You're invited! Each June the AHC hosts our annual conference in Washington, D.C. Join us this episode as we explore the agenda, meet our speakers, and discuss why in-person conferences are still all the rage. Listen in...

HORSES IN THE MORNING Episode 3704 –Show Notes and Links:

• Your Hosts: Julie Broadway (President) and Emily Stearns (Health, Welfare, and Regulatory Affairs Liaison) of the American Horse Council
• Guest: Tyson Hartshorn founder of Innate.ly.
• Sponsors: Jarvis Insurance and Absorbine
• Subscribe to the American Horse Council Podcast - Search American Horse Council Podcast on your podcast player.
• Follow Horse Radio Network on Facebook or follow Horses In The Morning on Facebook
• Follow the American Horses Council on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter)

Time Stamps:

03:40 - Exciting New Topics for the Conference

13:00 - Exploring the Future of Equine Technology

16:09 - The Intersection of Technology and Equine Welfare

21:21 - Collaboration in the Horse Industry

27:27 - Scholarship Recipients and Opportunities for Future Leaders

You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network family.

What a beautiful day for horses in the morning.

You are listening to the number one horse podcast in the world.

Here is your entertaining look at the horse world and the people in it.

Foreign Broadway President of the American Horse Council.

And I'm Emily Stearns, Health, Welfare and regulatory affairs liaison for the American Horse Council.

Good morning, Horse World.

It's time to hear from the American Horse Council in this monthly episode of Horses in the Morning.

Emily Perhaps it is just me, but I feel like we are always in this constant do loop of planning, executing, evaluating and then planning again.

For our annual conference.

It's finding the right venue, figuring out the theme, getting abstract submissions, choosing the speakers, planning the agenda, planning the menu, the av.

The list just goes on and on.

It is exhausting sometimes.

Oh yes, and I would like to think we are conference aficionados.

You know, I think think between the two of us, we easily attend at least, you know, a dozen different conferences and seminars and trade shows a year.

And not to brag on your behalf, but you're so great at conference planning.

You've now been invited to help plan several other associations conferences at this point, which I know you get very excited about.

And if I didn't know how much work goes into planning a conference, I might say you actually enjoy it.

Oh, oh, enjoyment.

That, that might be a really strong word.

I think.

I think one question you and I have discussed before is why should people attend conferences?

We go through all this effort and not just the American Horse Council conference, but any conference.

And remember after Covid we talked about staying virtual, but it really seems like people enjoy going to the in person stuff.

I know I do.

Well, I would say the one thing I hear universally, regardless of what conference you attend is people like the networking.

They love the in person aspect of meeting people building that relationship, trying to think outside.

It's different when you're watching it online or on Zoom virtually, but trying to think about how to take that content and implement it in your own organization or how to do innovation transfer.

I love that word where you take that content and you apply it in a different way than maybe the speaker intended, but it plays out in a really great effective manner in a whole different way.

Yeah, I agree.

And I must admit, as you know, our Horse Council team, many of us work fully, remotely.

We're kind of spread all over the eastern seaboard.

At this point, the camaraderie of bumping into some of the same people at different, different conferences is really nice and starts to kind of feel like maybe we do have a little office community and it's, it's involving many organizations and not just our own.

Yeah.

And you know, our conference for this year, I think is going to be spectacular, if I do say so myself.

We have 15 guest speakers covering a broad range of topics.

And today's episode is all about giving listeners a sneak peek at a couple of those guests and a couple of those topics to give you a flavor for the kind of content that we do.

I think we have something for everyone and we really pride ourselves on making sure that our conference is diverse, informative, educational, useful content.

So we really try hard to think about every segment of the industry, whether it's racing or competitions or recreational trail riders or whatever part of the industry you're involved with.

Even if you're a professional or just a stakeholder in the industry, we want to provide something that you can walk away with and say, that was really useful for me.

So let's get into that.

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So you heard Julie just say that.

We have over 15 speakers coming to our conference and for our guests today, we wanted to give you just a little taste.

But first we want to let you kind of understand the full scope of topics and kind of speakers and invitees who will be joining us.

And we're not going to read you the whole list of 15.

You can see that on the web page site.

But we're going to give you a little taste.

So Julie, who do we have speaking first on Sunday?

On Sunday, the United Horse Coalition is the sponsor for that first two hour segment.

And Diana Bistadanu.

I hope I got that right.

The founder of Horses Offering People Education, AKA Hope in Massachusetts is an equine facilitated learning advanced practitioner through the Herd Institute and a certified horse powered reading facilitator.

And she will be speaking on open outsourcing aftercare.

What she told us in her summation was that nonprofit organizations dedicated to aftercare often face challenges in accessing and utilizing the resources needed to operate efficiently and effectively.

And this session will focus on the power of open sourcing and collaboration to create a centralized library of existing tools, templates, and strategies that can benefit after care organizations of all sizes.

And she says, by pooling resources and knowledge, nonprofits can enhance operational efficiency, improve outcomes for retired horses, and allocate more time and energy to their mission.

So we're excited about having her with us.

And I feel like we have to warn you all now, after every person we talk about, we're going to say we're excited because we are.

They are all very exciting.

And, and I think it's important to note there is no virtual attendance.

So if you're listening to any of these descriptions and you're like, oh man, I really want to go see this, then you're going to have to get to D.C.

because we don't do virtual attendance.

So the next person I wanted to talk about was Dr.

Neely of Louisiana State University.

And Dr.

Neely has a presentation called Using Partnerships to Strengthen a State Equine Industry.

And this one we really like.

And this partnership, as many partnerships do, required extensive advocacy and stakeholder engagement to really highlight the industry's significance to the state economy.

And this is something Julie and I talk about a lot.

And we talk about with economic impact study, how important talking about impact is.

And the grant program has awarded resources to improve operations, expand programs, and attract tourism.

And this collaboration really enhanced the economic impact of the equine industry and really strengthened its role kind of as a cornerston of Louisiana's agricultural and cultural heritage.

And we're kind of hoping people come and listen to us and start getting gears turning in their head of maybe how this applies to their state.

Yes.

And this particular presentation is sponsored by the Coalition of State Horse Councils.

Now, if you guys didn't know, only 26 states in the US have a state horse council.

That's unfortunate because every state needs a state horse council.

So what we're hoping through this presentation is we will get you energized in thinking about either a how to improve the equine industry in your state or how to build a state horse council so you can improve the industry in your state.

That's our objective with that.

Okay, so next up, I want to talk about one that Emily and I are just fascinated by.

She's just already so excited about it.

So.

Dr.

Amy McLean of the University of California, Davis has spent her entire professional career studying donkeys and mules.

And her presentation is titled Donkeys and Mules are Equines to Creating Equality from the Clinic to the Show Arena.

So what she tells us is over the past decade there's been an increased interest in donkeys and mules, from veterinary clinics to first time owners.

And donkeys and mules are equines, like horses and ponies.

They have similar health care needs as horses, such as dental and hoof care vaccinations, but sadly they may get ignored or misdiagnosed.

So the focus of her workshop is to dive deep into comparing physiology uses of donkeys and mules from the dairy industry to show animals and species considerations to help improve and discourage species inequality.

Donkeys and mules, despite what some may think, are equines too, she says.

So we're looking forward to that.

And so that's.

We don't want to give it all away.

Like we said, you can check out everything on our website.

Our full agenda is there with all our speakers.

And we have one of our speakers here with us today so he can kind of give you some of his insights.

So welcome, Tyson, and thank you for joining us today.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

So take the first minute or so, Tyson, to tell our guest what you are presenting to our attendees and why you think it's so insightful and useful and beneficial so we can sort of get their.

Their appetites whetted.

Yeah, I think in the spirit of the conference, we are coming to talk about collaboration and we are focusing specifically on technology.

We have been in the industry for over a decade now and we've seen a lot.

And we want to talk about some of the challenges that particularly breed performance associations and such are facing.

They're facing some real challenges and we want to talk about what we've seen.

We want to talk about demographics and how those demographics use technology, what they expect from technology and how that's shifting so radically between generations, really, just what to expect.

How are you going to serve those younger folks that are coming along, coming into the industry?

We're going to have a lot of fun looking at some emerging technologies that you kind of hear about, but maybe don't understand.

Artificial intelligence.

How is that going to play a role in the equine space?

What is the blockchain?

How might that be useful in terms of what we can do in the future?

So we're gonna have some fun with that.

We're gonna educate a little bit on that.

Nothing deep, just so that we demystify these things that are out there and being talked about.

And then we're gonna try and offer some resources for people who want to learn more and want to start to collaborate together to help drive technology and initiatives in the equine market.

So it amazes me when I hear you talk about AI.

It's a scary topic to some folks.

But a couple of years ago, conference and I heard a fascinating presentation about how AI was being used in tractors and how event venues could automate the whole arena leveling process and everything by using these automated tractors.

And I thought, well, who would have thought that would ever come to our industry?

Because, let's admit it, the egg in the horse industry is a little fearful of change.

I like to joke that the horse industry is keeping the check industry alive, that we are so afraid to embrace digital anything.

We won't even pay for anything digitally that we, we still want to pay with checks.

Yeah, we see a lot of that.

And I.

Part of that's what we hope to achieve.

A lot, a lot of fear is when you don't necessarily understand how something works.

And so we want to start to explore really, what are these things and how can we take some of the, some of the fear, some of the unknown out of some of them.

And I've also heard of some fascinating artificial intelligence type of applications.

I know that they're using video of horse races to predictively analyze a horse that's close to breaking down.

They can look at their gait, they can detect things that the human eye cannot see so that you can avoid a catastrophic injury in a horse.

And surely, you know, that's wonderful.

We would all agree that's wonderful.

So it's just a tool and it's, it's used by the people in whatever way they're going to use it.

And there are so many great ways that the equine industry can embrace the technology we're Going to have a fun little demo at our session where we show a chat bot that is answering questions about a rule book.

And you all have delved into two 300 page rule books before and you just want an answer, it's convoluted.

And so we're going to demonstrate how just conversationally, this thing can answer just about any question you might have in seconds.

And you know, at 1:00am if you happen to be awake and want to know the answer before you head to a horse show the next day or something, it's available and it can answer those questions.

So it'll be fun.

That's so timely because we just put a chatbot together for our United Horse Coalition website to help owners in need navigate the resources that are on there more efficiently.

So the chatbot thing is pretty cool with what it can do.

It really is great.

So we'll have fun with that.

And again, we really want to leave the attendees with some options.

The so what I came, I learned a few things.

I get it, there's opportunity.

What do I do next?

And so we really want to help drive and connect people to think together, work together.

This industry is full of a lot of small businesses that don't necessarily have a lot of means themselves to do all this.

And so how can we work together, connect on some initiatives and really make some progress that everybody can get excited about?

I think about a couple of things in my head.

Tyson.

Some of the younger trainers, regardless of breeder discipline, have gone to automated lesson scheduling technology.

Some really cool ideas for how you might handle that instead of the old fashioned way.

But I also think about identification of horses.

So for years we've been pushing microchips, but there are some new things coming out there like iris scanning and those kinds of things that I think people really need to, to think about.

If I understand it correctly, and I'm pretty naive about some of that.

Irises on horses are like fingerprints on people.

They're very unique.

And so there's some new things coming there.

And a lot of breed and discipline associations are thinking through, you know, some of that kind of cool stuff that might be something they want to embrace in the next few years.

Yeah, what a, what another great application in terms of animal welfare where you don't have to stress a horse out with, you know, even old fashioned tattooing, microchipping, all that is necessary.

We need to identify animals, but can we do it in a way that's non harmful, non stressful, adapts with the horse as it, as it grows and ages so yes, lots of exciting things.

I, I'm a technologist.

I get very excited about those kinds of things, of course.

And I love, I love this industry and I want to see it use these tools and thrive.

So I'm just going to say, Emily, I hope I have the opportunity to introduce you to a couple of people at the conference.

Tyson.

There's a fascinating study underway in the school of Public Health at the University of Kentucky where they are attaching wearable technology to the equestrians and measuring things like grip strength and measuring how quick a jockey's knees are going to break down and all these fascinating things.

So it's not only technology for the horses, but it applies to the riders.

Very true.

And we also see just, there's, there's a lot of things in the day to day, I'd say tasks that people don't enjoy doing.

Most people in this space love horses, want to spend time with horses, want to compete, want to show.

They don't really want to deal with health paperwork and they don't really want to deal with looking up information and getting things filed in time.

This is where technology can really help.

And what we preach constantly is let technology take care of those kind of mundane, obnoxious tasks that no one likes to do so that you can spend more time doing the things that you like to do.

So I have to ask because the way as a self proclaimed technologist you talk about the horse industry as someone who has spent a lot of time in the horse industry, so I have to ask, are you a technology guy who got dragged into the horse industry and now can't drag yourself back out or are you a horse person who got sucked into the technology world?

Yeah.

So interestingly enough, I, I grew up in a little town called Lamar, Colorado.

Farming and ranching community with 8, 000 people in it.

My grandpa owned a bunch of horses.

Everyone around me owned horses.

So while my family, my direct family didn't have any horses, I grew up around them my whole life.

I, I love pretty much everything about agriculture.

I understand the mindset, I understand the love and passion people have for horses.

And I went off into the big world, left my little town, got my degrees, did all the things and, and it came full circle where this technology that I got to go out and learn about, which you would think of, I don't know, you just horses and agriculture is one of the last things you'd think about.

I guess what most technologists are not thinking about.

And, and I just stumbled upon and was introduced to this space.

And I thought to myself, what a rewarding place to apply my knowledge and skills.

What wonderful people to work with to do it.

I felt at home again just because of my upbringing.

So full circle, love it.

Understand the people.

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a horse expert, but I am now.

I certainly am now.

And we, we talked about this a little bit.

You know, you talked about what you wanted the audience to walk away with from your presentation.

But if, if there's one thing that they walk away with, what do you hope that's going to be?

Well, again, I think you all brought it up, and I think that if I can remove the mystery and the fear and the distrust around some of these things so that those doors open and people are now willing to think through and consider and have discussions about what's possible and what's responsible and what's realistic and how can we all work on that together.

Mission achieved.

For me, I would, I would love to see that.

I would love to see some people excited about it, less afraid of it, whatever.

If people leave that way, I'll call it mission accomplished.

Well, that's cool.

I don't think you've been to our conference before Tyson, so why do you think people should attend the conference other than hearing Tyson and what great things he's got to say?

Yeah, well, I come back to that collaboration.

I absolutely agree that in this day and age where we can all jump on these video conferences and, and talk each other, it's great, it's convenient, but it just does not replace having a conversation.

There's just, it's, it's so different.

And so in the spirit of collaboration, being, having an event like this where so many people from different aspects of the industry can get together and talk about all kinds of different topics.

I mean, I, I heard of several very different ones that you just described.

And, and of course, ours is, is different as well.

That is where great things can happen.

That is where you can look back 10 years and say, yeah, it was at, it was at the conference in Washington, D.C.

And I hear those stories all the time.

Those stories are part of my past as well, so don't miss out.

I mean, I think this industry is going in some exciting directions, and I think that those kinds of things so often are birthed that these networking, collaboration events like this.

Well, I have to say, you know, when we do our economic impact study, there are very distinct sectors we have the racing sector, we have the showing competition sector, we have the recreation riding sector, we have the working horse sector, et cetera, et cetera.

And oftentimes they operate in silos.

They sort of stay amongst themselves.

And it drives me a little batty, very technical word there.

When there's something cool that's going on in one sector that I see as being so transferable to other places.

And Emily and I often talk about that, that, oh, they just came up with this really neat idea that's trying to address some of the challenges in say the racing sector.

And we're like, same concept could turn around and be supplied in the applied to the showing and competition sector where there are also critics over there.

So lots and lots of things.

So your point is so well taken.

And this is our chance to have all those different silos as a captive audience in one conference room and forcing them all to interact with each other for once.

The one time of year the hunter jumpers and the eventers and the cowgirls and the barrel racers and the cutters are all talking to each other in one room.

Yeah.

And don't, don't be afraid, folks.

Force might be a strong word, Emily, but we really do try to facilitate that and push some networking things that are there.

Well, Tyson, thank you so much for your time today.

We're looking forward to your presentation.

And again folks, Tyson's speaking on Sunday afternoon.

So please sign up and you can sign up for one day or for the whole conference.

There's some great things going on there.

Definitely.

Make sure you check out the full agenda on our website because we go from Sunday to Wednesday afternoon and we include the fly in which you will mention later and go deeper into later.

But we talk about that and it's just a great opportunity to meet people in the industry that you might not otherwise have.

Well, and not to go down a rabbit hole, but if you want to learn all about new World screwworm, which is a terrible threatening disease, coming up the southern border.

We've got a whole presentation on that.

There is a whole conversation on workforce and labor shortages.

So we're going to talk about visas.

So just some, some fascinating things.

Even the downsizing of the federal government has affected the out recreation space.

So Whitney from the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable is going to talk a little bit about what are some of the downstream effects that are happening in parks and other facilities where we don't have the staffing or the budget anymore.

So you might have wanted to go ride your horse out on a trail in such and such a place and it may be closed or there may not be anybody there when you get there.

So lots and lots of opportunities.

Oh, know who we didn't mention?

Julie?

The Caisson Platoon.

Oh, yeah, we're really excited about that.

So David o' Connor from the United States Equestrian Federation is leading a panel discussion with the Arlington Cemetery Caisson Platoon officers because as they have revitalized the platoon and the horses, they have been coached on thinking about it through social license to operate.

So they're going to come share with us their experience about doing that.

So it's going to be very, very, very cool.

So thanks again, Tyson.

Thanks for having me.

I'm looking forward to it.

Also have a sponsor.

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And these scholarships are designed to cover the cost of the conference registration for an aggression or equine college student who wishes to attend our conference in D.C.

so this year we are really proud of the first four recipients.

Emily, tell us about the first one.

Yes.

So this is very exciting because this one is also interning for us this spring and her name is Aditri Singh of Rutgers University.

And Aditri is an animal science pre vet major with an English minor.

And her career goal is to become a veterinarian specializing in equine medicine with a strong focus on clinical care and broader welfare initiatives.

And we had several applicants that were pre vet majors, didn't we, Julie?

We did, but we thought she really fit the bill.

So we're excited about having her second one.

Up is Caitlin Lunsman of the University of Florida.

Now, some of you may recall we interviewed Caitlin on a previous episode of the podcast because she's doing some fascinating research.

She is pursuing her PhD in agricultural education and communications.

Her research is focusing on how horse human relationship impact, youth leadership and social development.

She's got some great stuff coming, folks.

Then our third recipient is Madison Beckham of the University of California, Davis.

Madison is working towards a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science and Management.

In the last five years, Madison has been working at a premier sport horse rehab facility and she's also really eager to learn more about breeding and genetics.

So we have a lot of good science background.

Who's going to be coming to the conference?

Hey, and not to be outdone, the fourth scholarship is going to Najeem Akeen at the University of Kentucky.

Please hope I didn't butcher their name.

They are an equine science and management major with minors in animal science and biology with plans to attend vet school at the University of Florida.

They are an enlisted soldier in the U.S.

army Reserve and plans to seek commission to the U.S.

army Veterinary Corps.

So we're excited about that.

It's going to be, it's going to be a great lineup of scholarship attendees this year.

So the last thing that I want to talk about in this segment is, hey, guess what?

As part of this conference, we do what is called in Washington, D.C.

a fly in.

So what that means is that our attendees at the conference are offered the opportunity to go up into congressional offices, meet with their congressional representatives, and to go into federal agencies and talk about issues or topics that are near and dear to them, kind of pick their brains.

It's a great opportunity to go in and see your representative, make some connections, build a relationship, and it helps our industry tremendously because what you're doing by making those visits is building that trust, building that relationship.

So they know that if something is presented to them in the future that affects our industry, they, they have an experience with a constituent and they can say, hey, I remember meeting John and he talked about this topic.

Let's call him and pick his brain about what our position should be on this subject or ask him what he thinks the concerns are.

So we want to encourage you come to the conference.

This year is June 22nd through 25th.

The fly in portion is the afternoon of the 24th and all day on the 25th.

And you can go to our website at www.

Horsecouncil.org to find all the information about hotel reservations and the lineup of speakers and the registration.

So it's just an exciting topic.

I get excited talking about the fly in that this is your chance.

If you've ever wanted to meet your representatives and you need help meeting your representatives, this is what we do and we're here to help connect you with your representatives and it's not scary.

We walk you up there, we'll walk you to the office if you need it.

It's just a really good introductory way to get involved and advoc legacy thank.

You for joining us today.

We'll provide more numbers and links in our show notes.

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To say as we sign off, we are herefor horses and for you.

Come join us at the conference in Washington, D.C.