On June 1, 2008, HorseCity.com unveiled our latest contest ! We will be giving away a FREE SADDLE from High Horse Saddles by Circle Y each month  for the remainder of 2007, as well as other great prizes from Mane 'n Tail and Justin Boots. Enter NOW! The more you enter, the better your chance to win

Visit our Club Contest page at http://horsecity.com/club/ to enter.

HorseCity.com is webcasting the 2008 Road To The Horse competition starting on Saturday, March 1 - just 5 days away! If you haven't subscribed to watch, you need to do so now! It's going to be so exciting and I just can't wait for it to start!

We have emplemented our brand-new Pay-Per-View webcast site, www.HorseCityWebcast.com on which you can subscribe to watch the entire event as it happens - LIVE - for just $25 for the whole event. All you need to do is register and then subscribe - it's that easy!

So what's in store this year? Last year's champion, Chris Cox will be returning to defend his title against Ken McNabb, Tommy Garland and a "Mystery Clinician." Considering Cox's stellar job last year, I'd say that these other clinicians have quite a lot to live up to. And I just can't wait to watch it all unfold.

What's your guess as to who the "Mystery Clinician" is? There has been much speculation on the RTTH's blog - Could it be Tommy Saunders (yes, the same one that was in our Extreme Cowboy Race), or maybe Julie Goodnight? Mike Kevil? Clinton Anderson? John Lyons? What's your guess? I just don't know!

The schedule: I will drive up to Murfreesboro on Friday, hope to get there around noon-ish and get set up and test for the Web cast. If all goes well, I'll be done by dinnertime and can spend some quality time with my parents, who are driving up to watch as well. My Dad is positively BESIDE HIMSELF about getting to go! He's so excited!

The webcast will start on Saturday at 2:45 CENTRAL, and it looks like the clinicians get to work with their colts until 5:35 when they'll do interviews about how they've done so far. Then on SUNDAY, opening ceremonies start at 9:30 am CENTRAL, with the obstacle course at 12:35 and the announcement of the winner at 2:20 pm CENTRAL.

Don't miss a minute! Be sure to sign up to watch ahead of time. Click here to subscribe to watch the event LIVE AS IT HAPPENS!

And hey - drop me a comment and tell me who YOU think the Mystery Clinician is.. And who you think will win this year!

See you all there!

Amy

So it's been a while since my last HC 101 post, but with the upcoming Augusta Cutting Horse Futurity, I felt like it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce webcasting you.

HorseCity.com has been a pioneer in the live online broadcasting of various horse shows since our inception. We started out with just 3 or 4 major shows per year to more than 20 each year! We have been the sole live webcast provider for both the National Barrel Horse Association (NBHA) and the Augusta Cutting Horse Futurity since around 2000, and since then have expanded to include major shows for the American Paint Horse Association, National High School Rodeo Association, National Snaffle Bit Association, the Reichert Celebration and the Appaloosa Horse Association - just to name a few. 

So what is a live webcast? It is a live event broadcast over the internet as it happens. We generally broadcast both video and audio and our webcasts are intended for those of you who have high-speed internet connections (DSL or faster). Dial-up users generally cannot view our webcasts - sorry.

Some questions that come up frequently include:

Why is the picture so small? We broadcast at 320 px by 240 px - which is about 3 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall on most screens, depending on your screen size and resolution. You can make the picture larger by right-clicking on it and viewing it in Windows Media Player. The quality goes down the larger you make it, but you can make the picture large enough to watch from 10 or 15 feet away from your computer without too much distortion - depending on the quality of the stream itself.

Why isn't it TV quality? Because it's live streaming web video, not TV. Yes, you can watch video clips online and they can look like TV, but when streaming live, it is much more complicated than that and unless we were only providing the feed to one or two people who happened to have smoking-fast internet connections, it's just not possible. We do our best to provide the best live feed that we can to the majority of users. 

Is it really real-time? Pretty much. There is usually a 15-30 second lag time, but rarely more than that.

So - are you ready to watch? We have a live webcast of the Augusta Cutting Horse Futurity starting on Thursday, January 17, 2008. Go ahead and test your software ahead of time and make sure you're ready.

I bet you're wondering what all this Cutting Horse stuff is about, aren't you? Well, go check out the AugustaFuturity.com Web site for some history on the sport and this event.

I don't seem to hear that question nearly as much as I did six or seven years ago, especially not from horse-people. But I do still get it from time to time. I guess it's become so much a part of my life that I assume that everyone knows all about it and the many things that we've added to the site through the years. I've come to the realization that a lot of our "regulars" don't know the extent of what HorseCity.com is - so how on earth can the "newbies" grasp it all?

So, here I am, starting a blog about HorseCity.com and all of it's nooks and crannies. Let's call it HorseCity 101. I will be writing a fairly regular blog focusing on some of our more popular and lesser-known sections. I'll be introducing you to HC all over again - to our staff, to our members, and the many, many different part of the site. I will try to keep it short and to the point, but I can get long-winded at times - my apologies in advance for that.

I should probably start by introducing myself. I am Amy Kiel and I am the manager of Technical and Development Services for HorseCity.com. I've been with HorseCity.com since 2001. I've ridden horses my whole life - trail riding mostly - and currently have a 7 year-old paint mare, Patches. Read my bio for more of that stuff..

Now, let me introduce you to HorseCity.com.

People find our site in a variety of ways, and I've learned that a lot of them never venture out into the site to see what we have to offer once they find what they originally came here to find. Our biggest draws seem to be our Bulletin Boards and our TV shows (I'll cover them later), but what really got us started is the deep, informative content that we offer. The writers that contribute our stories are some of the most accomplished equestrian writers in the world. They write for the biggest magazines that most of you probably have on your coffee table or in your "reading room."

In the past seven years, we have published online articles every week in the areas of Horse Health, Barn & Farm Management, Veterinary Tips, Training, and the list goes on and on. All articles that we've published in the past seven years are in our archives - thousands and thousands of fantastic, informative articles and stories all in our searchable equine database.

I'm going to leave you with that for now.

Go poke around in our online database - find out about the differences in training methods used for mares, geldings and stallions or how to make flying lead changes. Maybe you're wondering if some of the trees or plants in your pasture are toxic to your horse? There is so much there. Really just about any subject you can think of is covered. Give it a try!

My hint of the day - searching. You know how when you sometimes do a search and get back results that, while "technically" do fit your search criteria, really aren't what you're looking for? Did you know that you can eliminate those results from your search? Just put a minus sign (-) and the words you want to exclude into the search box along with your search term.

For instance, I want to do a search for all HorseCity.com articles that contain information on "toxic" plants, so I do a search, but the whole first page of results are from the Bulletin Boards (forums), and I'm looking for an actual article, so I want to eliminate the Bulletin Board threads from my search. So I type this into my search box: toxic -forums (that returns results that are on HorseCity.com somewhere, but not in the forums).

Next week - Video!

I finally got to ride Patches last night. Unfortunately, that beautiful fall-like weather from last week is gone for now, though. She was sweaty when I saddled her up!

We rode for a couple of hours - too bad the days are already getting shorter. Next time I'll have to duck out of the office a few minutes earlier and go straight to the barn.

The ride went well, it's amazing the difference in her! She's still a bit high-strung, but it's a lot more controllable now - she seems to have more confidence in herself and in me and handles my correction much better. We still have a ways to go, and it's going to take a lot of "wet blanket" time, but I can't think of a better way to spend the beautiful fall afternoons that we've got coming.

After riding in the woods and checking out the new road the loggers cut when they butchered our woods (okay, they're not "our" woods - they belong to the government, but we've always felt like they were "ours"), my folks took their horses to the barn to un-tack and I took Patches out in the pasture and did some circles and figure-8s, working on leads and such.

She really didn't want to leave the barn area, but didn't give me a lot of trouble about it. I put her to work weaving the fence posts that we still haven't taken down after Joey and I pulled down all of the old wire last spring. Hey, it gives me a good training exercise!

So, she still doesn't like her left lead. I finally got her to catch it right about the same time the marking tape I had tied to my saddle came loose and unrolled behind us! I guess that just messed our groove up, because she never got it again out there - just kept counter-cantering on her right lead to the left. In my experience, when they won't pick up any other cues, they usually just get tired of that feeling and fix it eventually. Maybe I didn't give it long enough. it was dark by then.

She does side-pass quite well now. Just a touch of the spur to either side and away she goes! And she's got quite a reverse on her now, too! And a pretty nice "whoa" - but I want to work on that some more and get her to get down on the backend a bit more.

I had her weave the posts on the way back to the barn to keep her mind off of where she was heading. She's working really well off of leg cues.

Once we got to the paddock at the barn, I worked her on the left lead again. She finally got it an we did two circles and quit. And I also learned that she can side-pass at a canter if she thinks it'll get her to the barn quicker. That was a really odd feeling!

Going to skip riding today and plan on tomorrow. I'm hoping for clear skies and at least a little moonlight ride since it's a full moon. That's if I can convince one or both of my parents to stay out with me an extra hour. They didn't sound too excited about it yesterday. I guess when you're retired, there's no reason to do anything at night when you've got all day to do it..

More later...