It’s common for riders to compete at high levels today without advanced horsemanship knowledge. A rider’s success in the show ring seems to have greater value than their horse management skills, but that wasn’t always the case. Many of Canada’s former top riders credit Canadian Pony Club (CPC) for their horsemanship knowledge and acknowledge its importance to their success. The horse industry has since changed and now, riders rely on coaches to know what’s best for their horses.

It was a horse that gave me my first taste of stillness. His name was Ringo Star, and he was a beautiful, golden-coloured chestnut with a splash of white down his nose. He spent several years training for three-day evening with my daughter, Annika, but I didn't get to see them often because I was teaching in Bahrain for most of the time.

By Vivien Gorham

Nimbus Publishing Limited, 2022; Fiction; ISBN: 9781774710654; 296 pages; paperback. 

Reviewed by Sage Millen 

The mammalian nervous system is an incredible thing, with its complex functionality, and all the ways it regulates our systems, adapts to change, restores itself, and even mirrors the nervous systems of those around us. If any year was going to introduce us to the limits and resourcefulness of our unique nervous system, 2020 would be it. In this one year, every one of us has found out exactly how we cope with global uncertainty, massive change, potential scarcity of resources, and possible threats to the health of ourselves and our family and friends. Our nervous system is an integral part of how we cope with stress and change, working behind the scenes to recalibrate, reorganize and bring us into new ways of being in a healthy or not-so-healthy state.