Dorrance Protégés Join Summit Roster

Along with powerful academic and arena presentations, the Best Horse Practices Summit, October 8-10 in Durango, Colorado, will now offer an opportunity to hear from esteemed protégés of Bill and Tom Dorrance. The brothers are widely admired as pioneers of the superior, more mindful horsemanship […]

Horse Head Coming Soon!

Next week, we’ll debut an exciting new website for horse owners and riders. Horse Head will provide features on equine brain science and how it relates to our horsemanship and horse-human interactions. The new site is a collaboration between Dr. Steve Peters, a clinical neuropsychologist […]

Horses flourish when humans get the science

If you’ve ever sought a second medical opinion or gotten more than one estimate for a home repair, you know that each vested party has a different take on things. Working with horses, every trainer has a distinctive manner of looking at the horse, of […]

Confidence in Evidence-Based Horsemanship Terms

How to build self-confidence in a horse? It’s a concept to be discussed at next month’s Evidence-Based Horsemanship Seminar, led by Martin Black and Dr. Steve Peters. Peters said giving horses repeated exposure to novel experiences is a great way to down-regulate their fear component […]

The Case for Cowboys

Not everyone thinks cowboys are the pillars of good horsemanship. In some quarters, they have a historical reputation of neglectful, even abusive handling and care. But as an observer of several years, I can testify to the contrary. Indeed, on average, I’ve seen better care […]

Straight Dope on Dopamine

Working with neuropsychologist Dr. Steve Peters, I’ve become more familiar with how brain chemicals represent themselves physically and behaviorally. These chemicals are present in horse brains, human brains, and are often referred to as neurotransmitters or neurochemicals. The expression of the neurochemical, dopamine, is one […]

Fire and fast-moving horses

During one of the most devastating wild fire seasons on record, one of BestHorsePractices’ preferred horsemen, Martin Black, was immediately impacted by the country’s largest fire to date. Imagine a fire consuming a third of the state of Rhode Island. Or the entire city of […]

Alberta conference low on bling, high on benefits

Of all the expositions and conferences out there, the Alberta Horse Owners and Breeders Conference stands hands above all. It’s a serious affair, run by the Horse Industry Association of Alberta to strengthen their community “through advocacy, education and research,” according to its mission. The […]

Exploring Evidence-Based Horsemanship DVD is here

Over the course of several months, Dr. Steve Peters and Martin Black worked with Emily Kitching, president of Eclectic Horseman Communications, to develop an insightful debut DVD. The new release serves as a welcome compliment to the book, Evidence-Based Horsemanship, which was published two years […]

Finding the Ideal Learning Environment

When I was a kid, there was no such thing as ‘learning disabilities” or “learning styles.” You learned or you didn’t. I wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until teetering on the verge of not graduating from college. Up until then, I just assumed I wasn’t as […]