Like humans, horses can be hypersensitive to a wide variety of allergen triggers including insect bites, pollens, dust and molds, chemicals in crop sprays, hay dust, stall bedding materials, wool (sometimes in saddle pad and blanket products), grooming sprays, shampoos, synthetic materials such as neoprene found in boots and pads, medications, supplements, and some ingredients in feed pellets.

This article shares the careers and stories of extraordinary horse industry builders who blazed new trails and took Canada’s equine industry to new heights, while at the same time motivating and inspiring the next generation of equestrians. Driving the growth and success of Canada’s horse industry are thousands of people who demonstrate an amazing level of skill, talent, dedication, diversity, and vision. This feature profiles just a few of these luminary individuals who have helped place Canada among the very best of the world’s equestrian nations.

If you watch a cowboy at work today, forget that it’s the 21st century, and skip back in time to catch a glimpse of a working cowboy in the 1870s, they would look surprisingly similar. They would be doing basically the same cattle management tasks, be dressed in similar clothing, have similar core skills, and be thriving with the same horsemanship abilities that have made cowboying one of the most enduring careers for centuries.

Researchers at the New York Institute of Technology, College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) are suggesting that, in fact, the four side toes did not completely disappear but remain even today as remnants still present within the horse’s modern lower leg and hoof. Scientists widely accept that the essentially redundant splint bones – the small bones found along the outer sides of the metacarpal or cannon bone - are remnants of the second and fourth toes.

One of the most phenomenal and successful bareback competition horses ever was Coconut Roll. Born in 1993 (by Wild Strawberry out of Rolly Polly) at the 22,000-acre Stampede Ranch near Hanna, Alberta, this superbly athletic mare inspired respect, excitement, and no doubt a bit of fear in every cowboy who lowered himself onto her back in the chutes of the Calgary Stampede.

In the July/August 2017 issue of Canadian Horse Journal, we celebrated Canada’s 150th anniversary with stories of 20 exceptional horses that have reflected our values and fired our national pride. One of those horses was Burmese.

Whether or not to give supplements to horses has always been the topic of lively and enduring conversation. But, there is a growing community of riders and horse owners who choose to provide their horses with the supplemental balance of vitamins, minerals, and trace elements to help with health issues and augment the well-being of their animals.

Every day, thousands of horses are shod as part of normal maintenance of foot care. But have you ever wondered whether the placement of a horseshoe affects foot skeleton stress in racehorses and performance horses? At Australia’s University of Queensland School of Biomedical Sciences, research team leader Dr. Olga Panagiotopoulou says that musculoskeletal injury is one of the main animal welfare concerns in the racehorse industry.

It is common knowledge that a horse must achieve optimal physical fitness in order to deliver a peak performance, but what kind of impact does psychological condition have on equine performance? In a competition environment, equine athletes in any discipline may show symptoms of stress, but to what degree does the expression of that stress affect the quality of a jumping round, dressage test, reining pattern, etc.?