hi Billywhiz, H & H will print clinic and show dates, seen them in there on number of occasions. Prob not many organisers bother though as not really target audience. 

I am a journalist and although now spend half my time also doing PR, I still write as a freelance, which obviously includes equine and equine sport.
Billywhiz is correct that H&H has the largest circulation and is seen as the main voice of equestrianism in the UK. It is read by many of those who wouldn't subscribe to mags like Horse & Rider, Your Horse etc.
The editorial content inevitably reflects the interests of the editorial team and their perceived readership. Despite the hunting ban it continues to be the voice of that fraternity, plus coverage of the other more 'mainstream' disciplines. As has been stated here, the perception of western is somewhat stereotypical and ignorant, ie it's seen as people playing cowboys. I have recently (in a professional capacity) visited one of the rehab centres for former racehorses and suggested that the western way of 'going' might suit some of their horses when they are brought back into work. I thought of this as I had this conversation in the past with somebody who has a large and well-respected wes yard. This rehab centre for racehorses is situated at Sinfold in Sussex and the only person I could think of off the top of my head as being vaguely in that direction was Bob Mayhew (I am relatively new to western). I told the yard manager I would send her Bob's contact details and maybe she could get in touch and suggest he visit (assuming he was interested) to see what might be done. This is the sort of thing I could cover as a story and try and get H&H interested.
Now this has been brought up here and perhaps if Bob happens to be reading this, or maybe another (forgive me) fairly well known trainer, they could get in touch with me. A meeting could then be set up with the yard and see if this could be taken further. The yard manager was keen to have a go. This might not be the sort of thing people on this forum have in mind as highlighting western, but you need a peg to hang a story on and it could make a nice feature and illustrate that wes isn't just about QHs and competing at high level in the various wes disciplines but is in fact, a good way of training horses. I would suggest that trainers involved would need knowledge of TBs and how they are trained to race. as ignorance of this can cause problems and misunderstandings. I did think of Lee Rutter, but I know he is maybe a bit too far to be keen.
Anyway, just a thought. What do people think?

A bit off-topic but if you are interested in going down the ex-racehorse route may I suggest an excellent friendly forum : www.horse-directory.co.uk Their main focus is ex-racers but it is open to all and they have sections on different activities like western.

Quite a few people who post on there ride western and there have been previous posts about people converting ex-racers to western with great success.

Also there are lots of people with "contacts" who could help you get a foot in the door with lots of rehabilitation places for TBs.

Good Luck, it sounds like a great idea and the more articles the better ;D

In regards to the "anti-western" editor;I think that was a man and now Lucy Higgins is back from maternity leave, I don't know her stance on western though...

I thought that the H&h piece was quite interesting altho fairly pointless for the UK audience. It was written by Nancy Jaffer, a very experienced US journalist who DOES know a fair bit about reining.
That slot would have been better filled by someone talking about the surfaces issue (and how we can work with 'english' disciplines on venue development), the massive increase in the amount of clinics and shows for western this year, and our up and coming stars such as Tammy Greaves. Probably the one person in a good position to do that would have been John Calder...possibly something to work on for later in the year?

As you may have guessed, I'm the journo who used to post on the old WS message board....this year H&H has printed various newsy bits on reining pre-WEG and used the announcement about the NRHA seminar recently. The news pages do get bombarded with a massive amount of stuff. Their news editor made a very good job of the WEG report and enjoyed very good co-operation from the UK team.

Features are more difficult. The two most recent ones I have had published were about the versatility of the QH and about the youth riders, although for the latter it took a bit of persuading the editor that photos would not include guns or rope swinging...( no offence, roping fans, but I think english riders have enough to grasp with the mainstream western disciplines performed in the UK, let alone anything else!)

I think the racehorse retraining idea is an excellent one and would make a good feature. I'm sure Bob would be happy to help if he can - he has done lots of 'cross discipline' stuff. Keep us posted on how far you get - I would be happy to promote the idea of a feature to Horse (which I write for occasionally) even if H&H is not interested.

In the meantime, local mags seem keen to feature successful trainers or competitors from their region, or carry (short) show reports with (good, high quality ) photos, clearly captioned with who won what. We can all do our bit !

I can see that the only published articles are if there is something major going on or a feature article.

Is it not possible to get a regular spot, maybe in a monthly first.

I buy the H&H once in a blue moon but when i was a coach driver driving around Europe we would quite often stop at some services in Switzerland and every month i bought a western magazine, it was a glossy and the articles were varied and interesting,they do fashion pages as well as 2 page spreads on different trainers, how to solve problems and lots more... the only problem was it was written in French... it's published in France but i could only find it at these services in Swits.... Well it improved my french but i wish it was here as it's what our mag shelves need for horse enthusiates  :'(