Golden sunlight spills across the mountains beneath the plane’s wing as the soft hues of pink and purple twilight give way to night. My long-held dream of exploring the vast wilderness of Canada’s Yukon on horseback is finally becoming a reality. Touching down in Whitehorse—the territorial capital since 1953—I haul my luggage across the street to a nearby hotel, ready to rest before the adventure begins.

Consumers have access to more quality fencing options for their horses than ever before. While it’s crucial to consult a fencing expert, it’s also beneficial to identify your basic requirements and have a design concept in mind. Creating a checklist with guiding questions can help kick off the project:

Grass clippings and yard waste trimmings can be toxic. As horse owners, we spend a lot of time and effort making sure our horses are healthy and well cared for. However, a simple mistake by a family member or neighbour could be disastrous.

Riders often focus on training their horses to do specific movements such as those needed for dressage, show jumping, cutting, reining, or myriad other sports. However, focusing on teaching skills rather than increasing strength and fitness can lead to potential unsoundness or a shorter competitive lifespan.

Embryo Transfer (ET) is an excellent solution for breeding your top mare while allowing her to continue competing. This process involves breeding your donor mare—the mare you want to breed—and allowing her to carry the pregnancy for approximately seven to eight days. At this point, the embryo (the early-stage foal) is carefully removed (flushed) from the donor mare and transferred to a recipient mare (surrogate) for the remainder of the pregnancy.

One of the many reasons that the words “colic surgery” tend to strike fear into a horse owner’s heart is the question of whether their horse will be able to return to their previous level of performance (or even return to performing at all). A recent research study by Dr. Holcombe and her team at Michigan State University looked at specific ways that a horse owner can influence the likelihood of this return to performance after colic surgery (1).

6 Ways to Up Your Social Media Game

By Tania Millen, BSc, MJ

The gap between amateur and professional competitors is common in Canadian sports. Weekend skiers have significantly less skills than athletes on Canada’s ski team. Amateur hockey players don’t make Canada’s Olympic team. It’s the same in horse sports. Tiers of riders have developed as equestrian sports have become more technical. Upper-level horse sports are primarily the purview of professional and elite riders while amateurs play at lower levels.