John Strassburger

Training horses is very much a carrot-and-stick game.

When you properly give a command, your horse should snap to attention, salute and respond, “Yes, sir/ma’am! As you wish.”

How many horses who are dismissed as “useless” or “crazy” are really that way because they can’t see well?

Back to the basics: Start with two poles on the ground.

If you rate Secretariat as perfect horse, a 10 - then California Chrome is a 9.75.

I’m thinking perhaps I should try sports goggles. I wonder if I can find them big enough?

I’m intimately familiar with the joys of trying to ride on frozen ground, chipping the ice out of water buckets and shoveling a path to get to the barn.

There are four simple methods.

Conformation, movement, scope—identifying these things can be learned with a small amount of effort. Mental fitness is much more challenging.

Part magic, part science, part luck, the perfect match is an elusive thing.

I’ve often encountered people who don’t take any lessons, or work regularly with a trainer of any kind, and they’re fiercely proud of that fact.

It looks to me like the future may be at large boarding facilities.

The FEI’s leaders and its Swiss-based staff need to develop an entirely different outlook on what their job is and on how they do it.

FEI, pull the plug on Bromont—now—and open up the seven World Championships to individual bidders.

But overall fitness can substantially improve your ability to stay on, and to influence, your horse.

The most vital factors are: How it fits and the type of riding you do.

Full-care means you have to charge your clients fees that are large enough for you to be able to hire enough staff to accomplish it.

Honestly, you don’t want to face that a part of your life has passed by.

Admittedly, at 3 a.m. you don’t feel lucky to be in the barn, especially when it involves pouring Foal-Lac into a bunch of bottles.

She competed mostly on heart, because she tries her hardest every minute of every day.

Horses move and perform better after he’s worked on them.

The canter requires strength and conditioning.

If you've read it before, you'll enjoy it again. If you haven't . . . get cracking!

Do they not understand that he’s a living, breathing creature?

The language we have to teach our horses, continuously, is a language centered around communication with our bodies.

Whatever your particular issue, equine anxiety is the No. 1 training and management issue for every rider and trainer.

We just trail ride, but if I should use a bit, how do I get him to accept it?

Phillip’s mantra: The horse must be in front of your leg and on your aids whenever you put him to work. And he must be immediately there.

I’m thinking that, instead of decrying California Chrome as just another not-quite-champion, that we should be impressed by his courage.

The 2010 Games in Lexington were beyond anything we’ve seen before.

I think that today's racehorses aren't as iron fit as horses of the past.

Horses mature and develop at their own speed and in their own ways.

It applies more leverage than an average snaffle, but many horses are quieter in it.

“It’s time to declare war on the b.s. of people still riding without a helmet.”

The truth is that some riders and trainers fit together better than others.

Think an NFL Films version of a Super Bowl, versus what you watch on Super Bowl Sunday.

Every year I go to Rolex Kentucky, and I see things that help me to become a better trainer and horseman.

I’d say that training a horse to event is a lot like training a person to do gymnastics, track and figure skating.

It’s apparently easier to get a felony trial and conviction with a dead animal.

I was mesmerized by the sight of them in the prime of their athletic careers, in full expression of their unique athletic and mental gifts.

Too often riders forget this and think that if some work is good, then more must be better.

The USEA's new medical rule clarified, with medical ID still required.

In an emergency, accuracy and response time can be critical.

Maybe our trusting nature is a mistake?

They’re costly, but they can give your horse a suppling massage.

This is a tremendously significant program, one that everyone who competes—in every single discipline—should embrace wholeheartedly.

I can think of many star horses of yesteryear who were extraordinary on the cross-country course but wouldn’t even be considered as team candidates today.

Event riders have added $1 to their starter fees to support equine medical research. And they’ve challenged others to do the same for their horses.

Seeing the squeal-worthy photos of fuzzy wee foals always causes a pang in my heart

This book is a blueprint for success in three-day eventing.