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I wrote this piece for the Cambridge Careers Service: https://unicamcareers.edublogs.org/2021/04/14/this-was-my-first-rodeo-alice-whaley...

*This piece is a taster of my upcoming book on all things horse racing. Stay tuned for more. Subscribe free here* Seven Barrows has tides...

* Free subscriptions here * A week ago I didn’t know who Frankie Dettori was, and here I am, a young Cambridge graduate, ready for work...

Cowboys only exist in old westerns, right? Subscribe (free!) to hear when I publish new work: www.alicewhaley.com/subscribe Read about my...

* Free subscriptions here * Read: I Changed My Mind About Rodeo Read: The Rodeo Video from my Facebook page: Out of the Library, into the...

* Free subscription here* I slotted into the States like bread into a toaster. Life was snugger and warmer than it’s ever been, and for...

I’m as green to rodeo as the Montana grass is long. But, one way or another, I’ve collected my thoughts, trying on ideas like other peopl...

A cowboy grabs a leather strap between his teeth and pulls. The gauntlet is not thrown down, but strapped on, and it’s show time. Five...

“Shakespeare didn’t eat his breakfast this morning.” The academic in me always does a double take when the bearded cowboy makes offhand...

* Free subscription here* *Warning: This piece contains graphic content and images* Finally, the rain came. It all fell last night like a...

*Warning: This piece contains graphic content and images* There are hundreds of calves to brand on every ranch; thousands of cows to...

At the age of six, I remember being given a small book to read. I was at school in France at the time, and the book was called something like Le Weekend Extraordinaire. It was about a little girl who is home alone, and finds various exotic animals inside her house: a giraffe in the shower, an elephant in the fridge, and so on. Each time she finds an animal she exclaims, “C’est extraordinaire!” It becomes a kind of refrain in the book, like Alice’s repeated “Curiouser and curi

* Free subscriptions here * Read about Uruguay here Video from my Facebook page: Out of the Library, into the Saddle...

If all went according to plan, Guayito and I were to ride to El Foyel together the day before ‘La Fiesta de Caballos’ (the horse party)....

There’s a big Repsol garage near La Capitana, Marta’s mother’s farm. RESTAURANTE blinks over the motorway in the early morning light....

*Warning: this piece contains graphic images and content.* The stableyard on Thursday evening felt just like those wintery nights I...

I’m coming to the end of my second week at the picadero in Sanlúcar. The novelty is wearing off, and so is the skin on my fingers. I’m...

Today Marta took me to her mother’s farm, aptly named La Capitana. Aurora Algarra is one of the only women in the whole of Spain who...

* Warning: this piece contains graphic content and images. * Six o’clock this afternoon brought me and Guillermo to La Cobatilla, the...

Until Sunday evening, when I arrived in Sanlucar, I had had no contact with the man who owns and runs the picadero, Guillermo Macias...