Cherry Hill has been a national horse show judge for several breed organizations since 1975. She designed this book to be useful for Western and English riders practicing at home and convenient for horse show judges. Each pattern has a detailed arena diagram which can be posted at a horse show. The Colorado Authors' League was established in 1931 and has presented Top Hand Awards to the best published fiction and non-fiction books and articles of the year on any subject. The Top Hand Award is one of the most prestigious writing awards in the region.
Previous winners represent the best of writers in all fields of writing as judged by their peers.
Originally the awards were a carved figure of a cowboy standing on a book, then hand-carved wooden horses. Although today's Top Hand Awards no longer depict a Cowboy theme, the title of Top Hand is especially appropriate for Cherry Hill, author of 23 books and over 1000 articles on the care and training of horses.