Classical Dressage Art in Motion

   The Top 5 Things to Gift Your Horse (And Yourself!) - Advice from Grand Prix Trainer Nikki Alvin-Smith    Nikki Alvin-Smith with home trained Grand Prix Tiberio Lafite aka Tigger     As as seasoned horse breeder and equestrienne as well as international freight forwarder shipping horses worldwide, I've learned a few things along the trail. Not least is how to make life just that little bit better for horse and human.    Like most horse aficionados, when it comes to horse ownership I am often caught between budget dilemmas and tussles with time management. Here are the top five things to gift your horse, and yourself, to make the very best of your horse ownership experience.   1. Freedom Of Movement With Company Makes Life Better   For a creature of such size with a genetic predisposition to roam and graze, the horse presents a challenge in modern day methods for horse keeping where space is at a premium. Provisi...

  I think by now most of us have heard of Round-Up, and its detrimental nature to human and animal health. It's proper name, often disguised in other producsts, is Glyphosate. It is applied in a variety of forms including isopropylamine salt, ammonium salt, diammonium salt, dimethylammonium salt, and potassium salt. Guidelines for use are often not followed, either in time frame or quantity, due to the resistance in plants/weeds that has increased since its over-abundance of use, and the desire that is quite understandable in farmers to get their hay dried off as fast as possible. It's extremely worrying that states such as North Dakota and Georgia are amending laws to provide a shield for pharmaceutical manufacturers who produce this stuff and all their other concoctions, that protects them from lawsuits by those harmed by the herbicides and pesticides they manufacture. Find more on that topic on Facebook reel here.  This means ever more products will hit our food cha...

The marketplace for horse boarding services has changed in the post-Covid era. A lot. The rising costs that are hitting the farming community in general are no joke. Willowview Hill Farm, Stamford NY   The other day I had a call from a lady who sounded very 'sound', with good horse knowledge that was looking for a straight boarding option for a couple of pleasure-riding horses. Nothing wrong with that. Or with the fact she wanted a boarding space with good standards of horse care and a well-run facility. Trouble is, can she afford it. Are the prices for horse board that people may be used to paying even last year or the year before, realistic in today's marketplace? At our dressage yard at Willowview Hill Farm, pictured above, we have a small barn and an indoor arena, access to 26 miles of trails, and plenty of turn-out, and organic home-produced hay for feeding our performance horses. We offer dressage training services, with boarding only being available for horses in tra...