Sunday, October 13, 2013

Horses in The Washington Post

By Kitson

I've noticed that The Washington Post has done a really nice job covering horse topics recently, like the lead photo in this beautiful essay about Virginia written by my neighbor Mike Ruane. My story about a young rider with Cavalia's "Odysseo" and three other young riders was in the paper today. I had originally pitched my editor on a bunch of kids hoping she'd pick one, but instead we did all four of them with a focus on the theme of how much work is (happily) involved with horses.

The rescue horse girl (Emily Benton) will also be featured in stories I'm doing for upcoming issues of Horse Illustrated and Young Rider magazines. It has been fun to highlight the story of Chino's rescue and his connection with his girl. Here's the awesome video that compelled me to share their story with as many people as I could. It was also really great to highlight the super work of Days End Farm Horse Rescue in Woodbine, MD.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Behind the Scenes with Cavalia in DC

By Kitson

This morning I had the chance to step into the world of Cavalia before the show opens on October 9. I interviewed a young rider (more on that later) and got to watch the horses' first workout since arriving in DC after two weeks of vacation after their Boston show. Check it out:
The tents have a special suspension system and stand 125 feet tall (the size of a 10-story building).


Coming off a two-week vacation can be tough.

The first day back to work involved 100 percent ground work.

The show has 64 horses representing 11 different breeds including paints, quarter horses, Arabians, Appaloosas, and Pura Raza Espanol.
Cute buckskin wanted to stop and chat.

Change of direction... adorable horse on the left who caught my eye every time he came around (that's him below, also).


The 60+ horses of the show are all geldings and stallions from come from Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands, Germany, the U.S. and Canada.