Channel Archives: Learn

Q: I’m shopping for my first horse. I’ve been warned about sellers who misrepresent their sale horses—what types of situations should I be wary of during my search?   A: I’m...

Anyone who has ridden a dressage test in competition is likely familiar with the one that, from start to finish, feels like it is in fast-forward. I beat all land-speed...

I think that it was somewhere in the late 1980s that I first heard that horses got stomach ulcers. It was interesting—curious, actually—to find out that horses had ulcer problems...

My horse has been rehabbing from an injury for almost six months. For the first three of those months, all I did was walk with him. Now I am up...

"Respiratory health is essential to performance," stresses Dr. Emmanuelle Van Erck Westergren of Equine Sports Medicine Practice in Waterloo, Belgium. The prominent veterinarian and thought leader spent 15 years engaged...

It’s summer, aka the sweatiest time of the year. Hooray! And while sure, there are things to enjoy (like swimming, ice cubes, and air conditioning), outdoor activities such as barn...

There’s something really sweet that you might want to consider putting on your horse’s wound. Literally:  sweet. You may have some in your kitchen—honey. Honey is being investigated for its...

Q: I recently began offering boarding services at my barn, and I would like to have a local instructor/trainer come and teach lessons to my boarders. I only have a...

Electrolytes. Not just a running joke in the movie Idiocracy, electrolytes are an incredibly important part of maintaining vital functions in your body. Certified athletic trainers and pro athletes swear...

Dogma has always been a curious phenomenon to me. In the horse world, people often get dogmatic, from the “best” way to feed a horse, to the “proper” way to...

We all get excited when our horses whinny our way. The very idea that it demonstrates affection, or anticipation of our arrival, or is even merely a polite greeting between...

One of the hardest decisions that a horse owner will ever have to make is deciding when a horse’s time is over. I want to talk to you about it....

Question: I board my horse at a local stable, and unfortunately, he damaged his stall door overnight. We don’t know exactly what happened, but thankfully he wasn’t injured. However, the...

What with all of the products out there to help “support” your horse’s gastrointestinal system, I thought it might be fun to share some thoughts and research with my friend...

I have always been fascinated by different approaches and philosophies for coaching athletes. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time...

Here’s something about which I get calls all the time. Say you come out to the barn and you find that your horse has a bit of swollen leg. You...

Show jumping is a sport of precision, intensity, dedication, and teamwork. To have sustained success, riders and trainers need to be able to manage competition schedules, choose training exercises, oversee...

For the past several years, the High Performance Equine Sports Medicine Group, led by veterinarians Dr. Mark Revenaugh and Dr. Timothy Ober, has been searching for methods to improve the...

Q: When our barn’s lesson program starts back up again after the quarantine, should I let my horse be used in my trainer’s lessons in order to help offset my...

We can chalk it up to energy or antics or high spirits or poor manners—whatever it is that might be the “cause,” being pulled around by our four-legged friends is...