Death, Life, and Time with Horses

By Maddy Butcher My ex-husband – father to my three sons, an Irishman to whom I was married for 12 years – died this spring. He was estranged from us for over a decade. Read follow-up to this essay here The boys – now men […]

Silva: We Need to Ditch Autocratic Teaching

Editor’s Note: 2018 Best Horse Practices Summit presenter Katrin Silva grew up riding dressage in Germany before moving to the United States at age 19 to learn to ride Western. She’s been riding both disciplines for the last twenty years and is a regular guest columnist […]

The Winding Road of Life with Horses

Katrin Silva grew up riding dressage in Germany before moving to the United States at age 19 to learn to ride Western. She’s been riding both disciplines for the last twenty years and is a regular BestHorsePractices columnist. She will offer two arena presentations with […]

Nancy Lowery: Where is MeToo in the Horse World?

Editor’s Note: We hear this week from Nancy Lowery of Calgary, Alberta. Lowery has been blogging about her Leadership Learning through Horsemanship Experiences for more than a decade. A recent interview series by Lowery explored what Calgary leaders have learned through their relationships with horses. This […]

Question Realness, in others and in yourself

Editor’s Note: We hear this week from Nancy Lowery of Calgary, Alberta. Lowery has been blogging about her Leadership Learning through Horsemanship Experiences for more than a decade. A recent interview series began as “One Foot in the Arena” to explore what Calgary leaders have learned […]

Rider Benefits: Katrin Silva Gives Thanks

Katrin Silva grew up riding dressage in Germany before moving to the United States at age 19 to learn to ride Western. She’s been riding both disciplines for the last twenty years. Silva has competed successfully through fourth level dressage on quarter horses, Morgans, Arabians, […]

Confronting My Anthropomorphic Tendencies

This week, Debbie Hight from Norridgewock, Maine, contributes to our conversation about humans, horses, and horse management. Hight is a Best Horse Practices Summit board member. She rides English and Western with her mare, Roxy. Hight writes: Anthropomorphism is a new word in my vocabulary […]

Of TED, Horses, and Lifelong Learning

On cold dark evenings, I’ve spent hours listening and watching TED Talks. I love scrolling through the range of topics; it’s world of information available to all, in 18-minutes nuggets. My fascination soon became an obsession. I wanted to do a TEDTalk. TED began in […]

A Change Coming On

Websites are like homes. They have framework, contents, wiring, and color. They also have healthy doses of intangibles like feel and history. Ten years ago, I established NickerNews as a way to interact with the horse community and to fulfill a journalistic jones that I’d […]

Cherry Picking Optimizes My Riding Experience

Editor’s Note: We hear this week from Nancy Lowery of Calgary, Alberta. Lowery has been blogging about her Leadership Learning through Horsemanship Experiences for more than a decade. A recent interview series began as “One Foot in the Arena” to explore what Calgary leaders have learned […]