LL Bean’s Barn Friendly Vest

Regardless of where you live, this time of year our barn and horse work demands layers. We’re focusing on a few impressive products from LL Bean. The Maine company currently is having a Winter Send-Off Sale. Read jacket reviews here. Amy Skinner, owner of Essence […]

America’s own Olathe Boots

We’re always keen on quality gear and we especially love hearing reader testimonials. Recently, a NickerNews & BestHorsePractices fan turned our attention to Olathe Boots, an impressive Texas boot company, established in 1875. Our reader writes: I have a pair of tall top, hippo hide […]

English Meets Western in a Jean

Like a lot of you, riding makes up just a fraction of my horse time. There’s all that farm and ranch work that supports the habit – mending fence, hauling hay and water, moving horses, reseeding pasture, repeat. Jeans are what we wear. No other […]

NCPG Welcomes The Moth

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the granddaddy of gatherings, continues to evolve in its 33rd rendition, taking place in Elko, Nevada, January 30-February 4, 2017. For the first time, the event will highlight an evening with The Moth, a New York City-based organization and a […]

Gift Buying Ideas for your Horses and Horse Friends

At NickerNews and BestHorsePractices, we feel exceedingly fortunate to have a herd of outstanding advertising partners. Together, we think you could accomplish ALL your holiday gift buying for the horses and horse friends in your life: For your horse: Lucerne Forage is a great way […]

Ariat’s Midtown English boot dazzles

We invited clinician and guest columnist Amy Skinner to review a pair of Ariat English boots. She writes: Most of my riding career, if I’m in a dressage saddle, then I’m in tall black boots. It’s tradition. The high black cavalier boot dates back hundreds of […]

Justin’s Bay Apache Boots

This month, we asked Dr. Steve Peters, co-author of Evidence-Based Horsemanship, to review a pair of Made in America Justin Boots. He chose the Bay Apache, a classic Western boot. Dr. Peters writes: My images of cowboys developed over five decades ago with John Wayne, […]

Recycled Down? Yes! Patagonia’s Bivy Jacket

Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and I were both born within a mile from the Androscoggin River; he in Lewiston and myself in Brunswick, 20 miles downstream. Back in those days, Maine’s third largest river foamed with pollution from paper and textile mills. Before Chouinard and […]

Saddles, boots, and leggings love Skidmore’s

In a lot of what we’re finding in horse work, “getting back to nature” is proving to be an effective, even ideal philosophy. That is: if we consider how horses live naturally, it’s often better for the horse than our man-made alternatives (stalls, grains, blankets, […]

Tall, Smart, and Attractive: Nocona Boot Review

Back in 1925, Enid Justin, daughter of Justin Boot Company founder, Herman Joseph Justin, did not want to leave home. One of seven children, Enid had moved around plenty in her young life and was happy in her small hometown of Nocona, Texas, near the […]