Does it get any better than this? Beautiful weather and amazing clinics add up to lots of fun!

By Holly Clanahan, America’s Horse editor

Clinician Ken McNabb meets a lightly started 3-year-old horse that will be in his colt-starting clinic.

Each day, we’ll bring you a smattering of tips from clinicians at QuarterFest: A Celebration of the American Quarter Horse. It’s a cornucopia of equine knowledge here, on a variety of topics:

• Camping/packing expert Bo Winslow: When you’ve decided to do a pack trip into a new area, consider taking a couple of day trips there first, to scope out water sources and campsite locations.
• Trail obstacle clinician Tammy Pate, when a horse and rider were having difficulty negotiating a tough bridge: “This is not a battle. This is an opportunity, because the next time your horse feels this way (fearful), she’ll think you are her leader. It’s a partnership.”
• Certified Horsemanship Association instructor Christy Landwehr: Keep no more than one fist’s space between your horse’s belly and his back girth. Any more than that and he could potentially get a hind leg stuck through the low-hanging girth.
• Also from Christy: When adjusting a helmet, the “sliders” on each side of the harness should be right above your ears. If the harness is any looser than that, it may not protect you in the event of a fall — which defeats the purpose of a helmet.
• Colt-starting clinician KenMcNabb: “I treat a bosal or a halter or a bit the same way. I want my horse to respond when I touch him. When I take up on him … he’s bringing that nose to vertical and getting soft.”
• Also from Ken: If you’re working a colt from horseback (see the slideshow for examples), don’t wear your spurs. You don’t want the colt to jab himself, and your saddle horse should respond without them.

QuarterFest continues through Sunday, May 2, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, at Middle Tennessee State University. If you’re within driving distance, you don’t want to miss it!

Check out the sideshow to get a better taste of the first day of QuarterFest 2010. Click on the photos to read descriptions.