It’s a familiar story. A horse-crazy child gets her first pony. She takes riding lessons, excels at local shows, finds the discipline of her dreams, and goes on to compete at Regionals. Then she gets her off-the-track Thoroughbred and continues with lessons and clinics while she trains her gelding, hoping to earn a place on the provincial team and eventually compete at Nationals. But along comes high school graduation, university, career choices.

Seated at the head of the quiet classroom, I watched the students in the classes I teach write their Equine Behaviour and Equine Business final exams, noting the happy faces of smug recognition (“Yes, I studied that!”) and the winces (“Rats, I’d hoped that material wouldn’t be on the test”). I empathize with them. I know what it’s like to sit in the “test seat” – as a student in university and, more recently, writing judging exams. And as a competitive rider, every horse show is a test.

One rein riding is simply riding your horse without a bridle, using instead a regular halter and lead, with the lead as your single rein. It’s a simple tack change, but a great way to brush up on the basics with all levels of horses. It will very quickly reveal to you how well started your horse really is.

In 2015, Jessica McNutt, who lives with her family in Truro, Nova Scotia and competes in hunter classes at the amateur level, was approached by Dalhousie University Agriculture Campus to provide volunteer coaching for their equestrian team as their (then) current instructor was no longer available. The school did not want to lose the program and, as a Dalhousie alumnus, McNutt was eager to offer her assistance. She had attended the university for six years, then returned as a distance student to obtain her Masters in Social Work in 2017.

A Lesson in Building Trust - A First Nations teacher and horsewoman, Bella Capoose, had expressed the desire to go to the mountains again by horseback as she had done as a young girl. Bella’s friends, outfitters Dave and Joyce Dorsey, made the trip into the Mackenzie Valley of Tweedsmuir Park possible so that Bella could rekindle the memories of family and friends and a way of life that had depended heavily upon horses.

There are some important concepts to understand when actively helping your horse to become calm and relaxed under your leadership. To actively change behaviour in your horse is to be a part of the process and requires all of your attention with an attitude of empathy towards what your horse is going through.

A rider that is too heavy for a horse could cause temporary lameness and signs of pain, according to recent research.The potential health and welfare implications of a high rider:horse bodyweight ratios were explored in a pilot study led by Dr. Sue Dyson, Head of Clinical Orthopaedics at the Animal Health Trust’s Centre for Equine Studies, Newmarket in the UK.

The words Finally a Horse Back Ride in Cuba jumped out at me when searching through the Unicorn Trails website. The Tabaqueros Ride going right through Valle Viñales, my favourite part of the island, sparked visions of oxen-powered carts, tobacco fields, and memories of watching the sun burn off the mist in the valley of limestone mounds. Having lived in Cuba for just over two years in the mid-1990s, I had a strong desire to revisit the country to see how it had changed.

Nowhere in Canada will you find a more unique, self-contained ecosystem than the one found on Sable Island. Nestled in the 42 km arc of sand, 300 kilometers southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is an array of beaches, dunes, marram grass, wildflowers, shrub-heath, and ponds – which 300 bird species five species of seals, and 500 Sable Island horses call home. These horses came to the island during the dark days of deportation of the Acadian people 250 years ago.