Can you keep your horse on the bit through basic dressage movements? Is he comfortable negotiating difficult terrain while hacking out? Can he handle a course of small jumps with ease? If you answered yes to all three, you’ve...
On-the-aids goes out the window when you ask for canter. Your horse trots faster and faster until he finally plunges into canter, which he maintains only for a few unbalanced moments before he falls back into that equally not-fun-at-all...
Getting out on the trail gives you and your horse an opportunity to enjoy a change of scenery or a new challenge. But being out on the trail also means that you may be on your own if faced...
Shady, meandering bridle trails, vast stretches of deserted beaches and granite-strewn switchbacks high above the timber line may be as close to heaven as a person can get and still sit in the saddle, right? Maybe. If your horse...
Nobody has opened more gates in competition with greater success than Cynthia Cantleberry. This Paso Robles, California, trainer has amassed an unprecedented 14 AQHA World Championship trail titles in her career, which makes her the winningest trail competitor in...
One thing that never changes about horsemanship is that most riders search endlessly for ways to improve the performance of their mounts. Not quite satisfied with what we're getting out of our horses, we'll try this technique or that...
We've all heard it, maybe even said it ourselves: "If I could afford a $20,000 horse who moved like that I could win, too!" And to be perfectly honest, perhaps that's even partly true for some events, where championship...
Stories of settling the West are filled with images of resilient horses crossing the desert plains. It was these legends that began to spur discussion among 59-year-old Wendell Robie and some friends. In the 1950s, few people believed that...
We’ve all heard the jokes and the ridicule. We’ve heard western pleasure horses called peanut rollers, zombies and creepers. It’s been claimed that time-elapsed photography is the best way to determine if they are actually moving around the arena,...
Go to any barrel racing or pole bending competition, and you’re bound to see at least a few horses spinning in circles, out of control or refusing to enter the in-gate. Their worried riders may try to back the...
