By: Bob Goddard

I used to hate tack stores. To me, they were boring and irrelevant … and expensive. I would trail my wife and daughters like a secret service agent ready to pounce on any situation that threatened the cheque book.

Of course, this was back in the days when I operated under the totally erroneous assumption that anything I said had the slightest bearing on what they actually bought:

“Is that the cheap bridle?” I would ask with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, Dad …” they nodded as they held up the padded snaffle bridle with buckle-end reins, carefully concealing the $299.99 price tag with one of their little thumbs, “It is.”
continue reading "Tack Stores are Fun!"

by: Ron Anderson

We made it. We survived the futurity season. The thrills, the great, new young horses, their successes that elated fans, owners, trainers, and lopers and their adolescent mistakes that disappointed that same group.

When I say “we” survived, I mostly mean me. I’m happy ‘cuz I survived an up-close-and-personal, first-hand experience of the futurity season.
continue reading "A Look Back at the Season"

by: Bob Goddard

To a casual observer like me, horses are not the most communicative animals in the world. Beyond the occasional snort or squeal, I’ve never heard much from them. It doesn’t bother me. I can’t think of anything to say to them either.

It’s even questionable how much they communicate with each other. Not very much, I think. Horses like to stand next to each other and run around together, but there doesn’t seem to be much discussion.

My horse loving, college student daughter, Jamie, says there is a chance that I might possibly be almost nearly totally mistaken about this. A more precise quote would be, “Dad, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
continue reading "Horse Incommunicado"

by: Bob Goddard

I’ve heard people say that you can make money off horses. I don’t get it. Our daughters’ horses have done nothing but cost us money.

We pay for their hay and grain. We pay for their barn. We pay for their tack and saddles and show clothes. We pay for the vet and farrier. We pay … oh … now I get it.

Okay, so the rule must be: you can make money off horses providing you don’t own one. But does it have to be that way?
continue reading "Make Money with Horses?"

by Bruce A. Roy

Did you see it? Could you believe it? Twenty-two Clydesdales playing American football. It actually happened in the Sawtooth Mountain Range in Idaho’s National Forest, where a Superbowl commercial for Budweiser beer was filmed.

This equine football match culminated two years planning by the ad agency responsible for marketing Anheuser Busch products. It was the result of a “crash course” of six months training for 26 Budweiser Clydesdales.

Training that included two 11-horse teams lining up and charging each other, which redefined the term “contact sport.” Kicking field goals, catching the ball and falling were all part of the training. The result was the 60-second commercial seen during the National Football League’s televised 2006 Superbowl.
continue reading "Now, that’s a kick! Superbowl Clydesdales"

By: Bob Goddard

I’m not exactly sure how or when it happened, but my daughter Jamie has become a fervent advocate of a thing called “dressage.”

As I understand it, dressage is an equestrian event with roots in antiquity. Like democracy, philosophy, and the Gyro sandwich, it was invented by the ancient Greeks and handed down to us via less-ancient Europeans. It is, by far, the most perplexing form of showing I have ever witnessed.

According to The Great Book of Horse Knowledge (a.k.a. The Great Book), dressage takes its name from the famous 18th century French poet, inventor, and part-time comedian Pierre Dressage.
continue reading "An idiot’s guide to dressage"

by: Ron Anderson

We get our mail down the road in a box. It’s a very typical, rural situation. However, the location of the mailbox doesn’t seem to be on one of my usual flight paths when I leave home. As a result, “Box 7” is sometimes packed full.

The mail delivery person hasn’t made a personal appearance at my house to address this situation, but I bet the owners of Box 7 have been cussed out a time or two when they have had to jam one more day’s worth of mail into that space.

This time of year, in addition to the countless newsprint flyers advertising tremendous retail opportunities for groceries, electronics and don’t-pay-until-next-millennium furniture, the horse publications are also large enough to herniate (I think you can make hernia a verb) a full-grown man.

(Editor’s Note: No, Ron, herniate isn’t a word, but hernia is, so is hernias, herniated, and even herniation … but, sadly, not herniate).

Anyone in the horse business knows that winter is when mare owners are making breeding decisions, and stallion owners want to be sure their stud is included in those plans. Result: a lot of ads.
continue reading "Planned Parenthood"