Down gravel roads in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, you can judge the changing of the seasons and the progression of time by the corn. Every July, throngs of teenagers head into the fields to detassel corn. It’s a rite of passage in Chatham-Kent — hats and gloves, thermoses full of water, corn rash, and heat stroke — all for summer wages. By August 1, Emancipation Day, the seed corn has been detasseled, and stands of sweet corn are speckled along roads and laneways to farms. A bell rings to signify the day, celebrating freedom. The rest of the corn in the area, mostly grown for silage, has reached toward the sun, and soon the harvest will come and the green of these fields will brown, marking the passage of time.

It’s common for riders to compete at high levels today without advanced horsemanship knowledge. A rider’s success in the show ring seems to have greater value than their horse management skills, but that wasn’t always the case. Many of Canada’s former top riders credit Canadian Pony Club (CPC) for their horsemanship knowledge and acknowledge its importance to their success. The horse industry has since changed and now, riders rely on coaches to know what’s best for their horses.

Recent research shows that increasing parental age at conception has a detrimental effect on race speed. When a split-second can separate the horses at the end of the race, the slightest advantage can give the winner the edge. Research from the University of Exeter found that the speed of Thoroughbred horses declines as the age of their parents when they were conceived increases.

Polocrosse players in Alberta and Saskatchewan are gearing up for a full season of competition in 2022. “We’ve got an active group here. Last weekend, we had 10 people playing 10 horses,” says Gayle Smith, the secretary of Bridge City Polocrosse Association (BCPA) near Saskatoon. She says there are also eight kids learning the game and “they’re really doing well with their little cow horses.”