The eighth in a series of guest blog posts from Michelle Binder Western Dressage is a big up and coming equestrian discipline right now. I believe this is the right time for the sport to emerge as a reality and the interest level proves that the idea has been around for a long time. When I started talking to everyone about it, I was surprised! In our area, a Western Dressage Facebook page was started and we had 130 members within about 2 days! That was so important because it showed how much...

Katie Tyler and Galliard won the USEF Show Jumping Talent Search during the opening week of the 2012 Vermont Summer Festival. (David Mullinix Photography) East Dorset, VT - The future stars of show jumping are out in full force at the 2012 Vermont Summer Festival horse show running July 4 through August 12 at Harold Beebe Farm in East Dorset, VT. The six-week festival is hosting a Platinum Performance/USEF Show Jumping Talent Search competition each Friday. Open to riders under the age of 21...

Courtney King-Dye will speak about The Road to Grand Prix during the KWPN-NA Annual Meeting. (Susan J. Stickle.) Sutherlin, OR - Once again the KWPN-NA Annual Meeting pulls out all of the stops to give breeders, trainers, owners and riders information to help them advance their horses up the ranks to Grand Prix, for both jumping and dressage. The Royal Dutch Warmblood Studbook of North America (KWPN-NA) has put together an unprecedented number of experts that includes Olympic medalist Steffen...

Laura and O Lordy++//. (Photo by Suzanne Sturgill.) Aurora, CO - It makes sense that the Arabian Horse Association’s Amateur of the Year would be the owner of the High Point Horse of the Year—it’s happened before. Laura Wolsey of Langley, B.C. and her gelding O Lordy++// (The Firelord+/ x Hi Passion) were recently given the AHA annual honor. In 2010 however, the AHA High Point Horse was also named Equine Canada’s High Point Horse for Breed Sport, the United States Equestrian Federation’s (USEF)...

Gunners Special Nite (Shannon Brinkman/USEF) Lexington, KY - The city of Lexington was largely defined by the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in 2010, so it proved a fitting setting to crown the 2010 Farnam/Platform USEF Horse of the Year. And the winner couldn't be more all-American. The only multiple Gold medal-winning horse for Team USA, Gunners Special Nite, a six-year-old American Quarter Horse brought the sport of reining to the forefront of the American equestrian community. People...

Unseasonably wet Fall conditions and ensuing reports of widespread mold in harvest crops have horse owners highly concerned about the possible presence of illness-causing, and sometimes fatal, toxins with every bag of horse feed they tear open. To ensure that mycotoxins do not get into the feed mill, much less their feed, Pennfield Equine Feed Technologies puts the horse first by investing in a highly effective rapid detection chemical test to identify and eliminate tainted ingredients before...

Photo Courtesy AHA/Conley Driediger (Conley Driediger with gelding, Winning Afire+//.) Alexis Starer Doughty of Cape Charles, VA, and Conley Driediger of Yarrow, BC, Canada, were named the Arabian Horse Association (AHA) Adult and Youth Amateurs of 2009, respectively. Doughty earned an impressive 646 points at 22 AHA-recognized shows in 2009, while Driediger earned a whopping 485.5 points from 17 shows. The AHA Amateur Achievement Award program began in 2002 and tracks the points of individual...

A life-size statue of Tom Moore was dedicated on Wednesday, August 10, at 3 p.m. in front of Freedom Hall in Louisville. Tom Moore, a member of the World’s Championship Hall of Fame, trained and showed multiple World’s Grand Champions in all three divisions: five-gaited, three-gaited and fine harness. Commonly referred to as “The Tall Man,” Moore trained World’s Grand Champions CH Sultan’s Starina, CH Yorktown, CH Valley View Supreme, CH Bellisima and many more. The bronze tribute is by Douwe...

The 2010-2011 United States Hunter Jumper Association (USHJA) International Hunter Derby schedule is now available online at www.ushja.org/IHD/search.aspx . The 2010-2011 series begins June 2, 2010 and ends June 2, 2011. The USHJA International Hunter Derby Series was created to bring show hunters to the international level, to increase spectator, media and sponsorship interest, and to bring tradition and basic riding principles back to the sport of showing hunters. Please visit the Hunter...

The Kentucky National Horse Show was held September 16-20 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY. Lucille Oken Wins Grand Slam with Land's End Mad Hatter Lucille Oken and Land's End Mad Hatter were unstoppable at this year's Kentucky National Indoor Horse Show. The pair completed a clean sweep of the Large Pony Hunter division, taking home each of the blue ribbons and the championship award. Oken rides at her family's Hi Hopes Farm in Charlotte, NC, with trainers Steve Heinecke and Jeff...