She’s devoted decades to producing pretty ponies and raising the standards.

Sometimes, on a soft summer evening, Marguerite Taylor-Jones will place a chair in the shade of a tree and gaze at the weathered red barn and paddocks where hundreds of ponies cavorted.

She replays in her mind walking down the aisle, with pretty pony heads hanging over the stall doors, nickering for their breakfast. And she reminisces about quiet nights spent rubbing a soft gleam into young ponies’ coats, getting them looking their best.

Our columnist explores the incredible journey from youngster to 5-year-old.

Raising and training a foal, yearling or 2-year-old to become a horse ready to enter the competitive arena will be one of the most satisfying and educational experiences a rider or trainer can ever have. Knowing that the horse you’re riding is also the horse that you made from scratch validates you as a horseman in a way that riding someone else’s project never can.

She has made a study of dressage sport horse breeding, but her involvement in the equestrian community reaches far beyond reproduction.

Barbara Funk falls into an enviable group of individuals lucky enough to do what they love for a living. Her résumé reads more like a book, with job titles ranging from dressage sport horse breeding judge to tax practitioner, but somehow the Battle Ground, Wash., resident has managed to tie everything she does back to horses.

Our columnist worries that hot trends in breeding are undermining the proven products.

It’s February, the time of year when people are thinking about breeding their mares. Due to the recession of 2009, breeding numbers are down around the world. So it’s a time to be even more responsible about each breeding decision you make.

There are many reasons why a mare may need surgical help delivering her foal.

In situations where a mare can’t deliver her foal, the only way to save the mare—and possibly the foal—may be to take the foal out surgically.

Margaret Mudge, VMD, assistant professor of equine emergency and critical care at Ohio State University, said that mares have a very short labor.

“This is quite different from most other species. Labor in the mare is very brief and explosive,” she said.