Equine best practices conference coming to Maine
Photo / Maureen Milliken
The arena at the Equine Center at Pineland in New Gloucester. The center will be the site of the national Best Horse Practices Summit in October.
A conference for those in the equine industry, as well as farmers and horse owners, will be held in October at the Equestrian Center at Pineland Farm in New Gloucester.
This is the third annual Best Practices Horse Summit, which in its first two years was held in Durango, Colo. Scheduled for Oct. 19-20, the summit focuses on best horse practices and equine research, bringing together educators, researchers and horse owners, as well as working, professional and recreational riders. Presentations include care, handling, management, training and riding.
Billed as "the conference your horse wants you to attend," the event places a large focus on the horse-human connection and the changing view of how it works.
"We're learning more and more through science that we can't keep treating horses like four-legged people," Maddy Butcher, conference director, told Mainebiz.
She said new approaches to horse care, such as not keeping the animals in stalls and not feeding them three times a day, may be considered radical.
"People [in Colorado] may have 20 acres and check on their horse once a week," she said. "That's something that someone living in a Boston suburb might be appalled by."
The nonprofit conference includes academic as well as horsemanship presenters, and is run by a board of directors and steering committee. Butcher said the summit is committed to an intimate experience, so is limited to 200 attendees. They have included barn managers, veterinarians, farriers, trainers, people who run horse rescues and more.
She said those attending "take the messages back," to their coworkers, clients, customers and other horse owners.
Meris Bickford, CEO of the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals in Windham, attended the first summit. "It was the best equine-centric conference/symposium I ever attended," she told Mainebiz.
"Best Horse Practices Summit is substantive, scientific, and designed for serious equine professionals," Bickford said. "It is also an entertaining, not-to-be-missed, experience for anyone who loves horses."
She can't attend this year, but said the MSSPA's management team led by Kathy Woodbrey, is attending.
One of the featured presenters will be Steve Peters, a neuroscientist who has done research on the equine brain and given numerous presentations in the U.S. and Canada. Peters collaborated on the book "Horse Head: Brain Science & Other Insights" with Butcher.
Butcher said the conference last year drew attendees from 28 states and three countries, but organizers felt its location was too far off the beaten path. "We thought Maine would be a great place for it," she said, giving it more of a connection to the eastern U.S.
Pineland has highway and airport access, and is close to lodging, trade show and equine space, which Butcher said makes it a good location.
The MSSPA is a session sponsor, Bickford said. "MSSPA is very supportive of the BHPS because it is a quality production."
The conference has also lined up some other Maine sponsors, including Flowfold, Camden Hills Equine Inn, Horses with Hope, Lucerne Farms, as well as Northeast Equestrian Life magazine, which is produced by the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire.
'Lots and lots of light bulbs going off'
Butcher, who lives in Colorado but is originally from Maine, started the Nicker News horse industry newsletter in 2012, which has grown from an email audience of 16 to 5,000. The newsletter started as a hobby for horse industry people, who share product reviews, tips and more. She now has six websites related to the horse industry.
At the time she started Nicker News, she was horse-sitting. "I was going barn to barn, seeing a lot of things I hadn't seen before, and I really wanted to write about it," said Butcher, who was also a freelance reporter.
She said her intention when she started Nicker News, as with the summit and other endeavors, is to bring together people involved with horses from across industries and cultures.
"There's kind of a vacuum between the ivory tower of equine science and that population and the regular Joe horse people," she said. She said filling the gap not only benefits those in the industry, but also benefits horses.
She said she's been told by attendees that the summit is eye-opening. "Lots and lots of light bulbs are going off," she said.
Butcher said the summit "is still young," but the board's plan is "to take it on the road," holding summits around the country rather than in one place, once a year.
While the attendance is limited, the presentations from all the summits are available online for a fee. They're also free to those who attend. "[The] conference can be so intense that an attendee may not capture what he or she wanted to," Butcher said.
She said the ultimate goal is to make the information available to as much of the horse industry and horse owners as possible.
"It's a passion for me, and for the board, and also for the attendees," she said.
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