and here.
Today’s offering is Begin and Begin Again
The Bright Optimism of Reinventing Life with Horses
Denny Emerson
Presented by: Amy Senior Education Administrative and Program Co-Ordinator, USDF, and the hosts of the The Dressage Radio Show (the long-running dressage podcast on the Horse Radio Network), Reese Koffler-Stanfield and Megan McIssac.
Denny’s first comment: Thanks for buying my book, somebody had to.
Ellen’s Overview: Denny’s book is all about how important it is to find your level of comfort. He’s 84 years old, busted up all over, and still rides. But he doesn’t do what he did when he was younger, he just keeps finding places in horse sport where he feels safe and confident.
Inspiration: getting older, and getting busted up. Coming to the realization that what you can do when you are 15, or 25 or 35, you can’t do at 84. You have to adapt or get out of it.
Book resonated with Reese, because her body is getting older.
Chapter about Fear: Nobody likes to get hurt, the problems we get into with horsees, you have a niche with a horse, and there are people who are with the right horse, and there are people who have horses that are too high octane for where they are. If your horse makes you worrry, its hard to make a change. If you are a dog person, if someone says you have the wrong dog, youre not going to get rid of it.
You might even know you have the wrong horse, its hard to get rid of a horse your love. People get on white knuckled and you stay with the horse you love. You can say to someone they need to get a different horse, but that’s not an easy thing to do.
It sucks the joy out of riding if you are scared to ride your horse. Instead you only do groundwork, etc. Doubly hard if you are hurt. Trepidation is real, and it takes the fun right out of it.
Best way to fix it is, try to ride a horse that is better suited to you.
If you are driving to the barn with happy anticipation, you have the right horse. If you have a sense of dread, and then you lunge the horse, maybe I won’t get on him today, if that’s the norm, it’s a clear signal that maybe not the best horse. Use a support team, talk to your trainer.
When you have riders who need to pivot, students resist and don't look forward to change. How to have a more positive outlook when you begin again.
So many different ways. I had a discussion with trainers who said, there are rider has 4 components, physical self (body, how strong, how agile - you can change that to a certain extent by getting fitter, stronger), emotional well being (hangups, they get easily frustrated, impatient, perfectionaists, they want it right now - you can decide to change that), intellectual side (how much do you know - you can learn more), “horse whisper-er” some people “get” horses, and some people don’t. If you don’t have that, you need to work on it, spend more time with horses.
When you ask about people pivoting, people need to better understand what it is they need to change about themselves.
A lot of us don’t get: the degree to which fatigue comes across as resistance. If we were to be driven out to local gym and made to lift weight, pushups, etc, we get on a horse, and we start to train him, we;ve done 15-20 minutes, horse gets heavier, we drill more, the horse may just be saying that they are tired.
Get your horses fit - do more just walking. Give the horse a chance to be fit enough to do the work we are requiring.
Lostalicenhieight - lassen (loose), it’s a lack of tightness. The abcense of tension. You as a rider, you can’t get tight, you can’t get rough,
Losgelassenheit: key German dressage concept meaning looseness, suppleness, and absence of tension both physical and mental.
Talk about Barn Rats. There were decades when people who had the horse bug could spend all day every day at the local barn, immersing themselves in all things horse. Working, paid and unpaid, riding whatever became available, but learning by repetition and exposure. What killed the culture of the barn rat is liability. How can you be a horse person without immersing yourself?
QA from audience: Older woman, lost her horse three years ago - how do I begin again?
Find a school horse barn and start riding in lessons.
Plaid Horse, increasing scarcity of the local riding school with school horses. In Europe, they have a stable with affordable riding in every small town.
Don’t buy a horse until yoy have your feet back. Tennis courts everywhere, basketball courts everywhere. Something as specialized as riding, you need horses. That’s the barrier - you can’t just go out and do it. And appropriate horses.
Denny suggests USDF compile a list of places that are schooling barns
Arabian Horse Association has a list of barns that have Arabian school horses.
This is a network game - join your local GMO and volunteer at shows. USDF articles, don’t be unfriendly to people who attend shows to watch. English riding disciples have an aura of being unfriendly, insular, and snooty.
If you go to an Endurance ride, they are the friendliest bunch of people you will ever meet. Dressage shows don’t have the same feeling.
This segued into a discussion of community in the Dressage world.
The 14-year old girl test - you love horses, you just don’t know what kind of horse. If you go to a hunter jumper show and somebody is nice to you, you’re going to ride hunter/jumper.
How do you get people to be interested in your thing? Be nice to them.
QA from audience: Denny, if you want us to take one thing away from your book, what would it be?
One thing to take away from the book: In the 1950s, when I got my first pony, everyone 53 years or older had been born inthe 19th century, horses were used as utility vehicles..The absolute ethic across the board was a horse was something that was made to mind. Show that pony who is boss. I wish what I had learned so much sooner is that horses are a prey species, creatures of flight. They can be easily intimidated. But be kind to horses. There is so much rough stuff, so much pulling heads, kicking, a horse can feel a fly land on it. You want a horse to move off your most delicate aids.
In total, 58 people attended the webinar, with Denny live. 58 out of 30,000 USDF members. Particularly given that is is winter in the northern hemisphere, the webinar was at 8pm EST, it is a bit of shame that more people don’t engage with the USDF book club opportunities. I’m guilty of it myself, so I get it, but as Dressage riders, we need to be as educated as possible. Taking advantage of opportunists that present themselves is so important.
The next USDF Book Club is How to Ride the Horse You Thought You Bought by Anne Buchanan. Watch this space for more information on timing and how to sign up! Please note, USDF Education Credits are earned by members who watch the webinar and send keywords in to USDF book club hosts!
February 13, 2022
This is the third book by Denny Emerson, one of the wisest horsemen of today. If you religiously follow his Facebook page "Tamarack Hill Farm", you may have heard all the wisdom of this book (and the previous two) before, but it is still very nice to have it all in one place. This is not a "how to" book on riding or training or horse care. This, like the previous two books, is a compendium of wisdom borne of experience and deep thought. It is a little meandering, but that is on purpose - it is about the meanderings of an equestrian life and career that many of us go through (I have dabbled myself in many areas: dressage, showjumping, hunters, I rode racehorses and harness trotters in training, I raised a foal, I retrained OTTBs, I trained rescues with dangerous behavioral issues, I worked as a judge for flat racing, harness trotters and showjumping, coached an IEA team, and these days I mostly teach beginner kids to ride). It is a book that is supposed to make you stop and think, and hopefully change something about the way you approach your work with horses, perhaps make it easier to shift gears and try something new - be it a different discipline, different breed, or a different training method. I have a feeling that the book will be most appreciated by those of us up in our age, with lots of experience ourselves. I hope, though, that the youngsters, just starting out as trainers, riders and instructors, will read it and gain some of its wisdom before they make the inevitable mistakes with their horses. Highly recommended.
March 26, 2022
A thought provoking read
I wasn't sure when I began this book if I would like it. As I finish it I believe it is a book that will change and support my journey in attempting to be a good horse person. I have read all of your books and learned from each of them. So at almost age 70 I will begin again, striving for " Kindness above all things " and taking the time each day to become more thoughtful.
Thank you for your wise words. It seems they will be a good place to start again.
I wasn't sure when I began this book if I would like it. As I finish it I believe it is a book that will change and support my journey in attempting to be a good horse person. I have read all of your books and learned from each of them. So at almost age 70 I will begin again, striving for " Kindness above all things " and taking the time each day to become more thoughtful.
Thank you for your wise words. It seems they will be a good place to start again.
January 2, 2023
Great insights from one of the best. Denny's ability to critique himself and tell others "don't do what I did" is refreshing. This was a great book for me at this moment in time, as I look at changing directions myself.
March 16, 2022
It’s always a delight to read something by Denny Emerson. His writing is well considered, kind and presented from the perspective of love for the horse. Beautiful book overall.
January 1, 2023
Lots of good take aways! I’m starting out in the horse world as an adult (25) and this is my first nonfiction book I’ve read about horsemanship. Some good nuggets of wisdom in here for sure!
November 2, 2024
Excellent read!
Wish I had this book 20 plus years ago! Another gem to add to the boom collection to return to again and again. Thank you!
Wish I had this book 20 plus years ago! Another gem to add to the boom collection to return to again and again. Thank you!
March 16, 2026
I really enjoyed this book. It’s an easy read, and I learned a lot that will help me in my journey with my horses.
April 13, 2026
Never too late
Musings on a life with horses and all the ways to continue the connection. Excellent read and inspiring for a 76 year old with a new OTTB (retired racehorse).
Musings on a life with horses and all the ways to continue the connection. Excellent read and inspiring for a 76 year old with a new OTTB (retired racehorse).
April 18, 2026
Inspiring!
November 16, 2023
Evolution
The definition of responsible horsemanship has changed drastically over the last few decades but it’s comforting to know that the instincts I had as a child are now becoming mainstream. If you have lived a lifetime loving and caring for horses this book will give you hope that it never has to stop.
The definition of responsible horsemanship has changed drastically over the last few decades but it’s comforting to know that the instincts I had as a child are now becoming mainstream. If you have lived a lifetime loving and caring for horses this book will give you hope that it never has to stop.
April 20, 2022
Good read
Good advice, plus nice stories about horses, his riding career, and good vignettes from people who have experienced beginning. Could have more pictures
Good advice, plus nice stories about horses, his riding career, and good vignettes from people who have experienced beginning. Could have more pictures
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