Canadian Horse Journal and its talented editorial team were once again honoured for editorial excellence during the American Horse Publications (AHP) 2021 Equine Media Awards. AHP Equine Media Awards are the premier awards within the equine media industry, and AHP has been honouring excellence in equine media since 1975. The awards ceremony was part AHP’s Annual Conference held this year in Irving, Texas on September 16-18.

Major news outlets are squirming with reports of people buying an equine anti-parasite medication, Ivermectin, to treat COVID-19. Farm and livestock supply retailers are seeing a surge of demand for the product for human use, despite Health Canada warnings that there could be serious health risks from consuming the medicine intended for deworming animals.

Why do we have them? What keeps us practicing them? As I write this article, I find it ironic that I am laid up on the couch with a lower back injury, brought on by the age-old tradition of lifting, hauling, and generally doing way too much when my body wasn’t up to the task. From my recovery position, it seems fitting to attempt to grapple with the rather sticky topic of traditions, and why we often feel so compelled to stick to them. I’ve touched on this a little in my past articles, but today I want to really dig in and unpack why and how traditions become traditions and what keeps us practicing them, sometimes long past their best before date.

Canadian breeders producing quality foals - North American horse owners may not be aware that Canada is the home of Linwood Ranch, an equine breeding facility that has generated peer reviewed research in recent years on subjects such as equine behaviour, equine welfare, stall design, and the requirements for lying down time for healthy horses. Linwood Ranch is a PMU or “pregnant mare urine” ranch in Manitoba, and is also where active research is conducted on many equine welfare issues affecting all of our horses.