This is Episode 15 of Season Three. A special episode!

You listeners might know that I direct the Best Horse Practices Summit, an annual conference with academic and arena presentations. This year, it was held in Kentucky and we had many fabulous presenters on everything from colic to stockmanship to saddlefit. At the last minute, however, Dr. Doug Thal, a veterinarian from New Mexico, came down with Covid and was not able to present. We needed to improvise quickly and decided to fill his presentation slots with two Q and A sessions. We asked attendees for questions and we had a group curate them – basically weeding out questions that were inappropriate or directed at just one presenter.

Pepper Landson, who delivered a great women’s leadership elective during the Summit, agreed to moderate it. So the voices you will hear are Pepper, Amy Skinner, Daniel Dauphin, Katrin Silva, and Nahshon Cook. At the very end, you’ll hear Allanna Salmon, a Summit steering committee member, who speaks up with some thoughts.

In case you have any trouble hearing the prompts. Here they are:

• Do you have thoughts on bringing a horse from a harsher form of training to this better, more attuned way of training. Are there things to be cautious about?
• Exercises or ways for keeping yourself regulated, centered, and to maintain energetic clarity?
• What are your thoughts around training young horses in today’s modern settings and facilities?
• How do we open up our community to a more diverse population?

This is a bit longer than most of our episodes, and the sound is not as spiffy, but I promise, it is well worth it.

Thanks to the Summit board for giving us permission to air it here.

Our title sponsor is Lucerne Farms, producers of quality forage feeds.  Forage is chopped, packaged hay. Sometimes it’s alfalfa, sometimes timothy, sometimes blended, and sometimes with a touch of molasses. Always scrumptious. After hay and grass, it’s pretty much the best alternative and a great way to supplement your winter feeding. Check them out here or at your local feed story.

And thank you, Redmond Equine and Pharm Aloe – for generously sponsoring our podcast. My favorite product from Redmond is Rock on a Rope. I’m actually watching one of my horses lick this chunk of salt right now. They love it.

And Summiteers may be familiar Pharm Aloe because many found complimentary Pharm Aloe pellets in their swag bags. Check out links to their pages in our show notes.

We thank Kate’s Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support.

And, hey, thank you, thank you to those who donated last week. Yep. We have a donation page set up. If you get something of value from our podcast, please drop a tip in the jar for us. We sure would appreciate it.  Donate here.