By Lindsay Grice - When I have a client who is looking for a horse, I often need to remind her to shop with her head and not her heart. Colour, cuteness, or a fancy pedigree must take second place to other more basic qualities: temperament, tolerance, training, talent, and soundness.

Horses “live what they learn and learn what they live,” said the late Ray Hunt. It means that a horse will accept what he is taught and if it is consistent he will develop life habits. It also means that much of what a horse learns does not come from a trainer but from basic, everyday handling.

For riding coaches and horse trainers, horse-related accidents are often not a matter of “if”, but “when.” Given the dangers associated with equine activities, accidents such as falls are inevitable. Although coaches and trainers should ultimately be focused on offering the very best services possible, they must also be aware of the importance of risk-management and protecting themselves from legal risks.

By Lindsay Grice - You’ll find that in the course of training your horses, you’ll be essentially asking them questions, and making it difficult to make the wrong choice, and easy and pleasurable to make the right choice. The challenge for a horse trainer is to find the perfect balance of pressure and reward for each individual horse.

If history was written on the back of a horse as inscribed at Kentucky’s Horse Park, then the history of Britain and its transportation system was written on the back of a Fell pony. By any definition, these versatile equines have been doing their fair share of heavy lifting for thousands of years.

By Caitlin MacDonald - Many regard the Miniature Horse as an oddity or as a novelty. When a person first encounters a Miniature Horse, he will often exclaim one of two things: “Look at the cute little pony!” or “What do you DO with them?”

By Kentucky Equine Research - In the world of feeds and feeding, processing has become a dirty word among horsemen. The impression that any type of processing is counterproductive, detrimental, or ill-advised is a disturbing trend.

The containment of your horse is a very important and serious business, and doing the job right the first time is worth every bit of effort and expense you lay out. When planning your fencing project, try to eliminate as many potential problems as possible and keep the safety of the horse uppermost in mind.

Whether you’re a serious back country rider, or simply interested in learning practical trail tips, Blue Creek’s Trail Riding and Packing DVD is for you. In this DVD, Stan Walchuk Jr., author of the Trail Tips column in Canadian Horse Journal, takes the information from his articles and extensive experience in trail riding and condenses it into an entertaining four-hour-long video.