Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2025 i Western Life Today

Kim Ratcliff’s life has always been rooted in rural America. Regardless of where her father’s job took them, she and her family consistently stayed connected to livestock and the land. This lifestyle, deeply ingrained by her father throughout her upbringing, profoundly influenced her outlook on life. Now, she wants to promote opportunities and diversity within the agriculture industry. “Wherever we moved along his journey of jobs, we always had land and lived in rural America because he believed it was an opportunity to have a bigger look at life,” Ratcliff says. “When you have that incorporated into your daily life, you have a different perspective of what life is about. He just wanted his kids to be raised in that atmosphere. Even in New York, we lived on 20 acres.…

Transporting horses is the source of some fear and anxiety among us, and I find it very interesting how many horses who may otherwise be pretty solid citizens become absolute maniacs when we ask ‘em to get in a trailer. But I also think anyone that drags one of these scary rolling boxes down the road at 60 miles an hour ought to be required by law to ride in one first. They are loud, dusty, and hard to stand up in, even for me, so I can only imagine what horses must think during their first experiences in these contraptions. Thankfully, most horses are pretty forgiving, or we’d never be able to load ‘em the second time so we could take ‘em back where we started. Dr. Bo Brock,…

Where can you find flashy horses, intense competition, youth events and horse-related shopping all in one place? The answer is the American Paint Horse Association (APHA) World Championship Show, scheduled to take place June 20-July 6 at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, Texas. The premier event for Paint Horses, the APHA World Championship Show will award more than $1.6 million in cash and prizes to exhibitors this year. The show offers more than 400 classes, in addition to ancillary events like the National Reining Horse Association-approved Cowtown Classic and All-Breed Slide reining event, the American Rope Horse Futurity Association’s Cowtown Classic roping futurity and an all-breed barrel race, meaning there’s something for everyone interested in attending. “Each year, our cash and prizes increase as we continue to…

Imagine two days of total immersion in Native American art, on 400-year-old streets lined with booths manned by hundreds of sculptors, weavers, painters and jewelers. That is the experience of attending the Santa Fe Indian Market, held the third weekend in August in the heart of Santa Fe, N.M. Attended by more than 100,000 visitors each year, the Santa Fe Indian Market first began in 1922 as the Southwest Indian Art Fair and Industrial Arts and Crafts Exposition. Founded by the Museum of New Mexico, it was originally created to preserve and promote Native art. Today, it is the largest juried Native art show in the world. Managed by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), the weekend market is now an artist-led event, allowing visitors to purchase works directly…

True horsemen and horsewomen know there’s always more to learn along their horsemanship journey and knowledge can come from riders of all disciplines. The National Reining Horse Association’s (NRHA) leading rider Andrea Fappani gives credence to that concept in his second Along for the Ride Symposium. The format is simple: Gather a handful of dynamic and successful professional horse-men and horsewomen to share their knowledge with each other and the dedicated community of auditors who join the symposium in person or online. Here are this year’s contributors and a few of the key insights they shared over the course of three days. The Leading Reiner: Andrea Fappani Fappani’s $9 million-plus in NRHA earnings put him $2 million ahead of the next rider in line in his sport. He’s won…