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All about horses in northern B.C. Issue # 48: October 9, 2000 Published each Monday by Kristi McCrindle, editor Well, as promised last week, I started riding the colts again. Cody had never actually been ridden, so I took things quite slowly and carefully with him. I also tacked up Skip, who had 6 rides in July and therefore was ready to go to work. After letting both horses run around in the arena for a few minutes with their saddles on, I started out on Skip, as I had a pretty good idea how he was going to react to things. Sure enough, he had no trouble accepting me on his back again. I rode for about 15 minutes, teaching him to guide at the walk and trot - he was excellent for having had three months off! The I tied him up to think about things, and worked with Cody. Due to Cody's more suspicious nature and lack of previous work, I started right at the beginning and quietly worked my way through until I was on his back. Yippee! While only a 5 minute ride, it was a good start with Cody learning to guide at the walk, and to stop when I sat deep and said whoa. Two days later I repeated the process, only this time got brave enough to lope Skip and trot Cody. Though Cody was finding it difficult to maintain trot (because he is so unbalanced with a rider at this point) he did it willingly. Skip's lope time was great, and he is even starting to guide while loping - awesome! This weekend I rode again, and continued gaining ground on both colts. They've been learning to stop and back up, turn left and right on the neck rein or direct rein, and even to turn on the forehand! Cody is trotting better and Skip is loping circles, well, I call them circles though they are far from round yet! So all it has taken me is just to make the time to fit the colts into my schedule. Both are ready and eager to learn more, and I am feeling very confident about my ability to bring them along. Keep tuned in next week when I start the train-along series! 'Til next week, ~ Kristi :) Hi everyone, Just wanted to let you know that we at Northern BC Horse are looking for reports on the local area poker rides. Usually I write these events up for our weekly column, but this year Raime had surgery at the end of the show season and so I haven't been attending any of the rides. If you have gone (or are going) on any of the area poker rides, I encourage you to submit a written report to me at kristi@hiway16.com This article could include info on how many hands were sold, how many people rode, how the lunch at the end was, what the weather was like, the scenery along the trail, who won the prizes, and so on. If we print your write up, you will be given credit for the article (and then you can say you have published work on the Internet! :-) If you have pictures, please email them as well (if you don't have access to a scanner we have a mailing address in Smithers where they can be sent). Please include photographer's name, and subject(s) of photo if known. If you have any questions, please email me. Thanks, and hope you are all having an enjoyable autumn with lots of riding! ~ Kristi :) email to editor: kristi@hiway16.com new! Photo Show search for horse or fair Archive to find all past issues of Northern BC Horse

	Past articles are all available in the
Breathe		New to Showing series Reining and Dressage
Does anyone have any feed and care questions for me to try and answer? I'm kind of at a loss for material right now. I do have some big projects I'm still trying to compile info for (such as a supplements series and one on strangles) but no basic line of thought we can follow along for a while. I will again mention in this week's column about the use of Breathe, a herbal supplement for horses with poor lungs (we talked about Breathe in April during the three part series on managing horses with dust allergies). Raime, my cremello gelding, has been dust allergic for many years since being fed poor hay when he was leased out. This year we discovered a herbal product, called Breathe, which is supposed to help keep a horse's airways open. Basically, to use human terms, Raime has asthma and is allergic to the dust found in hay - a bad thing for a horse who is supposed to eat hay for most of the year! I put Raime on the Breathe early this past spring, and noticed a marked improvement. We also did an acupuncture treatment, and by the end of June he was doing very well. By early July though I was running out of product, and couldn't find a reliable supplier. I hoped to find some on Alberta when I went there in August, but still no go. Finally in September, when I started prepping Raime for the NSC Fall Show, I started to realize just how little air Raime was getting. It was taking him a full fifteen minutes to recover after a mere 4 minutes of canter work - the length of a reining pattern. At the Fall Show, he ended up in a sweat by the end of four patterns, he was working harder than usual to try and keep oxygen in his cells. When I realized just how badly his breathing had gotten, I looked around again and found Breathe in Terrace, and had a friend pick it up for me in time for the Finals. I started him on it on Sunday, and I hope that he will have some increased lung capacity by the time he goes back to work next month (he's on days off). Britt Mills, our vet in Telkwa, can also get Breathe brought in, and I know that it will be a permanent part of Raime's feed regime - because (to quote a TV commercial) if you can't breathe, nothing else matters. Northern B.C. Horse is brought to you courtesy of our advertisers including: The Tack Store Ridennoure Paint Horses Burns Lake Building Supplies Hoskins Ford Uniglobe Travel North Griffin Enterprises Thanks to our advertisers for making this all possible... ...for information about advertising, email jim@hiway16.com	Northwest Classic contributed by Barb Bowerbank The Northwest Classic Paint and Open Show, Millennium edition, held in Vanderhoof on August 5th and 6th saw beautiful sunny skies for its show for the 3rd year in a row now. Exhibitors from as far west as Smithers BC and East as Northern Alberta, gathered to compete for those Awesome Hi. Pt. Western Saddle Protector Bags and lovely Reserve Fleece Vests. We can't forget the BC southern and central interior contingent that gave all of us from the north a run for our money. The show saw a large increase in exhibitors from the lower mainland participating this year. The Paint show entries were similar to other years (26 horses) however the composition of the horses has changed. We touted respectable numbers in the amateur classes, almost all of which were point classes. Numbers were also up for the Junior horse classes which is a healthy indication that there are more riding horses out there moving into the show ring. Youth and Breeding stock divisions were disappointing this year, as was the open show where numbers of participants had dropped significantly. Overall 62 horses competed over the weekend (includes paints). Thanks goes out to our great judges for the weekend, Don Bloomquist of California and Jeannie Young of Texas. Their expertise and professionalism was very evident and yet down home enough to give us a hand here and there moving obstacles between classes when the need arose. I'm sure our small group may have seemed "refreshing" at times compared to the bigger shows in the states! This years show contained a Saturday evening program that was scheduled after the lovely steak barbeque cooked up by the Vanderhoof High School Rodeo Club. Slotted into the evening hours were reining classes, the Northwest Classic Futurities (weanling halter and yearling halter & lungeline) and the two new stake classes this year, Most colourful in hand and the Liberty Stake class. Probably the vote for the most "interesting" class to judge for Don and Jeannie was the Liberty Stake. With only a disappointing 2 entries, the performance was far from disappointing! We all watched two mini stallions strut their stuff to the songs, "100 Miles" and "Macho Macho Man". Many thanks goes out to those that, without their help, this show would not be possible. Thank you to our Major Sponsors, Class Sponsors, Silent Auction Donors, and last but NOT LEAST!!! Our Volunteers & Staff. RESULTS OF THE NWC PAINT HORSE AND OPEN SHOW 2000 COMING SOON AT this address Western, English, Penning or Trail riding, all equine sports have a voice on Northern B.C. Horse.	Reining can be held in most any size arena, though the larger ones seem to be preferred. Reiners look for good *sliding ground*, which is usually comprised of a good solid, even and well packed base, with a few inches of loose, dry sand on top. Deep sand, wood products such as hog fuel or wood chips, and wet ground tend to make poor ground for reining horses. A reining pattern is comprised of a series of maneuvres. All levels of patterns are held in the arena, using cones along one side as markers. Some beginner patterns will instruct riders to stay in between them for their circles, some open patterns will instruct the riders to go beyond them before initiating a stop (in either case, it is important that the side cones are the same distance from center!). All circles in a reining pattern come back to 'X', the same center of the arena as used by dressage riders. Reining judges work with a scribe, who notes the maneuvre scores and penalties as the rider completes their pattern. Unlike dressage tests, which have one rider per test paper, reining scorecards can hold ten or twelve reiners. Each rider starts with an average score of 70, and the maneuvre scores are added to or subtracted from that. The penalties, if any, are subtracted after that, leaving a score for the competitor. If the rider goes off pattern (easy to do as you must memorize your pattern before you enter the arena), she will receive a 0 score. The highest score will win the class, and a 0 is not eligible to place. Freestyle reining is a reining pattern set to music. Like a Dressage Kur, the rider choreographs her own music and maneuvres, but most reiners use only one song, often with words still in it. The Freestyle reining pattern is often a fast paced fun class, one that the crowd can really get into, especially if the music chosen is well known. One of the most profound differences to a spectator between Dressage and Reining is the difference in the noise level. Dressage riders are penalized for using their voice, and everyone in the vicinity of someone performing a test must keep quiet. In Reining, hooting and hollering for well done maneuvres is not only the norm but encouraged, and Freestyle is a very good example of that. Props and costumes are also allowed in Freestyle, though scores are not increased for the use of either. There are a minimum number of required maneuvres, and a maximum amount of time. So, while Dressage and Reining are quite different in some aspects, in many other ways they are alike. To perform at the higher levels of either sport requires a lot of time and dedication to achieving a bond between horse and rider, developing a working partnership. Watching a reining horse or a dressage horse perform can be truly beautiful. If you are new to Northern B.C. Horse, check out all the previous issues on the Archive page. Kristi is building a great knowledge base about horses, with the emphasis on our area of the world.
	If you have tips or questions you'd like to share with other local equestrians, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com

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