Career opportunities exist for horse guides, wranglers, and owner-operators through guest ranches, hourly trail rides, pack trip holidays, hunting guides, and outfitting. The job descriptions vary with the type of operation and so do the qualifications that these businesses look for in their staff. Everyone agreed that individuals who succeed in the areas of horse wrangling and guiding are self-motivated.

There is estimated to be one injury for each 2.5 hours of sport riding, including racing and cross country, and only one injury for every 100 hours of trail or pleasure riding. Let’s look at some practices that will help our relationships with our horses at home.

If knots are not tied properly they can get you into trouble by coming undone at the worst moments, or by not doing what you expect them to do. Sometimes we blame the knot but usually it is the person who tied it.

The horse’s foot looks simple: a nice, round, smooth hoof on the outside, but in reality, it is a complex arrangement of bone, soft tissue, ligament, tendon, and hoof. It is precisely this toughness — the hardness of the hoof wall and major tendons — that complicates and compounds problems. When internal problems develop there is no give in these structures, no room for swelling within a hoof wall that is rigid with keratin, or for damaged tendons that were pushed beyond their amazing but rigid capacity.