It presents step by-step training programs and showing advice from recognized experts in hunters, jumpers, equitation, dressage, and eventing, along with money- and time-saving ideas on health care and stable management.
As this issue arrives in your mail, a few months will have passed since eventer Tamie Smith won the 2023 Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event. After her victory, we were so excited to put a U.S. winner on the cover. What I love almost as much as being able to put Tamie on the cover is her heartfelt responses in our Q&A starting on page 36. One example is her answer about self-doubt. “When you have a failure, not taking that failure with you to the next situation—that’s been really tough. We all experience when you have something happen that knocks you down and try not to take that with you, but instead go home, do your homework and move forward with confidence. But that’s not always how we operate.”…
Buckwheat, aka Bucky, and his siblings, Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla, came to Terolyn Horse Rescue at 3 months old. The group fondly became known to friends and supporters as "The Little Rascals." Bucky was adopted as a yearling but unfortunately was returned to the rescue soon after. He required a person who could provide the time and training he deserved to help him find his forever home. When he was about 3 years old, he was enrolled in Terolyn Horse Rescue’s Trainer Cooperative Program. This program allows local professionals to come to the rescue and pick out a young or unstarted horse to train. Once the horses are started and ready for adoption, the trainers find the young horses their forever homes. Bri Graf is a hunter/jumper trainer who often…
Hover over the code with a smartphone camera for video comments. 1 Overall: This is a pleasing picture. The horse and rider are in good form, and the horse looks like he is an enthusiastic jumper. Leg: The placement of the rider’s foot in the stirrup is excellent. The outside bar of the iron is slightly ahead of the inside bar, and it’s on the ball of her foot. Her leg has slid too far behind the girth, but only slightly. Otherwise, I like the contact with her ankle and her calf. And while her knee is resting against the saddle, it’s not pinching. The angles at her ankle and knee are good. Hip angle/Upper body: Her hip angle is excellent, too, and her back is flat but not stiff.…
For a dressage trainer, it is always fun to look “out of the box,” so I was delighted to receive a photograph of a horse in Western tack. This is Emily Pethel riding a 2013 Quarter Horse gelding named WW Peppy Poco Winston (aka “Winston”). He is owned by Annie Trice, but Emily has shown him for two years. They are schooling and showing WDAA Level 1, which is approximate to First Level in traditional dressage. First of all, this picture is really special. Not only are the matching colors of horse and rider stunning, but also the colors of the trees and the arena make this photograph a real piece of art! Stretching up during a turn is an important key in keeping the body straight and the shoulders…
The time I have spent hanging around expert horsemen has never been wasted. If I get stuck with a training problem or need a new way to say the same thing, all I have to do is wait. Soon enough, one of my mentor’s voices will show up with the answer for me. The other day I was trying to describe to a student how to learn about horses and how to develop a system of training that would suit each one. The next thing I knew, I could hear Bert de Némethy (coach of the USET show-jumping team for 25 years) telling me that learning about horses is “like a mosaic.” You learn one piece of it here, he said, and another piece of it there, and you start…
When Practical Horseman first appeared in January 1973, it covered breeding, care, feeding and training of both racehorses and sporthorses. We’ve moved away from the racehorse coverage, but our focus as a how-to link from experts in training, riding and horsecare to amateur owners has stayed strong over the last 50 years. In the next few pages, we’re celebrating just a few of the thousands of trainers and riders who have helped us with our mission along the way by sharing their Practical Horseman covers throughout the years. Each represents one of the disciplines we’ve featured since the beginning—hunters, jumpers, dressage and eventing. AUGUST 1989 COVER • Renowned hunter rider and trainer Louise Serio has helped PH over the years with training articles and features on her top horses. Fun…
