I’ve recently come back from Residential School – a week of uni that requires I attend lectures and partake in exams for the two subjects that I am currently undertaking part time as a Distance Education student.

As is the case any time I find myself in a new environment that is horse related, I met a lot of interesting people and had my eyes opened to many other things I wasn’t aware of with regards to horses.  I was also made aware of people that are well known with regards to starting and bringing on horses and left with a list of names to look up online.

One of our lecturer’s mentioned the fact that they had carried out some technical writing with regards to a horse section on a show that aired weekly.  Another writing job that relates to horses that I hadn’t considered!

Wikipedia has a rather broad definition of a technical writer or technical communicator, the key phrase standing out for me being “produces technical documentation for… consumer audiences.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer

So when I think of consumer audiences, and ones that specifically led to me teaching more people about horses and riding, I think of the Saddle Club.

There were a large number of preteens and early teens that decided to take up horse riding a couple of years back when I was instructing at a lower level.  Why?  Because they’d seen the Saddle Club and the interest in the show suddenly turned into an interest in learning to ride.

It may be a wrong assumption, but I would guess that there are people that know how to make a children’s show or one for any other demographic for that matter that want to focus it around horses.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that they know enough about horses to be able to make the show realistic.  This is where a Technical Writer may come in.

Think of the likes of Burke’s Backyard with an animal segment, the Saddle Club, Heartland, movies such as Flicka or the Black Stallion.

There are a number of books and movies out there that don’t seem completely believable with some of the aspects but that’s the joys of poetic license, I guess.  This doesn’t take away from the fact that some texts, movies, or shows may employ a person or persons to either resource information from those in the know, or have someone in the know write the information in a technical manner that can be put to use.

Just because you know horses however, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re equipped to be a technical writer with regards to them.

MyFuture has a page focused on such a career – http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5050&ASCO=253421A and also lists the sort of courses you would expect to have to complete to be qualified to take on such a position – http://www.myfuture.edu.au/services/default.asp?FunctionID=5360&ASCO=253421A&StateCode=VIC.

No surprises as to what they focus on – writing skill.

Perhaps if your skills do lie in the writing field and you have a love of horses and a sound knowledge base then this may be a path worth considering.

“Bread may feed my body, but my horse feeds my soul.”

tag: horse library, horse books, writing, equine shows, technical writer

I love my broodies and I love this time of year (August 1 – December 31)!

So today marks the Thoroughbred’s official birthday in the Southern Hemisphere and so one can expect that mares will start popping out foals!  We’ve got three or so mares at the moment that are all showing signs of impending parturition.

My boss received a call yesterday with regards to a ‘foal share’ something I haven’t given a lot of thought to, not being a mare owner myself.  I asked her if this was something that studs tended to advertise as one of their offers/deals or if they sought out people in particular.  She seemed to feel it was the latter.

The idea of a foal share is that a stud or stallion owner contacts the owner of a mare that they are particularly interested in.  They then offer the mare owner a free service to one of their stallions (in this instance they’re giving her the choice between two quite expensive stallions).

Instead of the mare owner paying the fee, they send their mare to the stallion in question, (hopefully) end up with a live foal and sell it as a weanling or yearling.

The profit/sale price is then split between the stallion and mare owner.

This deal is extremely appealing to owners who have a well bred/performing mare but don’t necessarily have the funds to send her to a decent or proven stallion.  Apparently some studs will also cover half the costs of a sales preparation which really sweetens the deal.

The likes of Darley, Eliza Park and Coolmore are known to partake in foal shares and I’m sure you’d find other large studs in the industry would do so to keep up with the competition.

For anyone interested in investing in a broodmare, perhaps it’s worth looking into these possibilities so that more money can be spent on the mare, giving you something that is higher in value than what you would have been able to afford if the stallion’s service fee also had to be taken into account.

A risky business, but possibly a way to break into breeding and selling weanlings or yearlings and make a small profit while lowering the risk.

“A well-bred foal brings joy to the stable.”

tag: breeding horses, horse stud, australia, thoroughbred stud season