Consuming sand is not ideal for equine digestion because sand irritates and inflames the intestinal lining, disrupting the bowel’s efficiency in absorbing nutrients. Accidental ingestion of sand by horses may be harmless in many circumstances, but can also lead to the dangers of sand colic.

Some horses naturally pass ingested sand through their feces without any signs of discomfort. In other horses, the sand—which is heavier than grass or grain—sinks and accumulates in the large colon over time, leading to clinical signs of distress.

Though reported worldwide, a higher incidence of sand colic exists in parts of the United States, such as the desert Southwest, California, Florida, and Colorado.

Living in a dry environment isn’t the only source of sand ingestion, however. Grazing on dry lots or worn-down pastures, being fed forage on the ground, or trying to hunt out morsels of hay also present an opportunity for sand ingestion.

“Sand colic depends upon geographic location,” says Berkley Chesen, DVM, DACVS-LA, a veterinarian at Equine Comprehensive Wellness in Santa Fe, N.M. “Practicing in New Mexico, 10 to 20 percent of the colic cases I see have a sand component. In places where grass has been demolished and left bare, sand-covered ground, one might conclude that climate change has some effect on sand accumulation.”

Warning Signs of Sand Colic

While differences exist in geographical location, clinical signs of sand colic often mimic other forms of colic. A constant source of abdominal irritation, sand provokes a persistent inflammatory response and inevitably disrupts the bowel’s efficiency in absorbing nutrients.

When regular digestive movements are interrupted, signs such as watery diarrhea, unexplained or rapid weight loss, listlessness, loss of appetite, and evidence of sand in the stool serve as medical alerts. Increased heart and respiratory rates, sweating, pawing, and kicking at the abdomen are other signs of an impending colic episode.

Chesen notes that horses with frequent colic events, those that eat directly off the ground, and those that don’t receive enough hay in their diet are more likely to accumulate sand and experience abdominal pain.

If left undiscovered, sand accumulation may lead to impaction of the obstructing material. Bowel displacement can also occur, and requires surgery.

Too much sand can accumulate or the material clumps up in one area and blocks the intestine, causing an obstruction, according to Julie E. Dechant, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS and ACVECC with Equine Surgical Emergency and Critical Care at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

As the horse emits gas, the blockage hardens like cement, and the intestines become distended with gas.

“The sand is so densely packed, it’s basically an impaction,” says Dechant.

Volume alone isn’t the only factor, however.

“Sometimes we’ll have horses with huge amounts of sand that we can manage medically,” she continues. “Others have smaller amounts of sand, but it’s clumped in one area and causes a blockage. Accumulation of sand with gas will also trigger the horse’s intestine to displace.”

Diagnostic Tests

In the field, veterinarians use standard tests for detecting sand in a horse’s abdomen or intestinal tract, partly due to convenience, but more often because of a lack of access to imaging equipment.

Auscultation, or using a stethoscope to listen for sounds that mimic waves washing over a beach, assumes that a quantity large enough to produce audible feedback is present. Dechant observes that the test, while accessible in the field, presents screening challenges.

“Often in the field, we’ll put our stethoscope on the lower, ventral part of the abdomen to listen for sand,” she says. “The intestines have to be moving, so if there are active colic signs, sometimes those intestines stop moving. You might not hear sand, even if it’s there.”

Fecal segmentation, another test familiar to most horse owners, requires a rectal sleeve or plastic bag. Chesen confirms the commonality of the test, but cautions against its limits: Fecal sand tests are only accurate in confirming that sand is passing through with the manure.

“Floating manure in a Ziploc bag of water with the corner pointing down is another good way to see if sand is passing through the digestive system,” says Chesen. “[Sometimes] sand is auscultated in the abdomen, but no sand is present on a float test. This is because it’s just sitting idle in the colon and not moving.”

Radiographs (X-rays) are considered the gold standard for confirming the presence of sand in the gut and the amount accumulated. However, access often requires travel to a referral hospital and may be cost-prohibitive for the average horse owner, according to Dechant.

“Abdominal X-rays are reliable and pick up even tiny amounts of sand, but aren’t readily available, especially in the field,” she says. “Other tests are accessible, but they have their limitations.”

Conventional Treatments

Approaches for treating a horse to resolve sand ingestion traditionally entail passing a nasogastric tube through the nose to administer psyllium mixed with water to the stomach.

Psyllium, a natural laxative, forms a gel that breaks up sand particles, allowing passage through the digestive system. Fluids increase intestinal mobility and rehydrate the horse. Pain medication alleviates inflammation.

Chesen prefers mixing the insoluble fiber with mineral oil to ease psyllium administration.

“I mix psyllium with mineral oil rather than water because it’s easier to pump,” she says. “With water, the psyllium turns into a congealed mess.”

Psyllium isn’t without controversy, however. According to Dechant, psyllium’s efficacy in treating sand colic is debatable.

“Some people feel it works; some don’t, especially in the acute, crisis, and long-term phases,” she says. “There’s not 100 percent consensus if psyllium is always needed. I would say that historically, I didn’t use much psyllium. [But] I have been using it more recently, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the results.”

The American Association of Equine Practitioners recommends adding psyllium one week out of every month in the feed for horses prone to sand exposure.

Emerging Treatments for Sand Colic

A randomized controlled study out of Finland in 2018 examined 246 horses to determine whether combining psyllium with magnesium sulfate proved more effective in clearing sand than using either ingredient separately.

The investigation of the treatment with psyllium and magnesium sulfate concluded that 75 percent of horses resolved colonic sand accumulation after four days using the combined treatment.

Chesen confirms the approach and study results.

“Adding magnesium sulfate—Epsom salt—to any fluid pumped into the stomach is common with colics, as it pulls liquid into the gut and flushes the sand out,” she says.

Researchers Diana M. Hassel, Allen Landes, Julie Funk, and A.E. Hill evaluated whether a mixture of probiotics, prebiotics, and psyllium enhanced sand clearance more effectively. Four days of treatment demonstrated an increase in sand clearance in clinically normal horses and may be effective in preventing sand enteropathy and sand colic. The supplement also reduced the likelihood of inflammation caused by sand irritation.

Environmental Management

Examining where and how your horse eats is the best way to minimize the risk of sand ingestion. This may require a multi-faceted approach and a dose of creativity.

Preventing a logjam of sand in the gut begins with halting its ingestion. Limiting access to sandy turnouts or feeding on rubber mats manages the amount of sand ingested.

Slow feeders reduce waste and provide a steady flow of forage, and access to forage around the clock helps the digestive tract remove buildup of sand or gravel.

Slow feeders with slotted tops help block a horse from pulling hay onto the ground, according to Chesen. Feeding in high-sided tubs and checking feces for sand are tactics all horse owners can take.

“Psyllium is easy, and that’s why it’s appealing,” says Dechant. “[But] environmental management is the tough part.”

This article about sand colic appeared in the June 2023 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

These Horse Care Tips are presented by CareCredit.

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More Than a Racehorse

Helene Gregory grew up riding Standardbreds in Sweden. Though she and her husband, Jeff Gregory, a well-known harness racing trainer and driver, breed these horses to race, Helene developed an obsession with this often overlooked breed.

“I’m a big advocate for getting these horses when they’re done on the track,” Helene says. “I like to pursue new careers, and they’re so good at it. The sky is the limit.”

Standardbreds can also be found at the higher echelons of competitive equestrian sport. In 2007, the United States Trotting Association (USTA) breed registry began accepting applications for Standardbreds and their riders interested in performing in a breed demonstration at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Ky. Eight horse-and-rider pairs were selected, with backgrounds in dressage, hunter/jumper, endurance, and western riding.

“Standardbreds enjoy working,” says Helene. “They do anything you ask of them, and do it eagerly. They are the blue-collar workers of the equine breeds.”

Standardbred Breed History

A melting pot of equine bloodlines, the Standardbred’s origins begin with a gray Thoroughbred stallion named Messenger, foaled in England in 1780. Imported to the United States eight years later in 1788, Messenger stood at stud for 20 seasons and demonstrated an unparalleled ability to sire trotters in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.

Though Messenger was bred to produce athletic and speedy horses, it would be his great-grandson, Hambletonian 10, who ignited the spark for the Standardbred breed and claims the title of foundation sire.

Hambletonian 10 sired over 1,300 offspring. A mix of breeds were introduced into his line, including Thoroughbreds, Morgans, Canadian pacers, and other pacing and trotting horses.

Bred in two lines—trotters and pacers—Standardbreds introduced racing to the everyday person. Races between neighbors and village roads soon blossomed in major cities where locals cleared streets for rivalries.

Gaited pacers run in a two-beat lateral gait, moving legs on the same side in unison. Trotters race in the traditional diagonal gait, moving opposite pairs of legs together.

The National Association of Trotting Horse Breeders created the Standardbred’s official registry in 1879. The Association’s requirement for the breed required that a horse be able to trot or pace a mile in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This “standard” led to the name Standardbred.

From Track to Patrol

The unruffled personality of the Standardbred is well-suited to many professions, including police mounts. Mounted horse patrols can be found riding drafts and draft-crosses in many cities across the United States, but in Newark, N.J., the breed of choice is the Standardbred.

Officer Luis Camacho is the instructor and trainer for officers in the department’s mounted patrol. Working with the Standardbred Retirement Foundation, Camacho helps adopt and retrain surrendered horses for police work.

“We stick to the same build and color of the horses to maintain uniformity of the patrol,” says Camacho. “We want to look the same every day to the community. The Standardbred has a consistent temperament needed to perform police work. It’s a sturdy horse and tends to accept the city environment.”

Newark Police mounted officers patrol residential neighborhoods, business districts, and community events like parades, festivals, and concerts because they can cover more ground than a team of officers on foot.

“We’re in a city, so it’s very noisy,” Camacho explains. “EMS ambulances, buses, you name it, they hear it. I think it helps to work with horses coming off the track because they’re not sitting for a long time in a stall.”

Mounted patrol officers receive six weeks of training. Riding instruction and basic horsemanship protocols, including primary care and feeding of the horse, prepare them for a partnership with their assigned mount.

Standardbred Horses: Anything but Standard

A Standardbred makes a wonderful choice for novice riders who may choose the trail or casual riding over the competition ring. The average height for the breed is 14.2 to 15.3 hands, and a weight of 900 to 1,000 pounds means they are smaller than Thoroughbreds and warmbloods. This can make them more accessible for timid riders who prefer a smaller mount.

Although the breed sports a robust and durable body type, their calm temperament, high tolerance for rider mistakes, and willingness to please people outshines all its physical attributes.

Mary Minkoff is a longtime board member and volunteer at Sunshine Horses, Inc., one of the leading Standardbred aftercare facilities in New York State. She also owns a Standardbred named Hucklebuck (aka “Huck”), and believes the thinking that these horses can only succeed on the track is outdated.

“The breed has the potential to excel in any discipline,” says Minkoff. “People realize that they don’t need to have a Thoroughbred or a Quarter Horse to do a particular job.”

While at first glance they may seem to sport a plain brown wrapper, the Standardbred’s athleticism, calm temperament, and willingness to please their riders make them worth a second look.

This article about the Standardbred appeared in the November/December 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Vetting a horse in a pre-purchase exam (PPE) isn’t like looking into a crystal ball. A PPE can’t predict a life-threatening or career-ending injury or a catastrophic diagnosis. Nor is the exam meant to foretell a horse’s future health or anticipate maladies that he may incur, but like a house inspection, the purpose is to provide some reassurance for you as the potential buyer.

Questions to Ask When Buying a Horse

Before scheduling a PPE to cement your commitment to buying your dream horse once you’ve finally found him, you have some homework to do.

Begin with the following questions: What’s your skill level as a rider? What is the horse’s potential job­—reiner, jumper, trail horse? Does your trainer have a role in whether or not you purchase the horse? What is your financial situation? Can you afford long-term maintenance costs for a pre-existing condition?

According to Luke Bass, DVM, faculty member in the Equine Field Services Department of Colorado State University, the PPE reviews a horse’s medical history and an evaluates his current physical condition.

“We want to know the entire history of the horse, but it’s important to get your hands on the horse with a physical examination,” says Bass. “We’re not there to persuade the buyer one way or the other. We’re presenting facts. Some facts scare people, but it depends on what they’re willing to manage. For example, if a buyer is only going to ride a horse a couple of times a month, that’s different from showing a horse once a week on a national circuit. The pre-purchase exam isn’t an insurance policy, either. The exam is more like a house or vehicle inspection, allowing the buyer to have some confidence that they’re making the right decision when buying a horse.”

You’ll benefit from evaluating a horse for your current needs and future goals as your skills and goals advance and the partnership develops. You’ll want to assess the level of risk you’re willing to take and factor in potential health expenses and management requirements in your decision to buy or pass on a horse.

“Many people don’t exactly know what to look for when they’re buying a horse,” says Bass. “For example, parents will bring their 12-year-old daughter to ride the horse. They get along, but maybe the parents aren’t so savvy on medical conditions that may impact that relationship in the future. We want to ensure that we’re helping them make the right decision for their kid or themselves.”

The Changing of Pre-Purchase Exams

Older horse owners remember the simpler days of a PPE. The results were equally fundamental: Is the horse sound? Does he need his teeth floated? Is he generally healthy?

The content, complexity, and cost of a PPE has ballooned over the past 10 years, according to Diana DeBlanc, DVM, owner of Performance Equine Veterinary Services in Albuquerque, N.M.

“When I started practicing 25 years ago, a pre-purchase exam was pass/fail,” she says.

“I think the mindset has changed. If you’re a practitioner in the performance world, you have to be realistic and realize that you can find something wrong with every horse. Having ridden performance horses myself, I’ve always done my pre-purchases knowing that we may find an issue, but is this an issue that the owner wants to take on if it’s manageable? For example, a horse may exhibit [arthritic] changes in his hocks, but we may expect it with his job, and we can maintain it.”

The ballooning complexity and cost of a PPE over the past 10 years can influence the exam’s content, according to DeBlanc. For you as a buyer, determining whether a horse is healthy and sound may differ from someone who wants to dig deeper with advanced imaging.

As potential buyers become more educated and aware, PPEs evolve.

“Some people want me to listen to a horse’s heart and lungs, flex the legs, and make sure the animal is healthy,” says DeBlanc. “Other buyers want every bit of data and diagnostics available, including a menu of joint X-rays, an endoscope, and more.”

The ladder of a PPE’s content swells with each component, as does the cost. A PPE for the average horse owner ranges from $250 to $500. Four radiographs add around $200. A drug screen will set a buyer back $300 to $500.

Establishing a budget and understanding how costs can climb provide a guideline for your pocketbook prior to an exam.

A Menu of Options

Possible neurologic disorders, a higher risk of breed-specific genetic problems that have yet to surface, dental imperfections that affect a horse’s ability to perform, or conditions only confirmed by a blood test have changed how a PPE is executed.

The menu of options available could include such diagnostics as digital radiographs to detect bone splints or damage to the navicular bone, or ultrasounds to highlight soft tissue injuries in tendons and ligaments. An endoscopy examines the upper breathing airway, while a gastroscopy may be recommended for a horse with a history of gastric ulcers.

Drug screens are standard with PPEs for upper-level and financially valuable horses. These detect the presence of sedatives, steroids, anti-inflammatories, or pain killers used to mask pain or unsoundness, or to unnaturally enhance a horse’s speed or power.

However, customizing a PPE with advanced diagnostic tests can send the budget spiraling and may not be necessary. For example, an upper-airway endoscopy may be warranted if a horse exhibits coughing or stress during exercise, but it may not be needed if his breathing is normal.

Bass stresses three key areas where PPEs have changed the most: imaging techniques, communication skills, and buyer education.

“You probably still have to X-ray the legs, and maybe even ultrasound soft tissues, but the things that have changed the most are probably the evaluation of the axial skeleton and the impact that can have on the performance of the horse,” says Bass.

Open and honest communication channels between the buyer, seller and veterinarian pave the way for a thorough and accurate PPE. Communication skills for vets have evolved, too, according to Bass.

“I’m asking questions that allow me to learn more about the horse efficiently,” he says. “Veterinarians should ask a lot of open-ended questions and gather perspective from all parties. That’s our job.”

The Weight of Buying a Horse

The decision to buy a horse or pass on it is yours alone. Unsolicited but well-intended advice should never replace a thorough presentation of facts, scientific opinion, and approaches for maintenance and care required in light of an exam’s findings.

Every horse purchase is weighty and requires fairness, according to Bass.

“I try to treat every horse the same, whether it’s a backyard horse selling for $2,000 or a $1.5 million racing stallion. I want the buyer to have confidence that we are doing the pre-purchase exam the same way for every horse.”

This article about pre-purchase exams when buying a horse appeared in the September 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Seeing the full picture of a horse’s body from the inside began not with a hoof, but with a woman’s hand. The accidental discovery of the radiograph in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen transformed the human medical landscape. Still another century passed before advancements in equine diagnostic imaging revolutionized veterinary medicine.

Accurate, safe, and comprehensive imaging, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), nuclear scintigraphy (bone scan), and the emerging positron emission tomography (PET) scan may redefine horse health today, but it has only accelerated at a rapid rate during the past 25 years.

X-Rays and Ultrasound

Early radiographs (X-rays), while groundbreaking for both human and equine medicine, rendered complications. The analog film required wet processing and often lacked sufficient image detail and quality. Delays between image development and delivery to medical professionals impeded swift diagnoses. However, with the advent of portable digital machines, equine practitioners can now capture high-quality images of bone at a horse’s stall rather than in a veterinary clinic.

Later, ultrasound technology came onto the scene, employing high-frequency sound waves to produce high-resolution, two-dimensional images of tendons and ligaments. With the ultrasound, veterinarians can assess soft-tissue injuries, colic, pregnancy, and suspicious masses, such as abscesses and tumors. Advanced speed and the accuracy of high-resolution, two-dimensional images improve physical exams.

CT and MRI

Equine diagnostic imaging rocketed to the next chapter with the introduction of CT and MRI in the 1990s, according to Katherine Garrett, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, director of diagnostic imaging at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky.

“The most significant change in equine diagnostic imaging is the widespread adoption of cross-sectional imaging modalities,” she says. “Their introduction allows us to make much more specific diagnoses than we could previously and understand different diseases more thoroughly.”

The difference between the traditional X-ray and a CT scanner lies in the type of image. A CT scanner examines slices of bone and soft-tissue structures on multiple planes from multiple angles and is beneficial for diagnosing cases of lameness and sinus, dental, and neurological issues.

Traditional CT scans performed on a fully anesthetized and recumbent horse presented its share of risks. The standing CT scans lower legs and images the head and neck. Because the horse only requires mild sedation, fewer complications and threats to the horse and the clinician occur.

Sarah Puchalski, DVM, Dipl. ACVR, head of Diagnostic Imaging at Palm Beach Equine Clinic in Wellington, Fla., cautions horse owners to understand how different types of image qualities vary between scanners.

“There is a difference in image quality for CT scanners, and what can and cannot be scanned,” she says. “CT is used for dentition in the skull and fracture evaluation. Soft tissue detail isn’t as good as the MRI, but the bone detail is superior.”

Soft-tissue injuries present a puzzle, especially in cases of lameness. MRI, first performed on horses in the late 1990s, benefitted from early clinical use but shot to the top of imaging modalities in the past five years. Today, MRI is considered the gold standard of diagnostic imaging for soft tissue and orthopedic injuries by using magnetic fields and radiofrequency pulses to generate images.

Puchalski notes that the particular benefit of the MRI rests in diagnosing the source of lameness.

“For example, inside the hoof capsule, you cannot evaluate tendons and ligaments,” she says. “MRI opened the door for a whole range of new injury diagnoses allowing specific target therapies.” Garrett concurs.

“With the MRI, we obtain detailed information about an entire region,” she explains. “Deep digital flexor tendon tears, navicular bone inflammation, bone bruising, and coffin joint arthritis have different treatments and prognoses. We can diagnose and treat each more specifically and hopefully have better outcomes.”

Bone Scans and PET Scans

Nuclear scintigraphy (bone scan) employs radioactive isotopes, which, when injected, emit radioactive gamma rays. A special camera documents two-dimensional images of skeletal anatomy, showing areas with increased metabolic activity.

Reactive sites light up as “hot spots” to identify sources of lameness or other injuries. Evaluating a tissue’s physiology or what is occurring inside the tissue distinguishes the bone scan from other methods.

Scintigraphy, according to Puchalski, allows a clinician not only to identify sites that may not be clinically evident but provides an opportunity to use disease-modifying agents earlier.

“Hock arthritis shows up on scintigraphy early,” she says. “Scintigraphy also allows us to evaluate the neck, back and pelvis. A higher degree of radioactivity in an area means more active bone turnover, inflammation or injury.”

Mathieu Spriet, DVM, M.S., Dipl. ACVR, Dipl. ECVDI, Dipl. ACVR-EDI, associate professor of Diagnostic Imaging at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, recalls the trajectory of equine imaging during his lifetime.

“When I was in graduate school in France, the only imaging modalities we had were X-ray and ultrasound,” he recalls. “In the last 25 years, we’ve had digital radiographs, CT and MRI. I’m excited to contribute another piece by bringing the PET to the table.”

PET scans add a new chapter to nuclear medicine imaging. A radioactive tracer injected in the horse shows activity in the bones and soft tissues at a molecular level by detecting “hot spots” that illuminate injury, functional change, or inflammation on images.

The defining concept of the PET scan is the distinction between functional versus structural imaging.

“With most imaging, you are looking at the size and shape of structures,” says Spriet. “When the bone looks abnormal, it’s sometimes difficult to know if it’s abnormal because something is happening right now or if there is an old injury that is not currently active.”

To perform the first equine PET scan in 2015, Spriet and his research team partnered with an engineering team from Maryland-based Brain Biosciences, a company specializing in state-of-the-art molecular brain imaging devices. A clinical program employing a modified human scanner imaged over 100 anesthetized horses with lameness issues.

Anesthesia carries its own level of risk to both the horse and the owner’s pocketbook. Four years after introducing the first scanner, a standing PET for a mildly sedated horse advanced this up-and-coming technology. With a standing PET, a clinician positions the horse’s hoof into an open doughnut-shaped ring before closing the apparatus around the leg. The ring’s detectors capture images from the hoof, but it can open automatically if the horse moves.

The radioactive isotope is injected 30-60 minutes prior to bringing the horse in to the room. In less than half an hour, a PET scan can image both feet and fetlocks. With an MRI scan, 45 minutes per foot or fetlock is necessary.

A Game-Changing Future

Kelly Tisher, DVM, a Colorado-based veterinarian and clinic partner at the Littleton Equine Medical Center, envisions future technology to scan a horse’s total circumference. According to Tisher, several companies are actively working to create and improve standing technology, including a robotic CT machine.

“We’ve been hoping there would be an advancement in technology to allow standing CT imaging, especially for a horse’s head and neck,” he says. “Head imaging for sinus, teeth, or other tumors is tricky. With the neck, we have an ultrasound and X-ray. Still, the ability to have 3D imaging and some sectional imaging and transverse imaging to learn about what different pathologies mean and what their clinical relevance is would be amazing.”

Each year, seeing the full picture of a horse’s anatomy to diagnose injury and disease matures. Century-old curiosity ignited a medical revolution, and today, veterinary researchers are casting light on more than a horse’s hoof.

This article about equine diagnostic imaging appeared in the January/February 2022 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, a Passion

Dark Horses and Black Beauties: Animals, Women, and Passion resonates in its timelessness and holds secrets and gifts to last a lifetime. Opening the cover of Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s book is like discovering a secret chest in your grandmother’s attic. Antique photos sprinkled throughout the text excavate reasons why little girls worldwide fall under the spell of the horse.

Breyer horse collections pave the way to devouring books about the horse’s anatomy, evolution and history, dominating the lives of those obsessed with all things equine. Most horse owners in the United States and the United Kingdom continue to be female.

Influences of culture, economics, and relationships may blunt the fixation—but not the love of the horse itself.

Skillfully intertwining memoir, history, sociology, psychology and poetry, Pierson ruminates on why so many women connect with the horse. Her disclosure of her own return to riding and recapturing her relationship with the horse ignites the reader’s enthusiasm for this powerful bond that has spanned centuries.

How do the feminine and the equine fall naturally into partnership? What is it about the horse that bolsters a woman’s self-confidence and empowerment? Pierson’s questions resurrect memory in the reader and offer a peaceful contemplation about one’s passion for the horse.

Published in 2001. Available in paperback on Amazon for $19.95

Wild Ride Home: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, a Family Memoir

Books like Black Beauty place the horse in the center of the narrative, but in others, it serves as the framework for the writer to tell their own story. In Christine Hemp’s memoir, Wild Ride Home: Love, Loss, and a Little White Horse, a feisty Arabian named Buddy provides the structure for her to unwind her story of love, loss, illness and home.

Hemp, a celebrated poet and teacher, recounts how her calm, settled life on a New Mexico ranch and her love for Trey, a Scottish fly fisherman, unravels. Abandoning the ranch, her fiancé, and the desert life she always wanted turns out to be only the first blow to Hemp’s life. Two miscarriages and a rising threat of violence forces Hemp to flee back home to the Olympic peninsula.

Optimism and humor have always defined the Hemp family. Hemp believes that home should repair her damaged soul. Instead, Hemp realizes that her mother, the emotional stalwart of the family, is on her own journey with Alzheimer’s disease, living in another country for which no one has a passport.

Buddy enters Hemp’s life as her mother begins to exit. Owned by a neighbor, Buddy has shadows of his own history to overcome. With the help of a ground trainer, Hemp and Buddy face their fears and learn to trust each other and the future.

Though Hemp’s life continues to swerve between love and illness, Buddy opens a window to a deeper understanding of the world. In the end, Hemp concludes, “Maybe this is actually what we’re called upon to do in this little life: find home in the most elemental place possible, our own skin.”

Published Nov. 2, 2021. Available in paperback on Amazon for $16.99

Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond

Editor Halimah Marcus and 14 writers with a riding past excavate not only the meaning of the phrase “horse girl,” but ask bold questions about privilege, race, cultural identity, and resolution. In Horse Girls: Recovering, Aspiring, and Devoted Riders Redefine the Iconic Bond, the stereotypical image of a “horse girl”—white, rich, thin, beautiful, and straight—disintegrates on the page.

Emerging writers like Braudie Blais-Billie sit side by side with Pulitzer-prize winners like Jane Smiley. Horse Girls reframes the narrative about the relationship between girls and horses with a complexity that meets the reality of this time in history.

Marginalization in the equine world features prominently. Black barrel racer Sarah Enelow-Snyder opines about growing up in Spicewood, Texas, and unveils not only race-based bullying in the classroom that forced her into a home-schooling alternative, but also a father who values a blue ribbon as a path to self-worth.

Nur Nasreen Ibrahim writes about how colonialist influences in horse culture in Pakistan cast a permanent shadow on her relationship with Shakoor, a ghoray wala (horseman) hired to lead the writer, her brother, and cousins along the trails of Nathiagali, a small holiday community. Ibrahim came of age entrenched in an affluent neighborhood of lawyers, engineers, and military colonels. Still, she shuttled between upper-class guilt and a deep desire to bridge the gap of class and the stench of colonialization.

The thought-provoking horse book by Blais-Billie, a woman of Seminole and Quebecois heritage, navigates country and legacy that she both espouses and rebuffs, which makes it a perfect horse gift. Blais-Billie’s grandmother introduces her to the rodeo world, an integral part of rez (reservation) culture. Still, influences from her French-Canadian mother and grandparents educated her about the horse’s power in her inner life.

Released August 2021. Available in paperback on Amazon for $14.49

This article about horse books that make a good gift appeared in the November/December 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post Gift a Horse Book appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Closet equine writers, it’s time to unite and come out of the creative shadows. Independent publishing continues to revolutionize how books are created, published, and read, and a corral of equine writers are blazing new trails.

“Works of fiction or even nonfiction have been considered too niche by some of the big mainstream publishers,” says award-winning equine author Carly Kade of Phoenix, Ariz. “As a result, many equine writers have decided to publish independently.”

Also Read: How to Become the Next Great Equestrian Blogger?

The Changing Landscape

In 2008, the independent publishing landscape realized a significant turning point for two reasons: First, widespread use of social media meant authors incur little or no self-promotion costs. Secondly, e-book marketplaces like Amazon, iBookStore, and Barnes and Noble now allow new and established writers to sell books worldwide. They may even have specialized publishing categories for equine writers, like Amazon’s equestrian fiction subcategory.

According to Bowker, a world provider of bibliographic information, the independently published market grew by a whopping 375 percent between 2010 and 2015. Amazon continues to dominate the market with its DIY publishing platforms, CreateSpace and KDP, increasing its titles from 929,920 in 2017 to 1.4 million in 2018.

The hesitation of traditional publishers to invest in equestrian books because the readership is considered too narrow is only one part of the story. Equine writers are embracing the changes in publishing choices for critical creative and legal control. Retaining creative control of book covers, manuscript formatting, and marketing drives many to consider independently publishing their respective projects.

“People want to have control over their art,” says Heather Wallace, an independently published author in Red Bank, N.J. “They don’t want to give it away to someone, even if that person might be able to sell more copies.”

Anna Blake, a Colorado dressage trainer, clinician, horse advocate, and author of multiple books, concurs.

“The big publishers have had an incredible amount of control, and authors have sat like little dogs begging for treats,” she says. “Technology and print-on-demand changed everything. Now we don’t have to destroy the rainforest and stock warehouses full of books, either.”

The Pros and Cons

The protection of assets, especially assuring full ownership of a book’s intellectual property, has spurred multiple writers to form their own publishing company to publish their titles, including Kade.

“Often when you sign with a traditional publisher, you lose your audiobook rights,” she says. “You may lose TV rights if that ever comes into the equation. Some people sign away their merchandising rights.”

Yet, Kade explains the flip side if authors go the independent publishing route.

“That is the power of independent publishing,” she continues. “You’ve got to do a lot of work. You’ve got to understand the process. But you own your work so that you can take it and create whatever you want with it.”

The lack of institutional support from publishing companies plays a critical role for Wallace.

“Back in the 1980s and 1990s, traditional publishers had a marketing team for authors,” she says. “Now, a publishing company won’t bring an offer [to] someone that doesn’t have a following already. Authors market their books. Many authors say, ‘Why am I giving up control and giving you 90 percent of the sales when I could do it on my own?’”

The Emotional Touch

The emotional weight that horse owners and enthusiasts garner cannot be understated. According to 2017 survey results by the American Horse Council Foundation, horse owners number 1,013,746 in the United States. Small publishers may miss the hidden opportunity for financial success that equestrian writers recognize.

Blogger and author Susan Friedland suggests that publishing houses fall short with their lists and overlook the equine owner and book-reading market.

“My second book, called Strands of Hope: How to Grieve the Loss of a Horse, has an audience that needs the message,” she says. “There are thousands—possibly millions—of horse lovers who lose a horse every year. [Large] publishing houses don’t possess the insight to market a book to horse fans.”

Don’t underestimate the tenacity and perseverance of equine writers to get their stories out.

“I will not take no for an answer,” says Blake. “I will not be bucked off of this process.

Horsewomen are a force of nature. We muck manure. We fix fences. We write books.”

Renewed Interest in Reading

The age of COVID confirmed a shift in how readers consume media and how content is published. According to Libby, an e-reading platform, Americans borrowed over 10.1 million digital books from public libraries during the third week of March alone. Audiobook downloads continue to benefit from the fast-moving publishing landscape, offering another revenue stream for independent equine authors.

“People want to be distracted,” says Merri Melde, a photographer, writer, endurance horse conditioner, and author of four books. “They can’t go to movies. They can’t go to bars. Lockdowns became another entry point for equine writers.”

Recently, a group of independently and traditionally published authors have come together online on a platform created by Wallace to highlight authors of horse books and to help them connect with readers within this niche. Readers can search non-fiction and fiction equestrian authors, read their biographies, connect with them on social media, and find links to purchase books of interest.

For more, visit www.booksforhorselovers.com.

This article about self-publishing for equestrian authors appeared in the October 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

The post The Road Less Traveled: The Self-Publishing Option for Equestrian Authors appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Single-digit temperatures. Water trough skating rinks. Ice crystal whiskers. When a riding day becomes a reading day this winter, brew another cup of coffee and start catching up on your reading with these horse books.

Memoirs for Horse Winter Reading

Rough Magic

Lucy Prior-Palmer is the youngest person and the first woman to win the famed Mongol Derby, a 600-mile race through Mongolia. Now, she’s also the author of the horse book called Rough Magic: Riding the World’s Loneliest Horse Race, which is great for winter reading

Dazed and confused best describes Prior-Palmer. She flits between dead-end jobs and farfetched plans requiring money or motivation she doesn’t possess. Emerging from high school without a clue and still living with her parents, Prior-Palmer casts her fate with one computer click and enters the Mongol Derby.

She eats all the snacks she packs on the first day and finds GPS coordinates inscrutable. Instead of falling off a horse, she entangles herself in her backpack. Finishing one day of the race, let alone completing it alive, seems improbable at best.

At dawn each day, Prior-Palmer hauls herself onto another wild pony and gallops into the Mongolian desert. Native herders point her in wrong directions. Swarms of rat colonies teem under her horse’s hooves. Toilets are a misnomer. Extreme heat and biblical storms track her like bad habits.

As Prior-Palmer battles with the elements and her psyche, what began as a lark becomes a drive to win the race. Armed only with a bungee rope to tie her pony du jour and her ankle together when she misses the deadline to reach a race station, Prior-Palmer inches up on her competitors.

Readers know that Prior-Palmer wins the race from the start. The book’s engagement comes from the author’s self-deprecating humor and poetic language. An eye for her competitors’ flaws and the absurdity of her challenge to win, the least-expected, least-respected person becomes a champion.

Lady Long Rider

At the age of 50, Bernice Ende stepped into a saddle on a borrowed horse and rode south to visit her sister, a 2,000-mile ride from Montana to New Mexico.
Weather featured front and center on Ende’s first ride, but so did the monotony of her days.

Unpacking, grooming, feeding, and repacking left little time for Ende to put her boots up. Foraging for food and water was paramount, too.

Ende’s impulsive idea became a 15-year, 30,000-mile odyssey of self-discovery chronicled in her book, Lady Long Rider: Alone Across America on Horseback. The book, a spontaneous thought in itself, revisits each of her rides with colorful storytelling, passion, and insight for what has become a way of life, often declaring, “I finally married my life, and I love it.”

Seven rides later, Ende mostly lives outdoors full-time, alone and beholden to no one. Ende’s encounters with people opening their doors and their hearts to her open the reader’s eyes to a gentler America.

The Long Ride Home

Rupert Isaacson’s first memoir, The Horse Boy, chronicles his family’s month-long arduous journey to Mongolia to help his autistic son. Succeeding in taming his son’s explosions, incontinence, and behavior, Rowan regresses a year later.

Heartbroken but undaunted, Isaacson realizes he must follow the shamans’ advice and make three more journeys. Isaacson’s second memoir, The Long Ride Home, recounts the family’s travels in Namibia, Australia, and the American desert Southwest on a quest for healing.

During the first journey, the family travels to central Namibia, meeting with spiritual healers renowned for transmitting healing properties and challenging evil spirits. Healers dance their way into trances that intensify in both time and frenzy in a spiritual war for Rowan’s health and a family’s well-being.

On the second leg of the family’s mission, the mystery deepens. An Australian healer plucks the air around his son’s head before mysteriously depositing mucus materials into a coffee cup. Is the healer extracting parts of Rowan’s brain and discarding it? Was the healer’s movement a sleight of hand or a physical decluttering of Rowan’s mind?

In New Mexico, Navajo medicine man Blue Horse waits for an image to emerge from ashes of a cedar fire before guiding a hallucinatory and life-altering sweat ceremony. After leaving Blue Horse, Isaacson is reduced to tears when Rowan begins speaking in full sentences for the first time.

An inspiration for families struggling with autism, Isaacson’s books shine a light on the healing effects of horses for all of us.

Murder Mysteries for Winter Horse Reading

Cutter

Equine vet Gail McCarthy begins her career in California’s Central Valley. McCarthy soon discovers that her hands are not only full of bandages and medications, but murder, too.

In Cutter, Laura Crum’s first book in a 12-part series, McCarthy races to the Indian Gulch Ranch after an urgent early-morning call from the resident trainer and cowboy, Casey Brooks. Ten of the ranch’s horses colicked in the night. Quick to triage the sick animals that can be saved, McCarthy grows alarmed when Casey declares that poison felled his herd.

The mysterious colic cases become much more sinister, however, when McCarthy discovers Casey’s body at the bottom of a ravine. His death sparks her anxiety, driving her to find her friend’s killer. Does the ranch owner’s secrecy about his business connect to the murder? Why did Casey’s girlfriend clam up and disappear?

Crum draws on her fascination with the cowboy life and experience with cutting, ranching, and training horses for her mysteries. In this series, relationships in and out of the cutting horse circuit weave an intricate web of deceit and murder.

Death Reins In

What’s the connection between a glass of merlot and a mare? How about a high-end wine collector and a Quarter Horse trainer? Accomplished mystery writer Michele Scott trades wine for horses as the backdrop for murder in her second mystery series.

With her messy divorce settled, trainer Michaela Bancroft sets her sights on expanding her business in Death Reins In. Purchasing four new horses from her dear friend and mentor Audrey Pratt, Bancroft thinks she’s on the road to financial and emotional recovery. A ghastly discovery in her barn throws a wrench in her plans. Bancroft finds Audrey dead in one of her stalls, strangled by a set of reins.

Murder may be the central crime committed, but a host of subjects like addiction, abduction, and money trick the reader with red herrings and false suspects. Clues surface in unexpected places. How does a seedy country western bar connect with a Malibu estate?

The plot, rich in secrets and deception, forces the beautiful and independent Bancroft to find the killer before the killer finds her first. If you’re a wine and horse lover, Michele Scott’s series will fit perfectly in your holiday stocking!

Reining in Murder

Horse trainer Anne Carson is a classic skeptic. Her relationship with others is best kept at arm’s length, and forced socializing ignites her flight impulse. Instead, Carson relies on her menagerie of horses and sheep and her blue heeler, Wolf, to corral any chaos of her own making and keep dysfunction at bay.

A loner in her private life, Carson is also the first call the local sheriff, Dan Stetson, makes when a trailer rolls over, trapping a valuable horse and the body of the driver. Stetson bristles, however, at Carson’s freelance investigative pursuits.

Toss in the unwelcome arrival of Carson’s sister, the crystal-loving, equine-empath-wannabe Lavender, and Carson struggles to reset her own
carnivorous, scotch-centered life.

Reining in Murder, the first in the four-part Carson Stable Series surges out of the gate and doesn’t come to a full stop until the last page. With a likable protagonist, author Leigh Hearon merges her lengthy career as a private investigator with her lifetime love of horses. At ease in both the equine world and the brass-knuckled environment of real-life crime, Hearon’s books leave readers engrossed and satisfied.

Fiction Horse Books for Winter Reading

Learning to Fall

Brynn Seymour, months away from completing her dream of becoming an equine vet, can’t escape the web of her father’s hopes for her. She resists his plan for her to follow in his footsteps and be a showjumper, but complies until a tragic accident takes her father’s life.

First-time novelist Anne Clermont uses the backdrop of high-stakes jumping competition, but her debut novel is so much more. Clermont examines the tentacles of how fear holds us back, how dreams of a parent hinder our own, and how to stay true to your path.

The unrealized dreams of Brynn’s father threaten to subsume her family’s ranch and future. Debt is only one of Brynn’s problems as underhanded trainers poach her clients. A fallen star of the show-jumping world and her sometimes-boyfriend plays more than the show circuit field. Her mother undercuts her confidence.
Through every trial and tribulation, her cherished horse, Jett, doesn’t leave her side and holds the key to Brynn’s future and the ranch’s survival. Betting on a long-shot victory at the Million Dollar Cup, Brynn must surrender to the unknown of her horse’s power and her own heart.

Clermont skillfully crafts characters that are simultaneously reluctant and brave, calm and frazzled, and overwhelmed and tenacious—but they’re always authentic. Replete with obstacles, both physical and emotional, Learning to Fall captures the ambiguity of life and transports readers over fences and deep into our hearts.

Painted Horses

Some books, much like a forever horse, last longer than any potent childhood memory in the minds of voracious readers. Reaching the final chapter can be as joyless as it is satisfying for readers. In Malcolm Brooks’ novel Painted Horses, language is as rugged as the landscape and the characters as unpredictable as the vastness of the American West.

Archaeologist Catherine Lemay cuts her research teeth in post-Blitz London, where artifacts from Victorian and Roman eras compete for attention in the mud. After landing an excavation project in Montana, the tension between progress and historical preservation threatens to undermine all she knows and learns to value.

Lemay is a pawn. Caught between her employer, the Smithsonian, and a Montana electric utility, she’s assigned a futile task. Can she find anything of historical importance in a vast canyon that hydroelectric dam developers want to flood for their project?

Lemay is forced to place her trust in Jack Allen, an abusive Mustang wrangler and company spy to serve as her guide into the canyon. John, a reclusive cowboy with a mysterious past, intercedes in Lemay’s plans and convinces her to see more than artifacts in the canyon.

The Horse Dancer

Sarah’s grandfather, Henri, once a heralded rider in an elite French riding school, lands in inner-city London after running afoul with his superiors. Henri’s career in shambles, he places his dreams for perfection in his granddaughter, Sarah. He trains her and her magnificent horse, Boo, in the gritty back alleys and city parks of London.

Natasha Macauley’s life is a mess. Her marriage is in the dust bin. Her professional judgment as a human rights attorney is under the scope of inquiry. One day, from a commuter train window, Natasha sees the willful and talented Sarah riding Boo.

Not until Sarah shoplifts a candy bar under the nose of Natasha do their two worlds collide. Natasha takes Sarah under her wing and soon finds out her charge holds many secrets. When Henri dies, the clash between classes intensifies, reaching a crescendo of questionable choices by both Sarah and Natasha.

Author JoJo Moyes seamlessly juggles the vulnerability and danger of innercity London with upper-middleclass comfort and angst. Class divisions sever and nurture bonds of convenience. Teenage impulse drives adult decisions and panic.

Moyes’ modern-day Dickensian story skillfully examines the division between classes and cultures as broken characters find peace with themselves and with each other through love for a horse in The Horse Dancer.

This article on horse books to add to your winter reading list originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

Further Reading on Horse Books for Your Winter Reading

• Virtual Bookstore Launches for Horse Lovers
• New York Times Writer Sarah Maslin Nir Shares What It Means to be Horse Crazy in New Book
• Finding Inspiration from Classic Horse Books
• How to Start a Horse-Themed Book Club

The post Winter Reading List appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.