Sid Gustafson
Novelist and Veterinarian

Pursuing his lifelong horsemanship interests, Dr Gustafson graduated from Washington State University with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree to specialize in equine sportsmedicine. His subsequent concern for the mental and physical health challenges that stabling and confinement created for horses led him to the study of equine behavior. As Equine Studies Program Coordinator for the Natural Horsemanship Program at the University of Montana Western from 2006-2008, Professor Gustafson developed a science-based equine studies curriculum that explored equine behavior and husbandry as well as appropriate contemporary horsemanship. He is currently completing a book on equine behavior and contemporary horse culture to be by published by Eclipse Press entitled The Language of Natural Horsemanship this fall in Lexington, Kentucky. Sid had the good fortune to be raised with horses in Montana just under the Medicine Line of Alberta, Canada, a country he wandered into horseback often riding with the Blackfeet Indians. He developed an early interest in equine behavior through his exposure to his family’s ranching and horse breeding pursuits, where he was witness to feral horses in natural settings on a regular basis. Sid has raised and trained horses all his life, and continues to do so understanding clearly there is much more to know and appreciate about horses. In addition to consulting and teaching Equine Behavior, Dr Gustafson currently is a seasonal regulatory veterinarian at Finger Lakes Racetrack across Lake Ontario from Guelph in Ontario County, New York, where he represents the horses.