
Moorlands Tortilas and Edward Gal
In another explosive performance, Edward Gal and Moorlands Tortilas received a stunning 90.7% in the Kur at the European Championships at Windsor.

Moorlands Tortilas and Edward Gal
In another explosive performance, Edward Gal and Moorlands Tortilas received a stunning 90.7% in the Kur at the European Championships at Windsor.

Burghley Horse Trials XC Course 2009
It’s the next best thing to being there. The Burghley Horse Trials website has an aerial map of the cross country course and gives you the chance to “ride along” with Captain Mark Phillips as he drives the course and looks at the fences.
Several years ago I had the idea to build a product review web site for equestrian products. I noticed that equine bulletin boards were full of requests for comments on saddles, different feeds, bit choices and more. I thought it would be helpful to have all that information on one site, organized in a way that made it easy find information.
In today’s tight economy every purchase that I make for my horse undergoes extra scrutiny. If I want to buy a saddle, or try a supplement or medication, or buy a helmet, I find it very helpful to read about others’ experiences. When I looked for a site that offered this type of information, I couldn’t find anything that was like I envisioned.
Research shows that user reviews have the greatest influence in a buying decision. People value the opinions of their peers even more than single reviews by ‘experts.’ That makes quite a bit of sense because with items such a saddles, personal preference plays a large role in someone’s satisfaction. I’m usually leery of testimonials on manufacturers’ websites, too.
I spent a year researching review sites and thinking about how I could make a site that offered a unique perspective (if you like make up and perfume, check out my favorite: www.makeupalley.com). I looked at review sites across many different industries and cherry picked the features that I thought were most compelling.
The beta version of EquineProductsReview.com went live last September. I got a lot of good feedback and I spent time working with the site and making changes. In fact, I’m still making changes but I figured that the best strategy was to put it out and let it evolve as people use it.
I hope that my readers here will share some of their knowledge and experience on EPR. As they used to say in Chicago, vote early and vote often!

My Wintec Pro Jump is comfortable, balanced and requires almost no care!
One of the beauties of going synthetic is that care is minimal and easy. They have all been extremely durable and showed little to no wear. Synthetic saddles are pretty impervious to sweat or rain and they don’t really show dirt.
I love having a synthetic saddle for riding in the rain. I’ve soaked my leather saddles a few times and they always need some TLC afterward. If you don’t clean an oil them properly, the leather ends up stiff and dried out or covered with rain spots.
With a synthetic saddle, the elements are not an issue. So, toss the oil and the saddle soap. Not only are they unnecessary, but using these products isn’t good for a synthetic saddle. Here’s what I’ve found works well:
Wipe the sadde with a damp cloth after riding.

Horses, bicyclists and joggers can co-exist peacefully on the trails if they follow some basic rules and show some mutual respect.
On Sunday I went for an early morning ride to escape the heat of the day. A few dozen other people had the same idea and I found myself and my horse sharing the trail and the roads with bicyclists, joggers and baby carriages.
Most of these folks were easy to spot and they approached slowly and with enough background noise that we had plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. Not so with one of the cyclists.
She came around a blind corner from my behind my horse and whipped by at what seemed like top speed, just to my left. She was close enough that I could have reached out and touched her. I didn’t hear her until she was just about to pass me and I had a heart-stopping moment where I hoped my horse would not react badly.
People who are not familiar with horses seem to have forgotten that these large animals have both a well developed flight response and powerful hind legs which often come with steel shoes. If a frightened horse kicks out the outcome for the cyclist or jogger who comes up unexpectly can be bad. And if a horse bolts into the path of a bike trying to pass at 30 mph, it won’t be pretty for anyone involved. In the spring I was riding with a friend in one of our state parks. He told me that a mountain biker had come down a hill too fast and had run straight into the back of his horse! No one was injured but his horse sure looked nervous when we came across cyclists on the trial.
Now my horse is generally pretty good about bicycles and joggers. This time, he was fine. But the experience left me shaking my head and annoyed. Just then, a second cyclist appeared behind me and called out, asking if it was okay to ride by me. As she came up to me she apologized for her friend and explained that the other woman had never ridden near horses and didn’t understand the etiquette of passing one. We had a nice conversation and she told me she would help her friend better understand how to ride safely around horses. It completely changed my feeling about cyclists — in a good way. Likewise, today on the trail a jogger came up behind me. She called out to find out if it was okay to pass. She asked for advice on how to pass a horse and I said that the most important thing was never to come up quickly behind one.
The answer lies in education and training.
If more cyclists and joggers understood some key points about horses, they could easily modify their behavior to make them less frightening to the horses and reduce the chance of an accidents.
Riders too must accept responsibility for making their horses trail worthy.
With some mutual respect and education we can make our roads and trails safe and fun for everyone who wants to use them.

The one rein stop can be used as a time out.
While I’ve always thought of the one rein stop as an emergency brake (Installing an emergency brake: How to perform a one rein stop), I had a lesson recently with a trainer who suggested that I use it on Freedom as a way of recapturing his attention. Kind of a horsey time out.
It started when the other horse in the ring, a mare to whom Freedom is very attached, left and hacked back to the barn. His focus was on her, not on me and he was jigging, snatching at the reins and generally not paying attention.
My trainer suggested that I try a one-rein stop, keeping him stationary until he relaxed, stopping looking for his buddy, and focused on me. We worked on it at the walk, trot and canter. She explained that this was a tool that I could use when Freedom jigged on the trail, if he rooted and pulled on the reins or if he started to flatten and run at a jump.
It’s a technique that I’ve been using since then and with quite a bit of success. Most of the time he’s very good; but there are times when he needs a “time out” to quiet his mind. I don’t want to actively punish him when he’s agitated. I know that will cause his behavior to escalate. Instead, the one rein stop gives him a chance to calm down. It is a punishment because he doesn’t particularly like standing with his head touching my foot. But it’s a passive punishment. He’s figured out pretty quickly that he would rather behave than be in time out.
One thing my trainer reinforced with me is that I should give him his head and let him choose his behavior. If I asked him to walk, I should let him continue on a free rein. If he jigs, go straight into a one rein stop, but don’t pick at his mouth or keep him on a tight rein. It gets me out of the habit of constantly correcting him, a habit that would eventually cause him to tune me out.
The 9th race at Saratoga on August 22nd was a nail biter. The first six place finishers crossed the wire together, with the difference between first place and sixth place only a neck. Talk about a photo finish!
And in the end, the favorite, Grassy, won. Cherokee Speed was second and Good Prospect came in third.

Scotch Bar Time is one of the most well respected Quarter Horse Stallions.
At 4 p.m. today Governer Rick Perry will sign an official declaration making the American Quarter Horse the official horse of Texas. Read more . . .