by Kathryn Kincannon

Dear Alpha Mare,

Do mares go through PMS? I know that I am not the easiest to get along with during my own hormonal/emotional changes and symptoms, and I can’t otherwise explain my usually mild-mannered mare becoming witchy, touchy, and easily upset every month for a few days.

Can you elaborate on this, and tell me what I can do to make it easier on her?

Feeling her Pain
continue reading "Keeping a Balanced Sensibility"

by Julie Smith

The next time you share an elevator with a Miniature horse, or walk into a hospital and see a horse standing in the lobby, Hearts and Hooves is probably in action.

An Edmonton-area organization, Hearts and Hooves brings Miniature horses indoors to benefit people of all ages who may be terminally ill, elderly, learning or physically disabled, or emotionally troubled.
continue reading "Hearts & Hooves: A special kind of therapy"

by John Lewis

A young woman led a handsome gray Arabian into the training arena. After reaching the centre, she let out about 15 ft of longe rein and started to make kissing sounds.

The animal then shuffled into a half-hearted trot on a very irregular circle. Within moments, the woman bent down and started throwing small lumps of compacted dirt toward the horse’s shoulder to keep him out on the circle and to ask for more impulsion.

The horse immediately spooked and started charging around in a canter leaving the owner to regain some form of control by digging her heels into the ground and leaning back on the rein like a water skier, but it was futile. The horse never worked properly for the rest of the session.
continue reading "Longeing: It’s not as easy as it looks"

By: Dan and Jenn Alliban, Kaliber Equine Services

Saturday, February 3, proved to be the beginning of an adventure. When my husband Dan, our hired help Jen, and I arrived home to our farm Kaliber Equine Services in Didsbury at 8:45 pm, we decided to check the horses in the barn.

“Loving Art” (Art) owned by Jerry and Sharon Renkers of Lil Dude Ranch in Surrey, BC, was two weeks overdue and ready to foal any day and she had started to wax earlier that day. At about 9:00 p.m. her water broke, so we decided to wait around to watch her foal, as Jen had never seen a mare foal before.
continue reading "The Miracle of Twins"

by Falon Phillips

The buzz around Rocky Mountain Show Jumping outside Calgary, AB, is not the horses, the last big show, or the latest big name to appear in the ring.

The new feature that is drawing people from miles around and flooding the rumour mill is Silica and cotton, or what is otherwise known as the footing in their indoor ring.
continue reading "New arena footing worth its weight in gold"

With the countdown on, Team Canada is making its final preparations for its attendance at the 2007 Ridley Polocrosse World Cup. The competition will be held over a weeklong tournament from April 23 to 29 in Warwick, Queensland, Australia.

Australia, the defending champion, will be host to seven competing nations from Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabwe.
continue reading "Canada’s Polocrosse Players head ‘Down Under’"

Alberta trick rider extraordinaire Sally Bishop has agreed to do 32 performances at the California State Fair and Exposition’s Cavalcade of Horses, an evening performance filled with equestrian acts. The show takes place in August in Sacramento, California.

Bishop was profiled in the April 2005 issue of Horses All when she was on tour with Cavalia, Cirque du Soleil’s grand scale celebration of the horse while it toured North America.
continue reading "Alberta trick riders a real treat"