Home from Arizona with a temperature of 30C and clear blue skies, there is much to reflect upon. One thought that comes to mind, that I wouldn’t normally dwell on, is the ranch holiday.

Chrissie and I spent one night at the White Stallion Ranch on the way to our hotel in Tucson. The whole holiday was one of stunning views wherever we went. While returning from Sedona, “God’s Home” in the southern Arizonian desert, we found the While Stallion Ranch just a few miles off Interstate 10.

It has been a long time since my last trip to the USA but in 2015, I was invited to go to view some broodmares for sale at the NRHA Futurity with a long-time friend. He managed to purchase two nice mares in foal, but more of that later as they should arrive before the next issue.

Pauline Brimson takes us back to school and asks us to consider the differences between a coach and an instructor. I’m often asked why we all have to be called ‘coaches’ now? I personally have called myself a riding instructor for years and feel I have been providing a pretty good service to my clients. Will it make any difference if I start calling myself a coach?

So, you are thinking of breeding your mare?

Great - this can be a rewarding experience but before you go any further, please take a few minutes to read this article and ask a few questions. Responsible breeders set themselves a target as to what they want to breed and why. First of all list your aims and objectives in creating a foal. What do you plan to do with it? Answer honestly and define your reasons and goals.

Don’t throw away a great run down and stop with a ‘mud ugly’ roll back, warns experienced reining judge Bob Mayhew.

In nearly 30 years of training reining horses, and 23 years of judging them, the rollback seems to be one of the areas that people fail to grasp the most. Countless good stops have been followed by poor rollbacks, U-turns, or even turns on the forehand, thereby reducing the manoeuvre evaluation unnecessarily.

It’s that time of the year – no not Christmas – it’s time to appraise your efforts over the last ten months and set your goals for next year.

Take a notepad and jot down all of the things that went wrong at shows you attended. Was there a regular problem cropping up that you missed? Or were there many various problematic scenarios? Then put down what you did to try to correct these.