A journal from the barn
This is Marshall.
I bought him in 2005.
I have owned him for twenty-one years and I am still, on a regular basis, out of my depth. That is most of what this journal is about.
A journal from the barn
I have owned him for twenty-one years and I am still, on a regular basis, out of my depth. That is most of what this journal is about.
Who's writing
I'm Morgan. I'm an adult amateur, which is a real category in this sport and, in my case, also just an accurate description. I have a corporate job, an eight-year-old, and two horses I fit around both. I've been around horses since I was a child and I still get things wrong constantly.
I write it down anyway. What things cost, what I get wrong, and most importantly, what a horse teaches you the moment you stop pretending you have it figured out.
If you've ever loved a horse more than you actually knew what to do with, you're in the right place.
The heart of it
Everything I think about keeping a horse well lives somewhere between these two.
Twenty-one years, four states, and one official file that describes a horse I have never met.
Meet Marshall →
He arrived with better paperwork than any horse I have owned. It still could not tell me the thing I needed to know.
Follow Harvey →I have had one of these horses for twenty-one years and the other for less than one, and both of them keep making it clear how much I still do not know. I have stopped treating that as something to hide. It is just the job.
From the journal
Seven months, about $26,400, and the purchase price was the least of it.
I asked my trainer something embarrassing this week, and the answer changed how I ride.
Why a horse with no history made me obsessive about keeping one.
The letter
A letter every other week: what Marshall and Harvey are up to, what I'm learning, and what things actually cost. No spam, no selling. Just the honest version.
Every other Sunday · unsubscribe anytime
I'm also slowly building a tool called HorseStory, a way to keep a horse's whole record in one place. It grew out of this journal. More on it as it's ready.