Showing titles in Equestrian Sports

In the horse riding world, your success is determined by how well you can control, understand, and harmonize with a 1,000+ pound animal that has superior strength, is faster, and has a better-developed nervous system than you. The way you overcome these strengths in a horse is to understand what the horse’s limitations are.

John Saint Ryan has traveled the world working with horses. His behavior with all students—whether equine or human—aligns with his principles, a rare and admirable practice. He shares his knowledge with agility, openness, humor, and grace, often in a poetic manner. This audiobook is a joy to listen to, as you’ll discover John's love and humility when he describes the lessons his mentor, Tom Dorrance, helped him learn. His humor shines through as he recounts horse stories from earlier days.

November 1958: the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Into the rarefied atmosphere of wealth and tradition comes the most unlikely of horses - a drab white former plow horse named Snowman - and his rider, Harry de Leyer. They were the longest of all longshots - and their win was the stuff of legend.

Few will hire competitive rider, Viola Parker, since the famous jumper, Wastrel, crashed to his death with her aboard. Not only that, her attitude just landed her out of work...again. She can barely afford her whipped-cream-in-a-can addiction. Now, before she's 30, she must keep a job for one year and receive a glowing letter of recommendation to get a surprise trust fund set up by her absentee parents. A trust fund that could represent freedom and independence - or might be worth nothing.

Carleton Brooks and Traci Brooks share their decades of knowledge, expertise, and winning ways in their first book, With Purpose: The Balmoral Standard. Carleton is a widely respected horseman, a large "R" judge, and member of the National Show Hunter Hall of Fame, and Traci has spent more than 30 years developing horses and riders, guiding them to victory at the biggest shows in the country.

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” - Harrington Emerson Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of training decisions to be made when working with a horse? Should you speed up, slow down, turn left, turn right? What transition should you make next? Which body part should you move where? What if you didn’t need to memorize a million techniques and scenarios, but just needed to understand the ...

In 2008, 26-year-old Tik Maynard faced a crossroads not unlike that of other young adults. A university graduate and modern pentathlete, he suffered both a career-ending injury and a painful breakup, leaving him suddenly adrift. The son of prominent Canadian equestrians, Maynard decided to spend the next year as a "working student." In the horse industry, working students aspire to become professional riders or trainers, and willingly trade labor for hands-on education.

Working with your very own horse can be one of the most wonderful parts of your day…until it’s not. In The Well-Mannered Horse: Developing an Ideal Equine Buddy, Meredith Hill is back with more insight on how to deal with some of your horse’s less enjoyable behaviors.

In more than a century of American Thoroughbred racing, only 13 horses have won the Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes, all won in the same season). Veteran turf writer and racing historian Edward L. Bowen takes us through the rich history of one of the most formidable and exciting challenges in all of sport. Bowen covers the trainers, owners, and jockeys who etched their names into the annals of thoroughbred racing, and the “lucky 13” who captured all three jewels of the Triple Crown, racing’s most prestigious prize.

In The Horse God Built, best-selling equestrian writer Lawrence Scanlan has written a tribute to an exceptional man that is also a backroads journey to a corner of the racing world rarely visited. As a young black man growing up in South Carolina, Eddie Sweat struggled at several occupations before settling on the job he was born for - groom to North America's finest racehorses. As Secretariat's groom, loyal friend, and protector, Eddie understood the horse far better than anyone else.

Did you know there is an area of your brain known as the "Lizard Brain" that thinks only about the immediate moment and your means of survival? Yes, in certain circumstances, your "Rational Brain" can effectively "shut down" and you are at the mercy of a reptile... dry-mouthed, sweating, queasy, unable to think clearly - even though you know better. When does the Lizard Brain run the show? It can happen in any number of unfamiliar, uncomfortable, challenging, or "stressful" riding situations. But here's the thing: with the right kind of training, you can learn to manage the reptile within.

If I had a dollar for every email I get asking "what to do" to make a riding horse out of the mare Uncle Emo just traded for the old RV - or how to retrain a horse that's grown rusty - or some version on either theme, I'd be the world's first gazillionaire. With the publication of this book, I'm hoping to grab that distinction.

Hope . . . From the Heart of Horses explores and celebrates the relationship and bond possible between horses and humans. Each chapter offers a life lesson about trusting one's instincts, honestly addressing emotions, achieving clarity in communications, and releasing negative thoughts. Because survival depends on being highly tuned to the thoughts and feelings of others, horses sense human intentions rather than what a person offers in facial expressions, which creates a remarkable effect on the relationship between these two distinctly different species.

Many horse trainers, even those who espouse the so-called natural horsemanship approach, take the position that horses who fail to obey a human's request are doing so as much out of perversity as ignorance. That's not Mark Rashid's view. In his words, "If we understand that horses can't separate the way they feel from the way they act, then we can start to see that unwanted behavior isn't bad behavior at all. More times than not, it's just the horse expressing the way he feels at that particular moment in time....

Mental skills coach Tonya Johnston, MA, has helped thousands of equestrian athletes achieve success at every level, from recreational riders to award-winning international competitors. In Inside Your Ride, she provides specific methods and clear, easy-to-follow directions to help you mentally prepare for your next ride or competition, no matter your discipline and skill level.

In The Faraway Horses, Buck Brannaman shares his renowned methods for horse training and provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Robert Redford's movie The Horse Whisperer, for which he was the technical adviser.

Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in “The Bottom”, a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons. What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding.

Over 15 years ago, Jane Savoie wrote the first book to recognize the importance of training the mind and shaping attitude in order to achieve higher levels of riding skill than ever imagined. Riders who benefited from the lessons in "That Winning Feeling!" clamored for more, and Savoie responded with her fabulous follow-up audiobook, "It's Not Just About the Ribbons". Once again, Savoie shares the tools and ideas for self-improvement that she has used, not only to help herself deal with challenges, but her students—who range from Olympic contenders to intermediate riders—as well.

That is just what J. B. Zielke did in his early twenties. Argentina to Mongolia, Mexico to Australia this book takes you to places that you may not have even realized there are cowboys. Gunfights, feral bulls, bank truck robberies, and little old men riding reindeer are all part of this modern-day international cowboy journey.

In 1973, Secretariat, the greatest champion in horse-racing history, won the Triple Crown. The only horse to ever grace the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated in the same week, he also still holds the record for the fastest times in both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. He was also the only non-human chosen as one of ESPN's "50 Greatest Athletes of the Century".