Horses Never Forget Human Friends

What most of us already know, but it's nice to see confirming research being done and published:

http://news.discovery.com/animals/horse-friends-memory-trainers.html

I have said for years that Keil Bay understands almost everything I say to him. He's absolutely a verbal learner and responds far more quickly to words than to cues, especially the natural horsemanship cues, which he thinks are primitive and beneath him.

Nice article, but would someone please tell me what the heck is in the mouth of the horse in the photo? Not a very nice thing to do to a good friend, imo. :/

more blood at WEG

From Eventing Nation:

Karim Florent Laghouagh and Havenir d'Azac of France were eliminated by the ground jury after blood appeared around Havenir d'Azac's mouth during their dressage test.

    

For anyone reading who doesn't know, the dressage phase of the eventing discipline is different than the Grand Prix dressage I've been writing about in previous posts. Note that this horse is wearing a snaffle bridle and not the double-bitted bridle of Grand Prix. Even so, you can see the cavesson and flash noseband are tight, the reins are being held very short, and you can see the blood in the horse's mouth. I don't know if this French rider utilizes rollkur, hyperflexion, or LDR in warm-up, but he is riding this test behind the vertical (line from horse's forehead to ground - correct angle is that horse's nose should be slightly in front of this vertical line).

I also read though have not confirmed that in the cross-country phase of the eventing competition, this horse had a rotational fall (meaning it hit the jump and flipped over, hindquarters over head).

Accidents happen, but it's hard not to make a connection between this kind of heavy-handed riding in dressage, blood in the mouth, and a rotational fall on the cross-country course.

I seriously doubt this horse is a happy equine citizen.

a few words on WEG 2010

I just tried to watch the available musical freestyle dressage rides from WEG and I'm not sure if I have totally lost interest in dressage as a competitive sport or if there were no horse/rider teams who moved me, but I couldn't finish watching any of them.

The bright lights, the indoor arena, the huge crowd, the noise, the shadows - all of it made me slightly ill. I can't fathom that any horse, however accustomed to the environment they might get because it's what they know, enjoys that setting and all the chaos. I felt heavy and sad watching Totilas. He performs like a trained robot, and with every step he seems resigned to his life and his job. I watched long enough to see the lack of anything even remotely resembling an extended trot, the break from trot into canter, and the free walk, where at one point he looked slightly lame, and I stopped. That this ride got a score higher than 90 is utterly shocking to me. 

I can't say much more about the other riders and horses. I tried to watch, to have a different experience than the Totilas ride, but the sounds of the crowd and the loud music, the tension, the horses' faces and heads/necks in tight frames were more than I could bear.

I have seen competitive rides where I got a good feeling from the horse and rider. I'm not sure if some of that was due to my own lack of education about what I was seeing - the ignorance is bliss syndrome - or whether things are truly worse now for the horses and it shows in competition.

I've read a lot of "reviews" today and it sounds like the ride on Fuego got huge applause and boos of disagreement when the scores were put up. The one part that struck me was what I couldn't get to on the video - Fuego rearing in fear at the end when the applause went through the roof. I don't know - that seems to put the entire thing into perspective for me.

My enjoyment of competitive horse sport may well be gone.

we have sunshine! and some hoof notes

Fortunately the rain left us yesterday afternoon, which meant that the horses stayed out with musical hay nets (initially they were intent on moving one another from net to net, then they considered other options and mutually agreed that if they were willing to share, they did not have to move so much!) and then I was able to open up the back field so they could get out and enjoy the still cloudy but no rain left day.

They came in for hoof cleaning (see below for more on this) and then dinner (Salina and Rafer actually came in for a few hours relaxation in the barn aisle when she had lunch) and then went back out for the night.

I think nearly 24 hours out has alleviated the antsy, bored shenanigans we had yesterday morning!

They were happy to come into their stalls for morning hay, and will soon get their breakfast tubs.

I'm glad it's Friday, glad to have sunshine, and happy that there is really nothing major going on this weekend except a few chores we need to get done.

Now for some hoof notes:

With all the summer grass and this year's hay being a little bit higher iron than last year's,  my copper and zinc levels have been off. Add to that the extreme dryness of the past month and we seem to be having some funky hoof stuff going on.

Next spring I am seriously considering making the "paddock paradise" style track using both fields so that the horses are not on grass and are moving quite a bit each day. The alternative is to muzzle all of them, and I'm just dreading the sight of 6 equines wearing muzzles! The track would allow them to chew and "graze" normally and they could do it 24/7.

Anyway, I feel like right now I'm dealing with the consequences of my not having been diligent about the issue of lush pasture that extended through much of this years spring/summer season. My first clue was that late this summer they all got a slightly bleached look to coats, manes, and tails. I tweaked copper and zinc (gave them extra) and very quickly their colors deepened again, so I knew I was on the right track.

I'm currently doing some additional/more intensive hoof cleaning to make sure I'm seeing progress in hooves as well. I decided that with all this hoof care (now needing to be done by me since daughter's finger is still recuperating) I needed to come up with a way to do it that doesn't kill my back.

How hoof care providers do it all day, many days a week is beyond me. I can do a thorough picking of two horses and I'm ready to stop. But we have six! So I set up a 'hoof care kit' which utilizes the big 20-gallon buckets we get from HorseTech. I put all my hoof care tools and medicinals in a smaller bucket which sits down in the larger bucket, which has a lid. Then I can take the big bucket to wherever I want to do the hoof care, usually in the barn aisle for donkeys and Salina, and the paddock for the geldings.

I take the smaller bucket out, put the lid back on the big bucket, and then use the big one as a seat. It's the perfect height for sitting to do hoof care. The geldings can rest a hoof on my knee comfortably and I have my tools within reach. My assistant (daughter, son, or husband) can lead the horses up one by one and I never even have to move.

The thing is, none of our horses are really accustomed to this kind of arrangement. They want to turn around to see what I've got in the bucket, the ones not yet being done want to come investigate, etc. So we decided to treat with alfalfa pellets, one pellet at a time, to make this a bit more of a rewarding, pun intended, experience.

I had to laugh last night. We did the reward mode a few days ago (I'm not doing this elaborate procedure every day, but a few times a week) but yesterday when my husband got Keil and brought him over, Keil was not wanting to come. He wanted to go in his stall and relax. Once he complied though, he lined up perfectly, gave me his hoof, and then craned around as if to say "where's the pellet?"

My husband went to get some, and Keil Bay stood in the paddock with no halter, no lead line, and perfect cooperation as I cleaned, scrubbed, dried, and treated each hoof. Each time I finished a hoof he turned around to sniff my hands, and I told him "the pellets are on the way, Big Bay, just wait." And he did.

It always amazes me how quickly horses can get the drill down, and that they will choose to cooperate when they know what you're doing, and make it pleasant for them.

I think we're all a bit crazed by the rain

I woke up this morning to Keil Bay's extremely loud, very distinct hyena squeal, which he went on to repeat three times before my husband went out to give morning hay and make sure things were all right out there. Everything was fine - my guess is that the pony was being a pest, bored from being in most of the day yesterday and all night, as we have been completely soaked again over the past 24 hours.

Husband came in and discovered that Bear was chewing on the remains of a dead squirrel, Keats the cat had left a puddle on the STOVE, and Dickens E. Wickens had camped out on the sofa all night, which is a big clue that the rain gauge is over the top.  When I walked into the living room, in fact, there were three of our cats sleeping on the sofa, sort of like the last die-hard partiers from an all-nighter. It's one of those mornings when I have to wonder: what went ON in here last night?

We needed the rain, but now we've had it, in excess, so I'm watching the radar and hoping it comes to an end so we can move on to sunshine and a bit of time to dry out.

And now, I'm dreading the next chore - mucking out those stalls. On days like this, when it's still raining and you know they aren't going to go out, the lovely meditative quality of mucking veers into "oh, god, how much more can they poop?" - said as I give more hay, fueling the fire, so to speak.

This is one of those times I come up with ideas like indoor exercise trails, sort of like equine fun houses, where you give them a muzzle-ful of tickets each and send them off to have fun while the chores get finished.

And there goes the Big Bay, squealing again. We may have to bring the pony in the house.