Smart Little Lena went on to be one of the sport's most influential stallions and for many years was the leaading sire of NCHA money earners. His offspring have over $34 million in NCHA earnings to date.

Great stallions never die, but live on through their progeny. So it is with Smart Little Lena, who suffered a debilitating stroke this morning and was humanely put to rest by Dr. John McCarroll.

“It is one thing to recognize a horse for all his great accomplishments, but it’s another thing to be fortunate enough to really have known him,” said longtime Manion Ranch employee Robin Levison, who was with Smart Little Lena at the end and who found it hard speak.

Levison said that the 31-year-old legendary cutting horse champion and sire had been in good condition until the stroke

I found this quite interesting, thought you might too. Heres the link to another good site    http://www.horsetalk.co.nz

Horses face 'maze of fences' to find water

The wild horses reportedly at risk of dying from dehydration in the Owyhee herd management area have been unable to access water because of fences, a horse welfare group claims.

The Cloud Foundation argues that the  emergency muster under way  in the Owyhee herd management in Nevada has arisen because of fencing in the area.

"These treasured Tuscarora mustangs are forced to navigate a maze of livestock fences and closed gates in order to find water," foundation spokeswoman Anne Novak says.

"Miles of fencing prevent their free-roaming rights and ability to access water sites they've used for decades - if not centuries."

The foundation had warned before the muster began of the dangers of gathering horses in the heat of a Nevada summer.

Twelve of the initial 228 horses mustered from the area a week ago died from complications arising from dehydration.

"After the first day proved to be fatal and the roundup was placed on hold, bureau spin began to refer to the horses' situation on the range as an 'emergency'," Novak said.

Foundation director Ginger Kathrens said: "Why didn't the bureau know about the water situation before going in and running 228 horses - at least 5 per cent of them - to subsequent death?

"The public deserves answers, not excuses."

"Mustangs regularly travel distances farther than ten miles if allowed their free-roaming behaviour," Kathrens said.

"Distance or standard drought levels are not the issue. The real question is what is preventing these mustangs from using traditional perennial water sources?"

The foundation said carving up herd management areas with fences was unacceptable and prevented wild horse movement within their ranges set out by the Free-Roaming Wild Horses and Burros Act.

"The bureau has reduced our wild horses to a labyrinth of cattle pastures and has no regard for their needs," Kathrens said.

The bureau, which has trucked in at least 20,000 gallons of water for the horses, has not commented specifically on access to natural water sources.

However, a veterinary report, dated July 11, by Dr Albert Kane, who performed necropsies on three of the horses that died in the initial muster, noted: "The history of this area is that water holes being used recently are drying up and horses were blocked from accessing a singular access point to a river that has historically been a watering point during dry conditions."

Just a quick note to everyone at Horseback riding lessons. We are having a great give-away. Anyone who subscribes for one year to the online horseback riding videos during the Calgary Stampede and puts the words Calgary Stampede in the promo box on the registration page will go automatically into a draw for a $500 dollar gift certificate for a pair of beautiful Lucchese Boots. Just imagine showing up at your next horse show or horseback riding lesson in those bad boys. Even if you are an english rider and don't wear cowboy boots you will like their gorgeous craftsmanship. Definitely upper end boots. And not to worry as Spruce Meadows gears up here in Calgary we will be giving away some fabulous horse related products to you as well. Hope your horses are fed, watered and bedded down for the night. Happy Trails.

What a fantastic day at the Calgary Stampede. We spent hours today filming all sorts of great horse info for the 'horse related info' channel. Here at Horseback Riding Lessons we pride ourselves on delivering you great horse information and we are trying to do it in a way that is not necessarily biased to any one discipline or horse breed. We went to the Calgary Stampede and began filming an interesting series that takes you to all the different light horse breeds. The Stampede has a wonderful idea this year to educate children about horses. They created passports with each 'country' representing a horse breed. The children loved getting their horse passports. They had to go to every different horse breed and learn about that particular breed, it's origin, and the typical size of that horse breed and what disciplines or jobs that that particular horse breed is good at. The response was unbelievable, the kids loved it. We had a group of children following us around the horse barns watching us film all afternoon. It was great. So at each breed we got our tid bit of horse breed information, and got our horse passport stamped. Filming was a real treat today and I learned two things. The people in the horse world want great stories with good interesting information. Also, children love horses and they cannot get enough of them. So with that in mind I have decided to work towards an all kids channel. In this channel we will highlight children and their horses and their accomplishments. So if you have a story we can cover, email us. Until next time Happy Trails.

Does Your Horse Remain Focused During Horseback Riding Lessons?

If any of the terminology is hard to understand in this article it is answered and explained in many of the videos in our online horseback riding lessons.

Good afternoon everyone! We are pleased to announce that we will have 30 short horse training videos on the www.horseback-ridinglessons.com site located in the Colt Starting Channel. In these videos you will learn many Colt Starting and Horse Training techniques that you can implement into your own daily horseback riding lesson. In this series Cody McArthur, Cutting horse trainer, works with a 2 year old filly named Alice. She is a very responsive young horse and a great one to watch as she learns the ropes in the round pen and turns out to be a great student. Watch Cody as he gives a virtual horseback riding and colt starting clinic in this series. Don't miss 'The Trailer Loading' clinic coming very soon!

We also have the Horsemanship Channel. This channel has nearly 30 videos as well. It is a great channel if you are a green horseback rider, a youth or just love doing great exercises with horses. Be sure to plug into that one!

With our Horse Info Channel we will be covering interesting sideline stories such as 'How to Properly Fit and Measure a Horse Blanket' By Nova at Equine Essentials. Another great story we will cover is a series on Bits and Hackamores with Peter Swales. If you have some interesting horse info, stories or products, please drop us a line so we can cover the story for you!

And of course coming within the next week are the two exciting channels 'Working CowHorse, Reining and Cutting' with top horse trainer John Swales and 'The Show Jumping Channel' with Jay Duke!

Until next time this is Cody McArthur blogging for www.horseback-ridinglessons.com

Happy Trails!

What a great week to kick off www.horseback-ridinglessons.com with the Calgary Stampede just around the corner. With literally dozens of horse related events taking place at Stampede Park we will be sure to cover many off them. The Stampede is a very exciting horse show for many cutting horse enthusiast as it is a huge annual event for them and the National Cutting Horse Association, giving away over $50,000.00 in prizes. It runs July 12th to 15th. Not to mention the Working CowHorse competition is always a crowd favourite running July 16th to 18th at the Stampede. The speed and agility of the working cowhorse combined with the precision training is always a treat to watch. John Swales will be there to defend his title, or shall we say titles as last year he won both the Open Bridle and the Open Hackamore divisions in the working cowhorse at the Stampede. Aside from the cow related events there are many other great events taking place, such as the Calgary Stampede Rodeo, where you can watch world class rope horses, bulldogging horses and bucking horses and not to mention some very speedy barrel racing horses. The Heavy Horse Pull is one of my favourite events to watch, it's an opportunity to see some real horse power, it too runs the 16th to 18th. The team penning is also a huge hit at Stampede Park next week, it also can be a real crowd pleaser as the adrenaline get pumping in both the horses and the riders.  Of course, if you are taking the kids out you will want to be there between the 10th and 13th of July for the Canadian National Miniature Horse Show. These little cuties are great to see and fun to watch. We will keep you updated on how the horse events unfold at the Calgary Stampede right here over the next two weeks. We will also be reporting on some of the other equine related events there as well. If you would like more info here is the link to the Calgary Stampedes Agriculture events  page. http://ag.calgarystampede.com/events

Be sure to watch for John Swales and his Working CowHorse, Cutting Horse, and Reining Horse Channel starting up this week. It will give you some insight as to how you can win both titles at the Stampede Next year!. Also watch for Jay Duke and his channel launch here at www.horseback-ridinglessons.com where he shows us how to ride and train a world class Show Jumping Horse. I'm hoping we will get to walk the course with him during the North American At Spruce Meadows next week. We of course will film that so you can see just how to walk a World Class Course. It will post on the Show Jumping Channel.

At www.horseback-ridinglessons.com our goal is to provide you with up to date information that pertains to todays equestrians, whether you are competing or just seeking the wonderful companionship of a horse we will do our very best to keep you informed, safe, and in the know on all horse topics! If you have a question about horses or a story you would like to see covered drop us an email at info@horseback-ridinglessons.com. Until next post! Happy Trails!