Winning with Horses

A compelling look at a lifetime of success competing withhorses, and what it takes to make sure it is the horse that always wins.

Is it possible to be simultaneously passionate about winning in an equestrian sport and about the welfare of horses?

Professional polo player Adam Snow and sport horseveterinarian Shelley Onderdonk answer this undeniably twenty-first-centuryquestion with a resounding, “Yes!” They have spent a lifetime together,nurturing Adam’s astounding career at the top of his sport (he is the lastAmerican polo player to achieve the perfect 10-goal handicap) with the artful,conscientious care and training of the equine partners he needed to be thebest. And Shelley’s twenty-five years as an equine veterinarian have been spenthelping sport horses compete at the highest levels in other disciplines, aswell—including reining, racing, eventing, show jumping, and dressage—whilealways prioritizing long-term health and well-being.

In these pages, Adam and Shelley share the keys to their success…andthe struggles and celebrations that taught them along the way. Through the lensof their disparate and yet synchronous experiences in the intense realm of world-classequestrian sport, they explore topics of concern and those worthy ofconsideration, including the:

• Role of natural training methods and horse-human communication

• Cultivation of a competitive training mindset

• Responsibility of a veterinary team member: goals of prevention and realities of diagnosis

• Options offered by therapeutic alternatives

• Best steps when preparing human and horse for competition

• Hard questions to ask when maintaining an equine athlete

• Pieces that make up the performance puzzle: conditioning, farriery, tack, and travel

• Reality of retirement and when it is the right thing to do, for horse and human

Smart, engaging, and honest, this book is the answer to theonline debates and the boardroom arguments. With intelligence and experience, theauthors provide the much-needed antidote to the dark side of horse sports. “Ourstory is an explicit acknowledgement that doing good for the horse is good forresults in the competitive arena,” they write. “Our task is to explain ourmethod, and yours is to prove that it can be replicated.”