March certainly has roared in like a lion.  Much snow has blanketed the area with lots more in the hills and higher elevations.  It makes for tough going for those who enjoy backyard maple syrup production.  Treading through three to four-foot drifts to collect the sap bucket by bucket becomes quite a workout.  Maple season marks the coming of spring.  Days are longer, the sun is warmer, and the birds are starting to be heard.  I have spent several weekends this time a year out by the barn boiling away many gallons of tree sap to harness one to two gallons of liquid gold.  This year due to all this snow I decided to pass but spent this past Sunday at a friend’s house overseeing his one pan/one man production.

   

 

If you want to train your horse to jump water then don’t begin by teaching him to jump into it. For the cross-country or foxhunter you may want to train your horse to clear a dry ditch and will probably have some sort of rail to encourage the horse to jump high enough to clear the span of the ditch.

From the Midwest to the Northeast, this has been a bad year for hay, and rain is the culprit. Rain is always the question mark: it seems either there is not enough of it, or too much. From the drought we’ve experienced the past few years we’ve now gone to rain that appears every day or two. And while rain makes the grass grow, it also ruins the hay.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Well. Free always does.

By: Cameron Liddell

 

The Le Moyne College Equestrian Team is an Intercollegiate Horse Shows Association hunt seat team that competes in Zone 2 Region 2 in Syracuse NY. The team has a maximum of fifteen riders per season competing in divisions from Walk/Trot to Open Equitation Over Fences and everything in between. Currently there are 370+ schools and over 8,300 students throughout the United States and Canada that compete in the IHSA. The IHSA also offers scholarships and many networking opportunities for all levels of riders

Is your horse truly submissive and obedient? Is your horse truly forward and does the action of the rein go through his whole body equally on both sides. If the answer to these questions is a resounding yes, then the rein back will be easy to achieve and show artistry and engagement. It is an extremely beneficial exercise for the horse when correctly executed as it engages his core, strengthens his top-line and develops strength in the gaskin and suppleness through the hips. It also increases flexion of all joints in the hind end. All these benefits are of immeasurable importance as you develop your horse to piaffe, passage, pirouettes and expressive flying changes (all of which topics are covered in the recent issues of Horse Bits Magazine). The rein back is also used in training other English disciplines and also in Western training.

by Elizabeth J. Dana

Whether you believe in fate or miracles, out of chaos and tragedy rose the birth of compassion. It began, as all tragedies seem to do with a phone call, three years ago from the Central New York SPCA, detailing the discovery of 14 wild, starving ponies abandoned in a snowy field, with no access to food or water and many horses from the herd already dead.