News, of sorts.     This episode will be most interesting if you are listening to it around the time it’s published. The show has been on an unplanned production break over the last several months because Abby has had […]

“A horse, a horse! My Kingdom for a horse!” Having lost his mount, standing amid the chaos of war that August day in a Leicestershire field, Richard Plantagenet, third of that name to sit on the throne of England, knew the value of a horse in battle. A solider on a horse is more than a human sitting on an animal. Mounting the steed blends and multiplies both of their capabilities, combining the horse’s size, power, range, and mobility with man’s cunning, adaptability, and sadly rich...

Across cultures and throughout time, tales and legends from around the world show us a clear set of universal character types, or archetypes. These characters are so universal that the psychologist Carl Jung developed his theory of personality around them. Among Jung’s archetypes you will find such regulars as The Innocent, The Warrior, The Lover, and The Outlaw. For Jung, these characters represent the basic themes of human experience, and so, they connect directly to our own emotions. Of...

We know that genetics is the science of heredity. It’s likely common knowledge that in the last half-century, human understanding of that science has exploded. Each year, the pool of knowledge grows, so that now, humans, working in a laboratory, can manipulate the genetic material stored in organisms already living or yet to be born. As long as humans have been producing plants and animals for their own needs, we have known that the young would resemble their parents in a variety of ways....

This is the story of how a decision was made, with all the best intentions and for all the right reasons, to withdraw the prescription drug pergolide mesylate from the market in 2007. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made the announcement through its usual channels, intending to protect the health of human Parkinson's Disease patients. At the time, nobody at the FDA knew that this would put the lives of tens of thousands of elderly horses at risk. They would find out soon...

This concludes our story about Eadweard Muybridge, telling how he and Leland Stanford formed a collaboration that would forever change the world through a match made in technological heaven. The project was conceived, managed, and funded by Stanford, the railroad tycoon and former governor of California who was known to the political cartoonists as "The Octopus." The daily work of the project - including obsessive attention to the details of the art and science of it all - was overseen by...

This is the first part of a story that combines art, technology, industry, science, and horses. In this episode, we take a look at 19th Century America, through the lens of a burgeoning technology. Abby draws together threads from the personal life of Eadweard Muybridge, the early years of the State of California, the construction of the transcontinental railroad, and of course a study of their connection to horses. The landscape photographer known as Helios was known by many names over...

We conclude our story of Reckless, a native Korean mare who became a United States Marine. This episode tells how this extraordinary mare made a life in the United States after the Korean War, and how she has been honored by the U.S. Marines, the government of South Korea, and others. The first two parts of the story are told in Episode 2 Flame of the Morning, and Episode 3 Pride of the Marines. Many animals have given military service over the centuries, but this one was unique. She...

We continue the story of Reckless, a native Korean mare who became a United States Marine. This episode goes to the core of this extraordinary mare's life with her "herd" of Marines. The first part of the story is told in Episode 2, Flame of the Morning. How is it possible that a horse would so selflessly sacrifice her own safety and comfort, often working alone (and astoundingly hard) under enemy fire and out of sheer bondedness with her fellow Marines? Unlike them, she couldn't grasp the...

This episode explores the bond between humans and horses through an unusual story from the middle of the twentieth century. In this first episode of a three-part story, we introduce you to a little horse whom the U.S. Marines acquired, named, trained, employed, and lived with, during the last months of the Korean War. We trace the last wave of global decolonization; the effort of the United States to step into the void left by the collapsing colonial powers and assert global dominance; and...

This is a podcast about people and horses. Each episode, we tell a true story that connects to horses, horse people, or the horse business. When you put people and horses in the same place, there are always going to be great stories to be told. There are backstories that tell how things happened, stories from the past that help us to understand the present, and of course stories that will make you laugh, or cry, or just say wow. Landscapes, material traces, history beneath my feet,...