Review of the "Trainers Voice"

In 1998, everyone that belonged to the fox trotter horse breed organization got a free copy of the new fox trotter magazine, The Trainer’s Voice.  Everyone on the fox trotter list server was very excited about it.  We all thought it was great and some of us that didn’t get the magazine in the mail whined.

What the magazine has turned out to be is a Meet Your: Professional Fox Trotter Trainer, Fox Trotter Show People, Fox Trotter Breeder, and Fox Trotter Show Youth. We find out how their lives are centered around fox trotters, how they came to exist in this industry and how much they enjoy it.  We get to meet people whose families have been raising and showing these horses for generations. We also get to meet different fox trotter bloodlines and learn a little bit of the history of that line.  We all enjoy the pictures of the featured people’s horses!  The magazine does not focus on people in the fox trotter industry that live in Missouri.  We have gotten to know people from many parts of the country and I look forward to meeting even more people from both Missouri and the rest of the country.

It’s a very enjoyable and interesting magazine to read if you are interested in Who’s Who in the Fox Trotter Show World.  The articles about the people are very personable and interesting.  Some of the featured articles are as follows:

• Ask the vet - These questions and answers cover regular horse health concerns, along with problems peculiar to gaited horses.
  
  
• Tips from Trainers – These are just questions sent in from the readers and may or may not be focused on fox trotter horses. The two most recent Tips from 1/99 and 12/98 were:

    How do you make your horse stay parked when showing?

    How do you stop a yearling from nickering in the model class?

    How to get a horse to stand still when the rider mounts?

I would like to have an article from a trainer each month focusing on the gaits. Huge knowledge gaps are present about our horses when they leave the breeder and get into the hands of people who think that the gaits are push button. I and a host of others would like to see anything in writing that would educate the non-professional fox trotter rider on gait specifics…the more detailed-the better!

Magazine Problems:

The magazine is lacking in articles talking about the common problem most of us trail riders or show-wanna-be-people have with our gaited horses…the gaits.  I would like to see a technical article added each month that explains, in intense detail, some element that affects, improves, explains, and/or changes The Gait!

Magazine HIGHLIGHTS (Or Why You Should Subscribe)

• It’s a must-subscribe for show horse people!

• It’s a chance for us hangers-on to really get to "meet" the different people who make up the industry supporting the Missouri Fox Trotter, a historic Midwestern horse breed.

• There has been and will be information given that may help us to better understand this breed of horse.

• The horse pictures in the advertisements are beautiful.