Looking for blogs worth a read? Here are our picks for today:
Horse wellness blog
http://sreinhold.wordpress.com
Stephanie Reinhold provides a tremendous amount of detail in terms that even a layman can understand on the anatomy of the horse, how what we do impacts the horse’s movement and health, techniques for relieving tightness, stress or discomfort and just about anything you may not have considered in how you may be hurting your horse. She provides tips for ensuring tack fits properly (her recent post on how blankets can hurt horses was an eye-opener) and a ton of useful information on the mechanics of the equine and how we may unknowingly be compromising his free-flowing movement. If you truly want to learn, this is a blog you should visit often.
What horses can teach you about leadership
This blog is the antithesis of Reinhold’s, offering a chatty personal experience log of time spent watching the horse herd with some applications to human hierarchies, but Laura Hunter does it in an engaging way that provides some useful applications. If you’re looking for a quick and sometimes relevant connection to what you may be facing in your human interactions as it applies to horses, she provides some insight you may appreciate.
General how-to on working with horses
http://prettyponypastures.wordpress.com
I hesitate to even mention this blog because it hasn’t been updated recently (the latest post was October 2009), but there’s some good information presented in a fun and applicable manner. Hosted by a therapeutic riding center, there’s good information here for anyone who enjoys horses. Linda Watson provides good pictures that demonstrate activities along with brief, relevant and interesting posts.
Good example of some creative blog strategies
http://www.lessordinaryliving.com/
This blog has nothing to do with horses, but provides quick (he even indicates at the top of the blog the read time – usually under three minutes), introspective and positive messages that do resonate with the wiring of many horse lovers minds. Mostly focused on self awareness, development and inspirational ideas, Phil Bolton offers a good example of a smart blog strategy for any industry. If you own a horse business, this blog is worth checking out because it offers some great creative presentation strategies that could appeal to your market.
It can be tough to find good horse blogs. These are some we recommend you take a look at if you’re interesting in finding news of note. We’ve taken the time to review the sites and provide summaries below. Hope you enjoy these finds as much as we did.
www.equinevip.com
This is a website home page, but it reads like a blog. It includes videos and focuses on people who have attained status in our society and enjoy horses. Interviews and coverage ranges from mounted police, horse riders and trainers, non-equine celebrities and others who have a connection with equine companions. The site has a registration and log-in feature, but the videos are available to anyone who goes to the website along with blog-like written content without a log-in requirement. Posts are not in chronological order, but they are fairly frequent.
http://irishvillageatweg2010.blogspot.com/
This blog is a lot of fun with videos showing the versatility of the Irish Draught and Irish Draught Sport Horse as a teaser to demonstrations planned for WEG at Kentucky Horse Park in 2010. Short copy makes this an enjoyable and easy read with the support of mostly YouTube Links to Irish Draught progeny (a very different breed than the American version of drafts) that will be featured in showcase events. Sarah McMullen has created a reference for those interested in updates from WEG with a special focus on the Irish Draught and a dynamic and timely resource to keep you alerted to new happenings regarding this landmark event.
http://thealphamare.wordpress.com/
This is a new blog with only three posts to date, but worth checking out. The author discusses some horse and training techniques along with leadership issues as they pertain to horses and people.
This Thursday link pointer/summary includes only a single link (as it will take some time to truly incorporate the opportunities available here) that may seem to have nothing to do with horses. If you sell anything equine to anyone, though, this is great resource for finding excuses to connect with people. It’s a month-by-month breakdown of daily, weekly and monthly designated celebrations (focused primarily on the US) that are on the books. Laugh-out-loud at some of the outlandish entries, but also realize creative marketing opportunities presented to connect with your prospects, clients, centers-of-influence, friends and colleagues that other’s may not consider. Seriously. If you’re using the economy as an excuse for poor revenue, get busy standing out with this great excuse to connect.
http://www.brownielocks.com
Looking for equine travel vacations?
Check out http://writinghorseback.com/
This gal can write. Nancy D. Brown draws her content mostly from personal experience (and an international array of destinations) with no qualms about recounting great memories along with where her trip fell short of expectations. She’s a professional travel writer, and it shows in this blog. The user-friendly and appealing design includes pictures, a good archive list and enough information for anyone considering a horseback riding travel destination to get pointed in the right direction for what you seek. It should also give the more spontaneous crowd some good ideas for a new adventure that may not have ever been otherwise considered. She even spices up content a bit with an occasional political feature concerning equine related destination decisions. This is a relatively new blog (started in July 2009, but not launched until September), but she’s provided a good dozen destination posts since then and is keeping it regularly updated. If you’ve ever thought about including riding as part of your vacation plans, this is a worthwhile site to visit prior to making plans.
Probably more than you wanted to know about hoofs
http://hoofcare.blogspot.com/
This blog includes some technical information, but also easy to understand videos and some opinion pieces. Fran Jurga focuses mainly on hoof care and concerns, but also covers other issues related to horse physiology and other issues. There’s also a lot of interesting videos and other information here that you won’t likely see elsewhere. She updates the blog almost daily and offes a wide range of interesting and educational information for just about any level or discipline equestrian. This is a fact-filled, interesting, fun and diverse blog that’s definitely worth checking out.
