Many people know positive reinforcement training by the terms “clicker training” or “R+.” Although Karrasch didn’t create the techniques, there’s no doubt that she has been a pioneer in bringing them to the horse world.

From 10,000 to 1,200 Pounds

Karrasch first developed skills as a positive reinforcement trainer when she worked as a marine mammal trainer at Sea World in San Diego, Calif., for a decade. There, she worked with sea lions, walruses, otters, Beluga whales, killer whales, and different types of dolphins.

Her life changed dramatically in 1992 when she attended a show jumping grand prix. By the end of the night, she was enthralled.

“I didn’t even know what posting a trot was, and I wanted to be a grand prix show jumper in my 30s,” she laughs. “At that point, I had been flying off the nose of whales, so a big fence on a horse didn’t seem like anything. In fact, horses were kind of cute and little. They’re not 10,000 pounds. They’re 1,200.”

She knew she could put her accumulated knowledge of positive reinforcement training with the whales to work with horses, but first she had to learn the ropes of the horse industry. She began taking beginner riding lessons and even riding on calls with veterinarians and farriers to learn everything she could.

“I was that 12-year-old girl,” she admits. “I’d be talking about horses, horses, horses. Within a couple months, I ended up buying my own horse, and then I was showing, and I really, really loved it.”

Positive Reinforcement Basics

She kept asking horse people if they used positive reinforcement during training but was told “no” over and over. However, her experiences on the executive board of the International Marine Animal Trainers Association had shown her that all sorts of zoo and marine animals could be trained with positive reinforcement. A phone conversation with legendary trainer Tom Dorrance gave her the green light that her methods of animal training should work on horses.

Because all she had done with the marine mammals was positive reinforcement, she had a hard time grasping the concept of pressure and release, also known as negative reinforcement, which is much more common in the horse industry.

“I try to remind people, positive and negative don’t mean good and bad; they mean plus and minus,” she explains. “So when people talk about negative reinforcement, it doesn’t mean you beat your horse. It means you apply pressure and take the pressure away, and that subtraction of the pressure is what increases the frequency of the behavior. On the other side, adding something to the equation, like food, increases a behavior. So we have two different ways that we can reinforce them.”

An Opportunity for Positive Reinforcement with Horses

Her big break came alongside her then-husband, Vinton Karrasch. The couple were invited by Vinton’s friends, John and Beezie Madden, to move to New York so they could use positive reinforcement methods with the Maddens’ show jumpers. She called this her “lab time” as she began to finesse her techniques.

Her success with the Maddens’ horses began to turn heads, and the first clinic she ever booked was for people attending the Festival of Champions at the USET hedquarters. After more than a year at the Maddens, she left to start her business, On Target Training.

Karrasch assumed that the horse world would wholly embrace it, but that wasn’t the case. Especially since it was something new coming from a newcomer. However, the fact that she had trained orcas and other marine mammals gave her credibility. At first, some people came just to see the “whale lady.”

One of the biggest challenges to working with clients back then was that there wasn’t enough material for riders to follow through on, and many would go back to training the way they had always known.

“I was one person who couldn’t really be there to help them to follow through,” she says. “My book wasn’t even written yet. Now with the internet, we have so many more resources for people.”

The Future as a Positive Reinforcement Trainer

Her first book was You Can Train Your Horse to Do Anything! On Target Training Clicker Training and Beyond, released in 2000. Her second book, published by Trafalgar Square Books, called The Power of Positive Horse Training: Creating Exceptional Behavior by Changing Equine Relationships with the World Around Them, dropped in November 2021.

In 2020, she partnered with Via Nova Training, a dressage and eventing facility in Santa Fe, N.M., and became their lead behaviorist and trainer. She is teaching the entire team at Via Nova how to use and teach positive reinforcement training.

Her goal is to keep everyone learning and growing with the techniques. To do so, she’s embraced technology to teach others via video, webinars, a blog, social media, and a podcast, Equine Clicker 101 with Shawna Karrasch.

Karrasch points out that positive reinforcement is of great benefit to the horse because horses are always communicating. Sometimes it’s subtle, but people can learn to read cues and emotional state.

She emphasizes that positive reinforcement training should be fun for you and your horse.
“If the marine mammals didn’t think the training was fun, they wouldn’t show up,” she says. “It’s the same with the horses.”

The post Positive Reinforcement Training for all Species appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

With more than 11,000 podcast episodes, 13,000 guests, and 33 hosts who produce 40 to 50 shows per month across 18 podcasts, the Horse Radio Network has developed the ultimate equestrian audio empire. The face of that empire is founder Glenn Hebert, aka Glenn the Geek. Alongside Glenn is his partner in all things horse for the past 32 years—wife Jennifer Hebert, aka Coach Jenn. In fact, without Jenn’s horsey influence, the Horse Radio Network might not exist, and Glenn might never have become “America’s Horse Husband,” as he is known on air. While Glenn has been a jack-of-all-trades as the network has grown, Coach Jenn keeps it all organized with her producing, editing and hosting duties.

“I just needed to do something entertaining,” says the former actor. He now jokes that this has actually been the longest gig he’s ever had.

Gaining Momentum

Glenn launched the network in August 2008 at the same time as his first podcast, the Stable Scoop Radio Show with cohost Helena Harris. He was determined to succeed, even though after the first six months, he and Harris only had 12 listeners.

“Back then, it was tougher to get guests, since nobody knew what a podcast was,” Glenn says.

But it then started growing faster as people learned how to listen to podcasts. People no longer ask, “What station is that on?”

The Horse Radio Network ended up partnering with a variety of national equine organizations, which helped raise awareness of this growing form of entertainment for horse people. Show hosts have also been critical to the network’s success.

“People come for the content, but they stay for the hosts, who really are engaging and who people like,” says Glenn. “I think that’s the key to success. I think the hosts are what make it. Eighty-five percent of podcasts start and stop within six months, and our shows have been around for years, so I think we’ve broken the mold in many ways in that they last longer, but that’s because we find the right hosts.”

The Daily Drive

Glenn’s goal was for the shows on the network to be “edutainment”—entertaining first and educational second. His dream of being a “morning drive radio guy” enticed him to push the envelope with a 90-minute weekday morning show—and Horses in the Morning was born with Glenn and cohost Jamie Jennings. It broke all the traditional podcast rules, including the one about keeping episodes short, says Glenn.

“If it’s entertaining enough, people will allow the time,” he says. “They listen to morning drive radio shows every day, so why wouldn’t they listen to ours?”

The show was designed like morning radio shows, featuring short segments, comedy bits, trivia, live call-ins, et cetera. Glenn says Horses in the Morning has become one of the top five longest-running daily podcasts in the world.

“My goal was always that Horse Radio Network would be the No. 1 podcast network in the world when people figured out podcasting,” he says. “And that did happen. I like being the first at anything. I don’t like doing it second.”

Horses in the Morning was the biggest risk for the network to tackle, because it’s an expensive show to produce.

“It’s still our biggest show, and it’s still our most profitable show,” shares Glenn. “It’s the one that the listeners really relate to, and it’s because we’re there daily for them.”

Beyond Horses

All of this has led to other opportunities within the mainstream podcasting industry, especially since the network was making money when many podcasters weren’t. Glenn has been asked to speak at a variety of conferences, including Podcast Movement and Podfest.

In addition, Glenn branched out to cohost a travel podcast, Finding Florida, with Jaime Legagneur on the Florida Podcast Network.

Luckily, Glenn’s fear of podcasting falling out of favor was not to be. Nowadays, there are more than 1.5 million podcasts, according to Edison Research. Does he fear the competition? Not a chance.

“I’m happy that there are new podcasts in the horse world, because that helps educate people about podcasts,” he says. “Nobody ever listens to just one show. The average podcast listener listens to seven to 10 different shows.”

In addition, Glenn says that even though they have tens of thousands of listeners, they still have a long, long way to go since there are millions of horse people and an abundance of topics to cover.

In the beginning, he says he was just a horse husband who didn’t know much, but who would learn along with the audience. Now he’s 12 years in.

“We’ve done over 11,000 episodes, and I don’t know a quarter of what there is to know about the horse world,” admits Glenn. “Here we are thousands of hours of programming later, and we still haven’t scratched the surface. There’s just so much to the horse world.”

This article about the Horse Radio Network appeared in the January/February 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

Further Reading

◆ The Horse Illustrated Episode of Horses in the Morning Episodes
◆ Announcing “The Horse Illustrated Episode of Horses in the Morning”

The post Equestrian Influencer: Building an Equestrian Audio Empire with the Horse Radio Network appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Horse Illustrated and Young Rider magazines have a lot to be proud of in 2021 after the American Horse Publications (AHP) Equine Media Awards were doled out at the 2021 AHP Back in the Saddle Conference in Irving, Texas on September 18, 2021. The AHP Equine Media Awards are the premier awards within the equine media industry. It was the first in-person AHP conference since the pandemic started, but it was a repeat performance of last year for both publications as they picked up awards yet again in editorial and photography categories, and the biggest award for Horse Illustrated was Honorable Mention in the General Excellence Self-Supported Publication (circulation 15,000 and over). Horse Illustrated captured the top honor in this category in 2019.

“It takes a lot of work in conjunction with our fantastic freelancers to pull together each issue, and being recognized with AHP awards is truly an honor that makes it all worthwhile,” said Editor Holly Caccamise. “Receiving the runner-up award for General Excellence, especially after winning this category in 2019, tells us we are on the right track in delivering a high-quality product to our subscribers.”

The judges shared the following comments about Horse Illustrated’s entry in the General Excellence category: “Horse Illustrated is a magazine that is inclusive of all breeds of horses and all disciplines of horsemanship…The introductory covers are luminous through splendidly sunlit images. The powerful masthead and colorful groups of cover lines add excitement. Inside, the magazine design has a refreshing cohesive feel; it is the stylized typography in the headlines, along with the black-and-brown color pallet and skillful use of white space that create this good experience. The photos that complement the stories are narrative and well-positioned.”

Horse Illustrated captured the following awards out of entries that were submitted by the publication:

• Honorable Mention in General Excellence Self-Supported Publication (circulation 15,000 and over) for the January 2020 and June 2020 issues of Horse Illustrated (out of 10 entries)
• 2^nd place in Editorial Action Photograph for “Horses From Above” by Shelley Paulson (out of 7 entries)
• 3^rd place in Self-Supported Publication Feature Single Article for “Shining a Light” by Amy Hempe in the October 2020 issue (out of 34 entries)
• 3^rd place in the Instructional Single Article for “Clicks and Flicks” by Daniel Johnson in the June 2020 issue (out of 16 issues)

Freelance contributors received the following honors for their work published in Horse Illustrated and Young Rider:

• 2nd place in Freelance Wrtier Equine-Related Journalism Article for “Becoming a Trainer” by Jennifer Bryant in the Summer 2020 issue of Young Rider magazine (out of 6 entries)
• 2^nd place in Freelance Editorial Action Photograph for “Horses From Above” by Shelley Paulson (out of 6 entries)
• Honorable Mention in Self-Supported Publication Horse Care Single Article for “The Retiree’s Workout Regimen” by Kara Stewart in the October 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 24 entries)
• Honorable Mention in Self-Supported Publication Horse Care Single Article for “Scratch That” by Allison Rehnborg in the September 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 24 entries)

The 2021 Equine Media Awards competition for material published in 2020 included a total of 643 entries in 56 classes by 98 members, 33 Publishing Media members, 19 Media Professional members, and 14 Business members. The complete results are available online in the awards program (PDF format) and video of the winning entries at www.americanhorsepubs.org/ahp-awards-contest.

For a complete list of awards won by Horse Illustrated and Young Rider over the years, visit www.horseillustrated.com/horse-illustrated-awards.

The post Horse Illustrated and Young Rider Magazines Recognized for Excellence in Equine Media at 2021 AHP Equine Media Awards appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

It started with horse book illustrator, Jean Abernethy in the year 2000. A bay horse with a blaze started life with a sense of humor. His eyes were different than any other horse; they were too big for his face, contributing to his goofiness. His heart was in the right place, but he liked to spook first and think later. But he has become a horse to be reckoned with through his various adventures with his friends.

Meet Fergus, the famous cartoon horse with more than 300,000 Facebook followers and 30,000 Instagram followers. He has graced the pages of multiple equine magazines and five books.

Before the Days of Fergus

His creator is none other than Jean Abernethy, one of the leading horse book illustrators in the equine industry.

Since her first cartoon was published in 1981, Abernethy has gone on to become a household name in the horse world and win coveted awards.

In 2019, American Horse Publications presented Abernethy with first- and second-place Equine Media Awards for her editorial illustrations published in Young Rider. In 2018, the Western Writers of America presented her with a Spur Award for her third book, Fergus and the Greener Grass.

Abernethy says she feels very blessed to have her dream job as a horse book illustrator.

“A horse magazine was a real treasure when I was a kid, and now my work is showing up in them,” she says. “The horse industry has kept me steadily working, and I’m very grateful for that. It’s a real privilege to be able to work at something you’re passionate about.”

Abernethy calls horses her rudder. She currently owns an Arabian/Quarter Horse-cross named Willow. She and her trusty buckskin have spent seven summers working as trail guides for South Algonquin Trails, a trail riding outfit on the edge of Algonquin Provincial Park near Harcourt, Ontario. Abernethy has also worked as a barn hand and carriage driver, and she enjoys saddle-making as a hobby.

Prior to majoring in illustration at Ontario College of Art and Design University, the Ontario native attended Humber College in West Toronto for its Equine Studies program. There she learned fundamental riding skills.

“My time in the Humber program introduced me to the professional horse world,” she says.

One of the biggest changes in her career has been learning to work with computer graphics.

“I graduated from art college in 1987 and hadn’t touched a computer,” she says. “I had no interest in it. Everything was brushes and inks and watercolors. The shift to working digitally started in about 2008. It was a very slow and frustrating learning curve, but that changed the look of my artwork. I discovered I could make perfectly straight lines, and I could change color tones instantly using the graphics programs. It just doesn’t look like what you can do with a pen.”

The Birth of Fergus

She says readers instigated the creation of her singular character when they kept thinking her generic characters were the same horse.

“I would just habitually make these ridiculous-looking eyes on the front of a horse’s face, because, of course, a horse’s eyes don’t touch in the middle, so making the eyes that way just seemed to make it extra funny,” says the lifelong horsewoman. “I could get a lot of expression out of those eyes.”

People started asking Abernethy what the horse’s name was frequently enough that Fergus was eventually born.

In 2012, she decided to digitally colorize her former black-and-white newspaper comic strips of Fergus and introduce him on Facebook. He quickly became an internet sensation.

“By the time I had 300,000 followers, it wasn’t very hard to get the attention of a book publisher,” she says. “I put out a query, and

Trafalgar Square Books answered me within four hours.”

Trafalgar Square Books has published all five Fergus books, including the latest, It’s Been 20 Years Fergus (and you’re still spooking at that thing?), available at horseandriderbooks.com.

Jean Abernethy says the best part of her job is choosing her own hours.

“It would be heartbreaking to give all the hours of my days to a boss in a building someplace,” she says with a laugh. “That would not be fun. It’s not easy, but I do love being self-employed.”

After 40 years as an illustrator, Abernethy considers her biggest accomplishment to be that she is still doing it after all these years.

This article about horse book illustrator Jean Abernethy appeared in the March 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Her parents thought it strange. After all, it was a very un-teen-like thing to do. But that never bothered Raquel. She still enjoyed reading Architectural Digest … even if it was unconventional for a teenage girl when most girls her age were reading things like Seventeen, Teen Vogue and Cosmo. But perhaps it was a look at what was to come for this eventual equestrian lifestyle blogger, who would build a social media following that most bloggers in any industry would envy.

The Early Years

With a mom who wanted to share her love of riding with her two daughters, Raquel Lynn Rzeszotarski grew up having a horse, riding western, competing in 4-H in various disciplines, and barrel racing in northern Ohio. After high school, she attended a broadcasting school tech program and took voiceover classes, which helped her nab an internship and eventually a job doing promotions at a recording label. Her job led her to several things she would end up falling in love with: her husband, content creation and social media.

She and her now-husband, Adam Korbesmeyer, met in 2008 while they worked in the same building. They married in 2014, moved to New York City briefly, and then Adam’s career took the couple out to Los Angeles in 2015.

At the same time her relationship was kicking into gear, so was her desire to create her own thing. When the business that she worked for went under, Raquel decided to manage her own blog and social media. So in 2010, she started www.horsesandheels.com under the name Raquel Lynn, using her middle name since it’s easy to remember.

Now with more than 1,200 posts, Horses and Heels is “a blog featuring cowboy boots, home décor, fashion, food, and general lifestyle for the equestrian enthusiast. It’s for the woman who wants to add a touch of equestrian to her life or the cowgirl who lives and breathes horses.” The Instagram account is @horsesandheels_.

The content often relates to things Raquel likes, some of which are listed on her site: “cowboy boots, sequins, all things sparkly, cowhide, creating, cooking, Pomeranians, Paint Horses, a good sale, flowers, wine, goat cheese, photography, flats, Bravo TV, barrel racing, turquoise, palm trees and sunshine.”

Raquel’s second blog, www.stablestyle.net, started as a section on her initial blog, but it grew in popularity so much so that it earned its own website to give her readers more of what they wanted—beautiful barns and stables from around the globe. And who better to provide this content than a lifetime lover of Architectural Digest? Before the website spinoff, Raquel Lynn first kicked off Stable Style as its own Instagram account (@stablestyle), which now has more than 78,000 followers. Her blogs get thousands of views every week.

In The Content Biz

“When I started Horses and Heels, I didn’t know what I was doing at all, so it was a lot of trial and error,” she says. “And I think one of the reasons Stable Style does so well is because I already had the crash course [of] Horses and Heels.”

She also works for various commercial clients and freelance writes for publications, such as Horse Illustrated, Chrome, American Paint Horse Journal and others.

“I’m a project person, so I think one of the reasons I thrive doing blogging and freelancing and all of these different things is because I don’t like doing the same thing every day,” she says. “I get really excited about starting a new project.”

One of her goals as a full-time blogger is to evaluate the effectiveness of her various revenue streams so she can adjust what she is spending time on.

“Being a blogger, everything changes so much and so quickly, you need to be able to change too if you want to keep doing it full time,” says Raquel Lynn. “For me, since I don’t work for a company, if I want to get a raise, then I have to go out and find a way to do it.”

The pandemic caused some changes, but it allowed her to finally publish the book she has wanted to put out for years. In November 2020, Stable Style: Barn Inspiration for All Equestrians was released. It’s a beautifully photographed coffee table book showcasing everything from two-stall stables to large training facilities.

Raquel Lynn is very passionate about what she does and all of the opportunities and relationships she has built because of her brands.

“It’s fun because I’m always learning something new, and I’m always evolving,” she says. “That’s a nice thing, because I don’t know if everybody loves their jobs as much as I do, and I feel very fortunate to have that.”

This lifelong Paint Horse enthusiast has embraced being an urban horse owner in L.A., often featuring her rides through city streets aboard her registered American Paint mare, Fira, and strolls with her Pomeranian, Mango. She got Fira as a skittish 3-year-old and trained her within city limits, since Fira literally lives in her backyard.

“It was a fun challenge, but I don’t think I would recommend doing it again,” she laughs.

One of her highlights over the past decade is seeing the growth in her business, including sales of items, such as her book, and most recently, private-labeled candles.

“Some of my other highlights have just been the friendships that I’ve made, because I talk with so many people online, and sometimes I get to meet them in person,” she says.

This article about Raquel Lynn appeared in the April 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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In 2017, 1.2 million web viewers around the world watched April the giraffe give birth on a viral live stream from the Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, N.Y. That following year, horse lovers had the chance to await the birth of several foals from Thoroughbred breeding farms in various states, thanks to a creative initiative from the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, N.Y, called the Foal Patrol, and now they are on Season 4.

John Hendrickson, who created the “Foal Patrol” concept with the late Marylou Whitney, once commented, “Once you see a foal born, you will never be the same.”

Watching a foal be delivered is an experience like no other for horse lovers, and if you’ve not had that experience before, then the Foal Patrol initiative has you covered. Followers can view a one-of-a-kind collection of live streams from participating farms to watch mares during their pregnancies, foalings, and the first few weeks of a foal’s life at FoalPatrol.com.

“One of the greatest aspects of Foal Patrol is that anyone with an internet connection can participate,” says National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame Museum Educator Lindsay Doyle. “This program provides a behind-the-scenes look at what daily life is like for an in-foal mare, granting access to an aspect of a mare’s life most people don’t have up-close access to. This access allows dedicated racing fans, as well as general animal lovers, a chance to ask questions, engage with farms, and deepen their understanding of the Thoroughbred industry as a whole.”

Foal Patrol now has fans all over the world, and Season 3 received more than 1.6 million views.

Fans can choose from a range of mares to follow, watch a daily feed of them as they go about their lives on a beautiful Thoroughbred farm, and enjoy the excitement of impending birth. Afterward, the blog gives updates on those foals born from previous seasons as they go through weaning and the beginning stages of training or to a sale (depending on the path the horse takes), and then to their appearance on the track.

In addition, FoalPatrol.com offers a variety of information about racehorses in general and also the stallions and broodmares in the program. There is also a kid’s area in partnership with Godolphin, one of the world’s leading horse racing and breeding operations.

Season 4’s roster of mares will be announced with webcams going live around the end of December.

In addition, keep an eye out for the following Season 1 foals, who kicked off their racing careers in 2020: Navratilova (Medaglia d’Oro x Centre Court, by Smart Strike) won her first race with Julien Leparoux on August 21 at Ellis Park. La Kara Mia (Medaglia d’Oro x La Verdad, by Yes It’s True) captured a second-place finish in her second start at Belmont Park on July 2, 2020.

This article about Foal Patrol Season 4 appeared in the January/February 2021 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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1. Practice your riding skills or go for a trail ride.
2. Help a local equine rescue.
3. Share one of Horse Illustrated’s featured My Right Horse Adoptable Horse of the Week posts on social media.
4. Read more about horse adoption, welfare, and charities.
5. Add to your horse care knowledge.
6. Read a good horse book, watch a horse movie or TV show, or check out a new equestrian podcast.
7. Start planning early for your next Kentucky Derby Party, with hopes that the pandemic will be over by then.
8. Purchase something new to read—Horse Illustrated’s recent special collector’s issue about 30 different horse breeds, Best of Breeds, especially before they sell out.
9. Sign up for Horse Illustrated’s Weekly Enewsletter so you don’t miss out on our latest content.

The post 9 Ways to Celebrate the 2020 National Day of the Horse appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Within the horse community, horse lovers are embracing the latest in technology, and that includes listening to podcasts about horses. What could make the drudgery of stall cleaning or your morning commute better? Listen to a podcast and learn more about your passion, be entertained and get to know the amazing personalities within the equestrian world with the magic of audio entertainment, and for some podcasts, there is also a video version (not recommended while driving). New podcasts are launching all the time, so we’re giving you a list of new podcasts and some of our favorite established podcasts, in addition to reader suggestions.

◆ EQUESTRIAN AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT SERIES: This new weekly series is hosted and produced by Carly Kade, author of the In the Reins series. It features interviews with equine authors who love all things horses and writing. It is perfect for anyone who loves horse books or who is an author or who aspires to be an author. www.carlykadecreative.com/podcast.html

◆ EQUESTRIAN PULSE PODCAST: This entertaining new podcast from international bloggers Heather Wallace of The Timid Rider (USA), Andrea Parker of The Sand Arena Ballerina (AUS) and Louise Dando of In Due Horse (UK/FRA) discusses a wide variety of topics, including confidence, horsemanship, health and trending events important to horse lovers across all disciplines. equestrianpulse.buzzsprout.com

◆ THE HUMBLE HOOF: Hoofcare provider Alicia Harlov created a podcast this year to help horses maintain strong, healthy, sound feet. Hoof care is critical for horse owners anywhere. Interview topics include nutrition and the hoof, hardworking hooves, rehabbing soft tissue injuries in the hoof, et cetera. www.thehumblehoof.com

◆ HORSES IN THE MORNING: This podcast has now been on air for 10 years and has become iconic within the horse industry. With more than 2,300 episodes, Horses in the Morning is the biggest podcast for the Horse Radio Network, which is the leading podcast network for horse lovers worldwide. The entire network has more than 8,000 episodes already pro- duced across 23 shows featuring a range of themes and disciplines. Horses in the Morning, with hosts Glenn the Geek and Jamie Jennings, became the horse industry’s first live morning show. It’s a light, lively, entertaining daily look at the horse world and the people in it. www.horsesinthemorning.com

◆ THE HORSE NUTRITION PODCAST: The Horse Nutrition Podcast with Purina Animal Nutrition’s team of Ph.D. equine nutritionists is hosted by author and trainer Lisa Wysocky. From therapy horses and pack horses to Budweiser Clydesdales and trail horses, interviews are full of stories of extraordinary horses doing amazing jobs and includes advice and knowledge on how to best feed your horse. www.horseradionetwork.com/the-horse-nutrition-podcast

◆ BECAUSE OF HORSES: Each week, Elise Gaston Chand shares notable equestrians’ personal stories, challenges, triumphs and expert insights, along with timely topics and event information from around the world. www.becauseofhorses.com

This article on equestrian podcast possibilities appeared in the February 2020 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

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Horse owners often wonder if their horses are expressing emotions or equine emotional intelligence. While they may not have the same capacity for complex human emotions like shame, embarrassment, pride and guilt, there is evidence that horses feel pain, loneliness, grief, happiness or contentment, and other simple emotions.

We can observe some horses grieving when a favorite human or horse companion passes away (case in point: the famous racehorse Man o’ War, who supposedly grieved himself to death shortly after his beloved groom, Will Harbut, died). We can see horses express fear at a wide range of objects and strange situations (just try waving a trash bag in front of your horse’s face unexpectedly).

We can see the anxiety in a sweaty, pacing horse who has just entered an unfamiliar stall at a new show facility. And we can see horses express excitement when they see a buddy return from a week of showing away from the farm. But what level of emotional intelligence are we actually able to attribute to horses?

Equine emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to monitor one’s own and another’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.

Discerning whether animals have any level of emotional intelligence is a lot more difficult than with people since they can’t talk to us. But recent research has been looking into whether horses can detect emotions in humans and other horses, how they express them, and whether this directs their behavior and especially their interactions with humans and other horses.

Vocalizing Emotions

There are two main dimensions when understanding animal emotion: whether he is calm versus excited, and whether it’s a positive emotion versus a negative one.
A study from Switzerland published in April 2015 looked at both dimensions as they relate to horse whinnies. The study was part of a series of studies headed by Elodie Briefer, Ph.D., M.S., associate professor at the University of Copenhagen.

“Horses were ideal for this study because they are very social and somewhat vocal, and we could compare them easily with Przewalski’s horses, their wild relative,” says Briefer.

During the study, horses were placed in positive or negative situations, or a neutral control situation. Vocalizations, heart rate (a strong indicator of physiological stress), and changes to behavior and physiology (respiration and skin temperature) were recorded.

One significant—and unexpected—discovery was that all horse whinnies have two separate frequencies, which is rare for mammals.

“The lowest frequency indicates how intense the emotion is, and the highest frequency, as well as the duration of the whinny, indicate if the emotion is negative or positive,” says Briefer.

In a follow-up study published in August 2017, researchers found that even similar species—Przewalski’s horses and domestic horses—may have different vocal expressions, although there were some similarities. Whinny duration and the higher frequency were the most reliable indicators of positive versus negative emotion in domestic horses, but these were not affected in Przewalski’s.

They also noted that nickers and squeals only have one frequency. Nickers are similar to the lower frequency in whinnies, while squeals are similar to the higher frequency.

This study also showed that interactions that triggered avoidance (like a bite, kick, chase, or threat and social separation) produced more whinnies and squeals. Meanwhile, a horse approaching another in play, mutual grooming, and food anticipation produced more nickers.

“In a followup study, we found that other horses can perceive the difference between positive and negative whinnies, which means that they could potentially be affected by the sounds of other horses,” says Briefer.

Reading Human Emotions

So we’ve determined that horses’ vocalizations play a role in communication. But can horses understand human emotion?

A 2018 study out of Japan says yes, that horses can integrate a human’s facial expression and voice to “read” the emotion behind those cues. Horses were shown a picture of a facial expression on screen along with a human voice with either a similar emotional value or a different condition.

Horses looked for more time at a caretaker’s face when voice and facial emotions didn’t match compared to when they did. If there was a negative situation, the horse looked at the speaker for significantly longer when a stranger was used as compared with a caretaker.

Researchers suggest this is because horses associate the emotional value of human facial expressions with the emotional value of human voices, even if it’s with a stranger. This suggests that interactions involving emotional information have played important roles in the social signals of horses throughout their history with humans.

Future Research Into Equine Emotional Intelligence

The research into equine emotional intelligence continues. Briefer’s next project involves finding out how the two frequencies of whinnies are produced and by which mechanisms and structures, and to learn the function of them.

“In order to test their functions, I will play back natural and artificially modified sounds containing only one of the frequencies, and look at horse responses to these sounds.”

Of course, there is a lot more research that needs to be done on equine emotional intelligence. But one thing is for sure, we can make our own observations about how certain experiences affect our horse’s behavior and think about what this means for our horse’s emotional welfare and happiness.

This article on equine emotional intelligence originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!

Further Reading

• University of Kentucky Will Research the Effect of Horses in Teaching Emotional Intelligence
• Recognizing Learning Ability in Horses

The post Equine Emotional Intelligence appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.

Horse Illustrated and Young Rider magazines continue their winning ways in 2020 with multiple American Horse Publications (AHP) Equine Media Awards. The AHP Equine Media Awards are the premier awards within the equine media industry, and AHP has been honoring excellence in equine media since 1975. AHP’s 50^th Anniversary Conference was supposed to be held in Lexington, Ky., this year, but due to the pandemic, it was cancelled, and the awards ceremony was held virtually on May 30.

“We are delighted to be recognized by AHP with a number of awards in 2020,” said Editor Holly Caccamise. “In the momentous 50^th anniversary year of American Horse Publications, it was sad we couldn’t all be together in person, but the team at AHP did a wonderful job of making the virtual awards ceremony interactive and exciting.”

The annual awards competition, which recognizes standards in journalistic integrity for informative and engaging content in a variety of media categories, has been in place since 1975. In addition to showcasing excellence in equine media, the awards also provide guidance for improvement to the membership through judges’ critiques.

“The staff of Horse Illustrated and Young Rider is proud to work with such great freelancers,” continued Caccamise. “It’s always difficult to narrow down which content to enter when high-quality story ideas and beautiful photography are the cornerstones of what Horse Illustrated and Young Rider are known for. We look forward to continuing these relationships that lead to mutual success in 2021.”

Horse Illustrated captured the following awards out of entries that were submitted by the publication:

• 2^nd place in Equine-Related Editorial Series for “Out of the Wild” by Shelley Paulson in the February and March 2019 issues of Horse Illustrated (out of 22 entries)
• 3^rd place in Service to the Consumer Single Article (circulation 10,000 and over) for “Eco-Friendly Horsekeeping” by Cynthia McFarland in the July 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 32 entries)
• Honorable Mention in Editorial Event Coverage Single Article for “Equestrian Christmas Party” by Fran Jurga and published in the December 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 24 entries)

Freelance contributors received the following honors for their work published in Horse Illustrated and Young Rider.

• 1^st place in Editorial Human-Animal Bond Photograph for “Parting Shot” by Shelley Paulson in the December 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 11 entries) (see above)
• 1^st place in Editorial Illustration for “Ava and the No Good, Very Bad Oxer” by Jean Abernethy in the March/April 2019 issue of Young Rider (out of 7 entries)
• 2^nd place in Editorial Illustration for “A Ribbon for Yancy” by Jean Abernethy in the July/August 2019 issue of Young Rider (out of 7 entries)
• Honorable Mention in Freelance Writer Equine-Related Journalism for “Three Horses, One Rider: 11 Ideas to Keep Multiple Horses Fit While Juggling Real Life” by Kara L. Stewart in the August 2019 issue of Horse Illustrated (out of 24 entries)

The 2020 American Horse Publications awards follow Horse Illustrated’s prestigious 2019 win for General Excellence Self-Supported Print Publication (circulation 15,000 and over). “Horse Illustrated vibrates with enthusiasm that is reflected in cover selection, design sensibility, talented selection of photographs and engaging writing,” commented the 2019 judges. “The design is obviously intended to enhance the messages in the articles rather than being design for design’s sake. There is a good balance of “how to” and “personality” pieces. The Editor’s columns are like a conversation with a friend, and the vet’s columns are informative and easy for lay people to understand. The writing in this magazine generally is well-crafted and benefits from skillful editing.”

See all awards won by Horse Illustrated and Young Rider magazines

The 2020 American Horse Publications Equine Media Awards competition for material published in 2019 was judged by 21 professionals and included 56 classes, 731 entries, and 111 contestants. The complete results are available online in the awards program (PDF format) and video (see below) of the winning entries at www.americanhorsepubs.org/ahp-awards-contest.

About Our Publications 

Horse Illustrated, Young Rider, HorseIllustrated.com and YoungRider.com are part of the EG Media stable.

• Horse Illustrated is the magazine for people who are passionate about horses. Each issue offers advice on horse health and care, plus user-friendly training tips for both English and western riders and engaging lifestyle features for horse lovers. For more than 40 years, Horse Illustrated has been dedicated to making the most of life with horses and helping riders of all experience levels care for and enjoy their horses.
• As the only magazine of its kind in the United States for and about horse-crazy tweens and teens, Young Rider supports the next generation of equestrians. For 25 years, Young Rider has educated horse-loving riders age 8-15 with a combination of English and western riding lessons, horse-care hints, and stories about real-life young riders, plus fun, interactive elements.

The post <em>Horse Illustrated</em> and <em>Young Rider</em> Magazines Recognized for Excellence in Equine Media at 2020 AHP Equine Media Awards appeared first on Horse Illustrated Magazine.