InFocus

Fundamentally domesticated horses are genetically the very same as wild horses.  The animals we ride, feed and home are at heart the same wild animals that hunt and gather for survival.  This got me thinking about animals in captivity and under what means we should have the rights to toy with the very nature of wild animals.  Whatever the discipline, horses in captivity are programmed to behave.  I have witnessed many a times riders punishing their horses for misbehaving, hauling on their bridles and digging spurs into their sides, all without fear of consequences.  But under what circumstances is this right?

I recently listened....

We all love to hear about a star who has risen from nowhere, particularly in the horse world.  We are captured by the sheer grit and determination shown by hard working individuals passionate about their chosen sport and driven by their goals.  Against all odds they succeed.  Perhaps even more compelling is a success story about a rider and horse that at one time failed in the eyes of many experts and may even have been dismissed and discarded.  For James Arkins and Rosthwaite Vigilante II aka Robbie this was their reality.  

James and Robbie in their early years and at the most critical time of their development had no one truly believing in them....

A friend of mine, a few generations older than most riders of today, told of how her sister who was no rider, woke one morning, threw the curtains back to a beautiful sunny day and said, “Let’s go riding?”

But then she remembered, she didn’t have a horse.  Or any gear.  At all!

At this time it was simply not a problem.  Within a couple of hours the horse was found in Horses and Vehicles for sale - a regular column in The NZ Herald, back in the day!  A second hand bridle and saddle was purchased from there too.  The ex-racehorse was....

"I’ve never actually told anyone this.  No one in the equestrian community knows.  It’s just something you don’t bring up in conversation.  It’s such a long conversation.  To me it’s normal.  And that’s the hardest thing for me to try to explain.  People don’t understand this.  So I don’t talk about it” (Jake Barham, 2016).

My life will not be quite the same after hearing Jake’s story, a story that other than his family and closest friends knew of until now.   This extraordinary young man exudes positivity and a refreshing earthy back to basics style that tells of a....

Traditionally horseshoeing has been a male dominated industry.  Ngaire Bryant is the first ever New Zealand female to become registered as a farrier in New Zealand.  When she was just twenty three she started working as an apprentice farrier in Takanini South Auckland with Kevin Crampton. She worked through her holidays and all around the North Island before gaining contacts to the Stern Family in England who were a family of farriers.  Ngaire then spent two years in England with the Stern family where she became the first New Zealand female to gain her diploma of Farrier from the Dip W.C.S (Worshipful Company of Farriers) with above average.  She then spent six....

Your love of horses and all that is associated with owning them often means the necessary involvement of many people, including vets, dentists, physios, breeders, trainers, coaches, close friends, owners, and not least of all, a groom or two or three or four.  While lots of people are inherently involved in keeping your yard running smoothly, perhaps none are as close or more privy to private information as a groom can be.  How then, when a groom is so very important and so very close can professional and personal boundaries be kept intact and secrets be guarded?  Is it possible to have a situation whereby when a groom leaves your employ they....

When I received a message from Cherie Robinson, the breeder of James Arkin’s, fabulous, Rosthwaite Vigilante II, (aka Robbie) I had not prior to this moment given the horse’s breeder a thought.  I am vitally interested in and keenly following the starry successes of James and Robbie.  I smile at the idea of Vaughn Jefferis, once again having that innate talent and instinctive intuition that can never be taught, to spot the potential in a young horse and quietly keep an eye on it, for several years in this case, with one of his pupils in mind.  But I did not give a thought to the breeder. 

As chance would have it there were mistakes in a....

After reading a recent intriguing article on ‘Changing the name of Eventing’, it prompted some thoughts of my own, as articles should I guess. It got me thinking about the meaning of eventing and what we, as the eventing fraternity, have built it up to be. Eventing first began in France 1902, with it becoming an Olympic sport somewhat later in 1912. Originally known as ‘Combined Training’, the aim was to test the Cavalry Officers’ ‘chargers’ (horses) fitness and stability levels. The dressage phase was designed to demonstrate the horses’ ability to perform, exhibiting a level of elegance. Cross-Country, as we now know it as, tested the....