To Wear or Not to Wear, that’s the Helmet Question

Culture and vanity vie against common sense and science in plenty of our personal decisions. Take tanning: This year, the World Health Organization added tanning booths to the list of the most dangerous forms of cancer-causing radiation. People get skin cancer and die from frequenting […]

Peters on weighty matters

Dr. Steve Peters, the neuropsychologist whose collaboration with horseman Martin Black produced Evidence-Based Horsemanship, joined the call for better horsemanship through better personal health with his recent Personal Statement, posted on the Evidence-Based Horsemanship facebook page. It echoed recent BestHorsePractices posts, which explained research and […]

Welcome Elm City Trailer!

We welcome Bobby Fantarella and his company, Elm City Trailer to the NickerNews and BestHorsePractices family! For years, Bobby was that friendly, knowledgeable guy I’d visit with at the Equine Affaire. I still have my awesome trailer (a four-horse, gooseneck by Featherlite) purchased from Bobby […]

Horse Skeleton offers nightmares, but no answers

For nights after discovering this skeleton, I had trouble sleeping. Couldn’t get the image out of my head. Instead, I extrapolated back to this horse’s final days – it died a pointless and likely painful, drawn-out death, getting tangled in branches by its blankets. Ridiculously, […]

Fatal Virus is Here

While dry weather is making wildfires a constant concern for horse owners out west, the wet weather is increasing the threat of contracting Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile virus in New England. This week, EEE was detected in York County (Maine) mosquitoes. It’s a […]

A Horse’s No Win Situation

That was the tough, take-away message from Dr. Rebecca Gimenez when asked about how to protect your horses in the event of a tornado. Close them in barns and you run the risk of harming them when the barn collapses. You may also stress them […]

Disaster Strikes. Do you have a plan?

I met up with friend Rebecca Gimenez a day after the lethal tornado plowed through Moore, Oklahoma. Dr. Gimenez, president of Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue, has seen her share of disasters and has trained thousands how to save horses and other animals from peril. […]

Weight does matter

Together with the horse, we’re Olympians. Together, we’re scholarship athletes. We’re a legendary duo, crossing continents, scaling mountains, swimming rivers, and outsprinting nearly every other species on the planet. But somewhere along the line, it became OK to partner-up with our horses as overweight, out-of-shape […]

Horse, Trailer, Bird

The timing for the Trailer Depot’s recent article on trailer safety and servicing couldn’t have been better. Trips are around the corner. Trailer’s been sittin’ for a few months. It’s nesting season. I found this robin nest on top of my gooseneck trailer’s spare tire. […]

Fireworks & Farms

Efforts to rein in the use of fireworks in Maine are moving forward in Augusta. Four fireworks bills have been scheduled for Public Hearing on March 11 at 10:00 am with the Criminal Justice Committee. They will be heard sometime after 10am on the fourth […]