About the Company: Wind Shadow Media Productions

Wind Shadow was officially incorporated on June 19, 1998. Our main purpose is to educate people on the latest information on horse care by using quality CD-ROMs. Wind Shadow was the first company to produce educational horse CD-ROMs that effectively use the unique strengths of the CD-ROM format: interactivity, movement, slow motion, ease of repeating a section, unlimited length, and use of text, color, pictures, artwork, sound, and video to demonstrate a skill or movement. Our CD-ROMs cover college-level material in a simple enough way that youth on up can easily understand the information. These CD-ROMs are reviewed by experts to ensure accuracy and are sold for a low price so everyone can afford them.

Wind Shadow supported the following events:

Montana Gaited Horse Celebration - 1999 Arab Talk High Point Contest - 2000 Southwest Missouri Reining Horse Association Show - 2000 Melfort Trail Blazers Achievement Day - 2000 American Buckskin Registry Association World Show - 2000 Horse Of Course 4H Show - 2003 Dallas County 4-H Horse Show - 2003

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About the Author: Deborah K. White

Debbie has been writing about and riding horses since she was a teenager. She took writing courses from the Institute of Children's Literature while she was still in high school and received her diploma from them after two years of work. She then went to college at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as an Equine Science major. SIU-C is one of the top equine schools in the USA, teaching the latest information on training, breeding, horse care, and business management. It also promotes small class sizes and hands-on learning so that the professors can teach many of the horse skills one-on-one.


While at SIU, she joined the Equestrian Team and the Horse Judging Team and revived the Equine Science Club. She was President of the Equine Science club for two of her four years with the club. The Equine Science Club put on the first and second ESC Horse Seminars while she was President. The purpose of the seminars was to educate the local horse people about topics ranging from horse care and nutrition to selecting the right bit and barn design.


For her Honor's Thesis, Debbie created her first CD-ROM, "The Basics of Owning a Horse." After seeing this CD-ROM, Debbie's internship instructor asked her to create a CD-ROM to be used in SIU-C classes. "Horse Movement and Gaits" was created for the internship, and Dr. Sheryl King, the instructor, was so pleased with the product that she encouraged Debbie to sell the CD-ROM commercially and to create other horse CD-ROMs. Debbie graduated from SIU-C in the May of 1998 with a Bachelor degree in Equine Science. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and with honors.


Interview with the Author

Q: Why do you make CD-ROMs instead of writing books?

"While making CD-ROMs is a lot of work, I feel that they are a more dynamic way to teach horse topics than books or videos provide. If you can't have a well-informed instructor or teacher to go one-on-one and teach you the latest information about horses, CD-ROMs are the next best way - if designed correctly."

Q: How long have you been working with horses?

"Well, I grew up on a farm, but the horse we had was sold shortly before I was born. It's a family joke that's I've been trying to make up for that ever since. I loved to read horse books and watch horse movies. The first stories I wrote were about horses. I finally got the prized riding lessons when I was nine years old. I became a star seller of Girl Scout cookies so that I could go to the Girl Scout horse summer camp several years in a row. When I was twelve, I found another instructor that would teach me horse care (from grooming and tacking up, to nutrition, basic vet and first aid stuff, and some training) along with horseback riding. I stayed with that instructor until I went to college. You know the rest from there."

Q: What is the most unique horse job you've had?

"Besides making CD-ROMs? Well, the summer after my freshman year in college I was the head Horse Wrangler at a movie shoot. Okay, so I was also the only Horse Wrangler, but I was completely in charge of 4-6 horses (depending on the day) for two-and-a-half weeks. It's hard work, especially because we kept moving from site to site!"

Q: Did you always want to write horse books 'when you grew up'?

"Actually, I went to college determined to be a horse trainer and writing would be my hobby. As it's actually turned out, the job and hobby got switched. Taking the Equine Science courses showed me how little I really knew about horses, even though I'd been studying up on horses since I was very young. Also, I'd drive around southern Illinois and see some people keeping their horses in small, mostly-dirt pastures filled with old junk and surrounded by barbwire. I'd just cringe, wondering when the accident was going to happen. Still, I figured our Equine Science Club Horse Seminars were going to help change that with time so I didn't have to worry about it.

Then one spring the Equine Science Club decided to take a long, guided horse ride through the Shawnee National Forest. When we arrived at the small riding stable, eight horses stood tacked and ready in some small stalls. The horses couldn't move more than a foot in any direction, had no water or food, and hadn't been groomed very well. This wouldn't have concerned me too much because it was a muddy spring and the horses might not have been standing there very long. The problem was that the horses looked starved, like they hardly had enough strength to move themselves, let alone a rider. They weren't all skin-and-bones, but they were very thin. The owners seemed like fairly nice people and bragged about how gentle their horses were. Well, yes, if you don't have energy you aren't going to put up a fight with your rider. This is when it really hit home that people could be abusing horses without even realizing that was what they were doing. That's when I decided sharing my knowledge was more important than training horses. By the way, we refused to ride the horses and explained why to the owners. I still don't think they believed they were doing anything wrong."