Frequently Asked Questions

What's the "Your" in YourHorseSports.com all about?

You can find a fuller explanation on our About Us page. But briefly, it signifies that much of the content of this website is produced by you. YourHorseSports.com exists to be a home for horse riders to share their adventures and advice -- in stories, photos and videos. We're believers in "citizen media." That means that people are more than capable of telling their own stories; they don't need professional reporters or photographers to document their riding lives. Professional journalists tend to focus only on the top "stars" anyway. So if you've got a story to share with the rest of the riding world, YourHorseSports.com is the place for it.

Is YourHorseSports.com content all from us?

No. YourHorseSports.com employs an Enthusiast-in-Chief, Emily Esterson. Emily produces her own content for the site, including a blog, a podcast, and she periodically posts riding-related articles, interviews, photos and videos to the website. A big part of Emily's job, though, is to encourage and assist other horse riders in publishing their stories and images on YourHorseSports.com. An "Enthusiast-in-Chief" is both a writer/photographer and a host to this online riding community.

Who is this Emily Esterson person?

Enthusiast-in-chief Emily Esterson has three horses of her own, is an active dressage competitor, and a part-time instructor. An experienced journalist, she is editor of Equestrian Retailer, and has written for many publications including Equus, Dressage Today, Perfect Horse, Western Horseman, Performance Horse and Dressage Today. She also is editor of NewWest.net's New Mexico page. Emily currently is working on a beginner's riding manual for Globe Pequot Press; the book is due out in July 2007. She has competed jumpers, eventers and dressage horses, and is "fooling around with reining right now." Emily lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Why should I post stuff here? What's in it for me?

Our mantra at YourHorseSports.com is to make it worth your while to participate in this online community. First, if you've got a good tale to tell, or a killer photo or video, we bet you'd like to show it off to the rest of the riding world. We're here for that. But that's not enough. We want you to be compensated for sharing your good content with the YourHorseSports.com community. We routinely run contests to select the best riding photo, the best riding tale, the best technique tips, etc. And we award prizes for the best entries. You'll see us riding a lot of these contests. So if you don't win right away, keep contributing. You'll have many chances. We've also devised other ways to get you compensated for your contributions to YourHorseSports.com. See our About Us page for more detail.

Why do you run so many contests?

First, we think they're fun and we hope you'll have fun participating in our contests. They allow our users to earn riding gear just for doing something fun: sharing their riding stories and images. They help our sponsors get the word out about their riding products, and expose more horse riders to their offerings. But we have an ulterior motive. Our contests are a great way to identify the best of the content that YourHorseSports.com users submit to the site. Because this site accepts stuff from any horse rider, not all of it is award-winning. We use the contests (and other techniques, such as user ratings) to identify the best stuff that our users submit, and we post that prominently. When the best content is highlighted, that makes for a more enjoyable experience for all YourHorseSports.com visitors.

Can we post anything here?

The answer, of course, is no. We want this community to be fun, interesting and worthwhile for all our users. So, yes, we do put some limits on what you can post to the site -- but they're reasonable. You still have freedom to post whatever you want about your riding life. Here are some important rules:

• Stick to the topic of riding. That's why we're all here. Post an article about why you hate the politics of George W. Bush (or love them) and we'll remove it. But write something about how George's land-use policies are shutting down riding trails and that's fine.
  
• Don't try to publish obvious no-no's -- pornography, hate speech, calls to violence, excessive obscenity, etc. We'll remove that stuff when we see it, or when other users report it to us.
  
• Be careful about posting identifying information about minors (under 13). Unless you are the parent or guardian, or have explicit permission, don't identify a child under 13 in what you post to YourHorseSports.com. See our privacy policy for more details on this.
  
• We strongly encourage you to read our community rules before using this website.

Can we post other people's articles, photos and videos on YourHorseSports.com?

YourHorseSports.com is designed primarily to showcase your own words and images. However, if you want to share someone else's great photo or video with the community here, that's OK as long as you have the copyright owner's explicit permission and you identify the photo or video as belonging to the true owner. If you don't have permission, don't post it here.

When we at YourHorseSports.com freak out is when someone submits an article, photo or video from another and pretends that it's their own. Since we run best-of contests, it's really a bad thing for a contest entrant to fake ownership of a story, photo or video. If we find out that you've done this, we'll cancel your account and ban you from using the site in the future. But it's not just about us getting mad; if the copyright owner finds out, they could sue you. So please act wisely when it comes to posting riding content from other people.

Who's behind YourHorseSports.com?

YourHorseSports.com is part of the Enthusiast Group network of websites. The idea behind YourHorseSports.com and the company was originated by Steve Outing, an online-media pioneer and expert in Internet publishing and citizen media. The Enthusiast Group was founded by Steve and Derek Scruggs, an experienced Internet entrepreneur. The company is funded by a group of angel investors and is based in Boulder, Colorado, a mecca for riding and other adventure sports.