Reading Time: 4 minutes Planning and preparation make for a good road trip — especially if your mode of transportation is 30 horses pulling eight wagons. Neil Dimmock needed porta-potties, campers, dozens of volunteers (and enough food to keep them happy), generous landowners and sponsors, a stack of permits, hundreds of gallons of water, tons of hay and oats, […] Read more
Neil Dimmock’s big dream — and his really big wagon train
Mastering the art of longeing horses
Horse Health: There is more to this form of training than going in circles
Reading Time: 3 minutes At its most basic level, longeing (pronounced lunging) is a seemingly simple exercise. It asks a horse to move in circles around a handler. However, execution of this exercise can be either very beneficial or very detrimental to the horse, depending on “how” it is done. How a horse carries its body as it travels […] Read more
Lethbridge horseman founds first equine-training college in Canada
Ernie Knibb is financing the $7.5-million project and expects to have the school up and running in late March or early April
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s the first of its kind in Canada — and a labour of love for one Lethbridge-area horseman. Would-be horse trainers are already beating down Ernie Knibb’s door, and he hasn’t even opened the door to the Lethbridge Community Equine College. The private college, located just outside Lethbridge on Highway 25, will be the first […] Read more
Whoa — don’t rush in when buying your first horse
First-time horse buyers can be tripped up in many ways, says trainer Roy Sturgeon
Reading Time: 2 minutes Roy Sturgeon goes on Kijiji four or five times a day to find his next horse. And with the lifetime of horsemanship under his belt, he can afford to be a little less picky than the average buyer. “Most of the horses I buy, I buy thinking there’s some sort of hole in them that […] Read more
Too much practice doesn’t make perfect
Horse health: Like humans, horses are prone to repetitive strain injuries from doing one thing too often
Reading Time: 3 minutes Developing muscle memory through practice is important to learning a skill, yet overuse of muscles repeatedly in one particular way or pattern leads to musculoskeletal and nervous system debilitation. Too much practice can be as equally detrimental to performance as too little practice. “Specialized” movement patterns can become firmly entrenched in the musculoskeletal system, sacrificing […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
