Rejoice! Let’s be positive. Lawn mowing and those evil gopher rodents are just fond memories. On the downside, fall seemed to be only 30 minutes long before we went directly into stupid, cold winter.

I’ve been wearing my long-handled underwear for several months now (“Same pair?” you ask … now, now, that’s a bit too personal and maybe you don’t want to know!) I am trying to remain positive here.

This time of year, me and the lazy boy start eyeing one another in that fond relationship sort of way. It’s not an unhealthy thing. It’s where I think best. Now that’s my opinion (another thing about this time of year: I’m not that open to third party opinions so save your thoughts for another opportunity).
continue reading "Here’s to the ‘pit crews’"

by Roxanne Sapergia

Every November 2006, Edmonton, AB, hosts one of Canada’s premier livestock events. Farmfair International is a showcase for livestock where buyers, sellers, exhibitors, and spectators are treated to a vast array of events, demonstrations, sales and entertainment.

For the past two years, Farmfair International has added a Heritage Ranch Rodeo and a Working Cow Horse Competition to its ever-increasing lineup of equine events. With an increase in interest and prize money, this year’s contests were both entertaining and exciting as riders fought their way to the top of the leader board.
continue reading "Farmfair International 2006: Working Cow Horse & Heritage Ranch Rodeo"

What do NASA-operated satellites that are travelling thousands of miles away in space have to do with predicting the risk of West Nile virus infection for horses and humans in western Canada? For a group of veterinary epidemiologists, the connection is much closer than you think…
continue reading "Monitoring the West Nile virus … from Space"

A CT scan survey of the Egyptian King Tutankhamun has confirmed he was not murdered, and instead may have died following a fall from a horse or chariot, linking his untimely demise with a curious story preserved in the Jewish Talmud.

Tutankhamun was not murdered – that’s the official line from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities following a recent CT scan survey of his remains.

In contrast, there is now mounting evidence that the boy king died following a fall, a theory championed by Egyptological writers Andrew Collins and Chris Ogilvie-Herald.
continue reading "Did King Tut Die from a Horse Fall?"

‘Myterra Ranch is a family-based business owned and operated by Ed and Connie Masson and their son, Benjamin. Its core land base has been in the Masson family name for nearly 100 years.

Located in the rolling sand hills of east central Alberta, near the small towns of Cadogan and Metiskow, it is home to a Quarter Horse breeding program centered on the great stallion Pepinics Master.

The Masson’s strive to raise horses that are athletic, balanced, trainable, good looking and that have great dispositions. The horses grow up in native grass pastures developing their athletic ability as they run and play up and down the hills, dodging the occasional badger hole and buck brush patch.
continue reading "Myterra Ranch"

by Marcia King

To many people, cloning is a pretty creepy process: Taking cells from a donor animal, placing them into eggs that had their own genetic material removed, mechanically introducing the cell or fusing the two with a jolt of electricity, and voila! Life begins. The living embryo is then implanted in a mare for carrying to term.

But in the not very distant past, many considered organ transplantation and in vitro fertilization techniques (i.e., test tube babies) to be abominations, as well.
continue reading "The Truth About Cloning: Where we’re going and why"

by Garry Allison, The Horses, Rocky Mountain Turf Club

They call it the sport of kings, and on October 28 Max Gibb added five more kings to his Horsemen’s Wall of Fame in the Royal Ascot Betting Parlour in Lethbridge, AB.

“For a number of years we haven’t added anyone to the wall, and this fall we are catching up,” says Rocky Mountain Turf Club (RMTC) CEO Max Gibb. “At the start of the Fall Meet we added Ed Calfrobe and family, the Meeks family, Stan Marks and his family, and Dale “Digger” Mortensen.
continue reading "Five Added to Lethbridge Horsemen’s Wall of Fame"