Fall is here! The leaves are changing and the temperatures are cooling off. It’s hard to imagine that such a pretty time of year could possibly be harmful to our horses. However, fall leaves can pose a potentially deadly threat. The following are trees that are highly toxic to horses.

It’s now nearly 150 years since the Great Chicago Fire, which, according to popular legend, broke out after Catherine O’Leary’s infamous milking cow kicked over a lantern in the barn on the night of October 8, 1871. The resulting barn fire, aided by the wind, destroyed three square miles of the City of Chicago, killing approximately 300 people, destroying 18,000 buildings, and leaving 100,000 people – a third of the city’s population – homeless before it was finally brought under control the next day.

Time off is an inevitable part of a horse's life, whether due to bad weather, personal schedules, or other factors. However, how horse owners manage these breaks can significantly affect their horse’s health, soundness, and performance over time. Research by veterinary colleges and experts on movement science reveals that large fluctuations in fitness can harm a horse’s well-being, especially for those beyond the middle of their teens. Extended periods of low activity—especially those spanning a month or more-can weaken supportive tissues and muscles crucial to posture. When training resumes, horses may use improper substitutive muscles and positions, leading to poor performance, injury, or a lack of training progress. To help you optimize downtime and keep your horse on track, here are three essential guidelines to coordinate breaks effectively and even use them to enhance your horse's training.

In January 2003, Penny Woodworth, who lives on Vancouver Island, BC, was taking a jumping lesson. “Smallish jumps, nothing exciting. My long-time error is looking down, which I did that day. My horse stopped, and I tumbled off. Not a bad fall at all, except that I landed with one butt-cheek on the ground pole. I got up and carried on, but I was crooked and stayed that way. After a week or so, still riding crooked and feeling shooting pains down my right leg, I went for physiotherapy. I had dislocated my sacroiliac (SI) joint. Regular physio treatments and exercises finally got it to stay in place and I continued riding.

Visionary, humanitarian, force of nature, mother - The horse community is full of everyday heroes. Sometimes those everyday heroes inspire someone to give back in such an incredible capacity that it creates an exponentially stronger community — one that, at the start, is hard to envision. Little did the horse community in 1970s Ontario know that by embracing a recently immigrated, newly widowed mother of four, they would be inspiring a horse community visionary who would change the face and accessibility of horsemanship throughout the world.

Why your words matter more than you think - If you’ve been following along with my sport psychology articles, you’ll know that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the power of our thoughts. One of the core skills in sport psychology is learning to use positive self-talk — challenging unhelpful or negative thoughts and intentionally replacing them with thoughts that support us. It’s a skill that helps athletes build confidence, stay composed, and approach challenges with a problem-solving mindset.

Ron Turcotte, the Canadian jockey whose name is forever linked with Secretariat’s historic Triple Crown victory in 1973, has died at age 84. His family, through longtime business partner and friend Leonard Lusky, said he passed away of natural causes on August 22, 2025 at his home in Drummond, New Brunswick.

On the way home from teaching a clinic, I sat at the ferry terminal reflecting on the weekend. The group of horses I worked with was diverse—ranging from steady old geldings to green yearlings, and a few that had been labelled as showing “problem behaviour.”

Protein is important for general well-being, health, and performance of horses. It is a major component of body tissues, second only to water. Aside from the inclusion in tissues, protein is also essential in the formation of enzymes, hormones, and antibodies. The vast use of protein in the body highlights its importance for health.