Helmets

Most long-time Equestrians grew up riding without helmets. Western disciplines certainly did not don protective helmets – the cowboy hat is the norm for the well-turned-out rider. The only place you would regularly see any protective gear was in jumping competitions – but even show jumping opted for the less-protective velvet cap.

Now there is a great “helmet debate” raging. Certain states have enacted helmet laws for those under 18 while in public places. Most boarding barns have helmet rules for children – and some have helmet rules for all riders. Most people are free to choose whether to helmet or not.

What is confirmed is that wearing a proper protective helmet can save you from serious head injury, should you fall from a horse or be bucked off and strike your head. There are hundreds of people who can attest to this.

However, helmet use is still not universal. Many people, including myself, do not wear a helmet while riding. Why is this?

For myself, it is an interesting story. I have always owned a helmet. I got into jumping in Elementary school, and have kept a helmet handy ever since. After I graduated from college, I got a new helmet to use while working young or unruly horses. I wore it in the round pen and on the first handful of rides I would take on any horse. For about a year, I wore it almost every ride I took. However, during that year, I seemed to fall off when I wore the helmet, and did not when I did not wear one. I was not riding young or rank equines – only my horses that I knew well and were not hot or silly. My husband put it together as helmet=falling for me. He asked me to stop wearing one. As I had not ever fallen on my head or even hit my head during these falls, I agreed.

That being said, I do not understand the mentality that would make someone ridicule a helmet-wearer. They are, after all, only protecting themselves.

I also think that parents should provide a helmet for their children, and encourage its use. I do not believe, however, that it should be a law. I am also a person who does not care if someone else decides to put their unhelmeted child on the back of an unrestrained horse. Bad parenting? I call it Darwin at work. We do have an overpopulation problem, so why not let the problem “fix” itself? Are we seriously that superior that we need to criticize others?

If you are concerned about striking your head/head injury, then putting a helmet on is the easiest thing you can do to protect your noggin.

Clipping too much

One thing that I always like to think about before doing something to a horse that it does not have done to it in the wild is: is this going to help the horse, or is this something that has no purpose/is superficial/possible harmful?

Take clipping for example. I have seen people clip ears inside and out, and shave the eye guard hairs and the chin hairs right off. Then they trim all the hair off the fetlocks. This is to make the horse “look nice” and is pretty much standard at horse shows.

Take a step back and look at what that does. Let’s start with the ears. The hairs on the inside of the horse’s ears act as bug guards – keeping nasty little critters from climbing down there and biting the horse/taking up residence in a very sensitive area. (I have had the displeasure of getting a bug in my ear canal once – bug on the eardrum HURTS, plus those feet are LOUD in there. Feeling creepy just remembering it. Ugg.) There really is no reason to clip those inner hairs. If you insist on cutting them, then be kind and outfit your horse at all times with a fly mask with ear covers. The kind thing to do is to clamp the ear closed, and then trim only the hairs that lie outside.

Now let’s look at the face guard hairs. Horses use their whiskers as an early warning system for collisions in areas that they cannot see. With widely spaced eyes and a long nose, the area of their face between their eyes as well as directly under their nose are blind spots. They cannot see anything there. The hairs bump an object first, signaling the horse to be careful, and “seeing” the object for them. Shave the eye lashes and the muzzle, and they lose that early warning system. As prone to injury as horses are, why would you want to let them stumble around with a blind spot and no warning system?

Next, the hairy fetlocks. The extra hair in this area helps deflect possible scratches/injury from woody brush. Without the extra hair, sticks and thorns penetrate easily. Not the end of the world, but it is the difference between you doing heavy work with gloves or bare-handed. It is doable, but not nearly as easy/painless.

Finally, if winter clipping the horse’s natural coat, you have to be extra careful and allow extra time to check blankets every day. It is best to have two of every weight for the horse – so you can launder/mend the one while the horse is wearing the other. Body clipping removes the horse’s natural temperature regulation. Although horses are comfortable at much lower temperatures than humans(50-60F is ideal temp to a horse)without the winter coat to provide that insulating air, they find it very difficult to stay warm. If possible, it is best to leave the horse with their natural coat. Horses with proper winter woolies can withstand temps well down into the teens, given a wind break and dry spot to stand. The only time they really need human intervention is with the combination of extreme cold and wet. Soaking the hair can leave a horse shivering – and a dry-off and waterproof blanket or shed for the duration will help.

Craigslist: don't believe what you read

I like to read craigslist farm ads. Why? Torturing myself, I think. So many horses on there are owned by idiots and/or in danger of going to slaughter.

It really burns me up to see the ads for the ancient horses who carried generations of their owners in the show ring, now arthritic, lame and unridable - and now being dumped. How can anyone justify saying: "good home needed, first $250 takes him"?

There are also stellar examples of people who are apparently blind saying their horses have perfect conformation (most usually mis-spelled as confirmation.)

Here is a for sale ad for what originally sounds like a nice quality horse. (Picture above.) Granted, for a stud prospect, he is very low-priced, especialy since someone actually bothered to register him and enroll him in an incentive fund. Here is the ad text:

We are selling our double-registered (AQHA/PHBA) Palomino Stallion. He is 9 years old and has a beautiful chocolate palomino coat that shines in the sun! He has the golden seal on his papers and is registered in the incentive program; negative for HYPP and coggins test. Up to date on all shots and hoof care. He is green broke and halter leads well. He's been under saddle before and is not a problem. He's a good breeding prospect and we've used him several times for that. We've got a filly on site that he sired. Beautiful horse and built incredibly well; his dimensions are impeccable. He's not been shown before, but has good conformation and good bloodlines. We're selling him b/c with a second baby on the way we just don't have time for him anymore.

The picture, at a glance, seems to show a nicely-proportioned horse. Hovewer, scan to the hind end and then look down. See it? This is a very good example of post-legged and posible DSLD. I'm sure the fact that his coat "shines in the sun" and he has the "gold seal" on his papers makes up for the fact that he, and most likely any of his offspring, are unusable for anything except standing in the pasture until their condition makes it too painful for them to stand. Nice to see yet another irresponsible breeder.

Folks - glaring issues in a horse indicate that the individual SHOULD NOT be bred. Doesn't matter what the bloodlines are or what the color is. I can guarantee that it will be easier, faster, and cheaper to just buy one of the hundreds of young horses already on the ground.

Uhh…I don’t know?

To keep up with some of the latest info out there, I do subscribe to a few of the major horse magazines. Equus in particular usually has excellent information in their “Medical Front” section.

They also have sections where various equine professionals answer reader’s questions. While some of the questions are extremely basic, the responses are usually professional, informed, and thorough. In the September issue, however, I believe that one of the responses was, basically, an “I don’t know” covered up with a lot of flowery language.

The question was from a reader with a 12yo horse that she had bred and raised. Every year, this horse was fully vaccinated. Two years ago, there was a bad reaction, so working closely with her vet, they decided to reduce the number of vaccines given at once. Still – bad reaction. This past spring, the vet gave a shot a Benadryl , and then only the rabies vaccine. However, the horse still had the same bad reaction.

For those of you who have never experienced it, reaction to multiple shots does occur with some frequency. The easiest way to avoid it is to spread the shots out. Another option is to give Benadryl (by a vet) in conjunction with the spread-out shots to reduce reaction. This girl seems to have already done both.

The answering professional – a PhD at a large Equine research center, gave this same advice, using almost double the space to do it. In the end, he gave no answer – only advised her to do the same thing, and cautioned against not vaccinating. The thing that I do not understand is why he did not tell her to check for titers for the various vaccines.

Most of us just randomly vaccinate our animals every year with a range of vaccines. However, it has been proved that most vaccines last longer than a year – most MUCH longer. It has also been proved that older animals often retain a “permanently vaccinated” status – the immune system, through repeated vaccinations, permanently recognizes the disease, and re-vaccinating only serves to stress the animal without adding any additional protection. Doing the test for the titers is more expensive (about double –I have looked into it before) than the annual vaccinations themselves, so it is not often requested. However, since there is a long, verified history of annual vaccinations for this horse, as well as the extreme health threat from the vaccinations, it would be very helpful for her to get the tests done. Then she could know with a certainty that her horse is still immune without having to risk the reactions every year. The costs of the tests would be far outweighed, in my opinion, than the stress and health risk of the vaccine reaction. It would also give her documented, verifiable proof for those shows and rides.

The reason this information is not readily available, in my opinion, is that most vets count on those yearly vaccinations to bring animals into their offices for a visit. It serves to get the uniformed public to get care for their animals, but is really pointless for those who educate themselves and know better. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to separate the two. Once you get to know your vet, they will realize that you are not the run-of-the mill public who knows very little about the care of their pet. They will start to trust your judgement, and be glad that they don’t have to spend extra time explaining.

For instance, we recently had a dog break her leg. Since this was a large, energetic dog, we decided to stabilize the leg before loading her up and taking her to the vet. We used our regular materials that we keep on hand – cotton batting to cushion the leg, some thin strips of flat wood moulding to hold the leg straight, more cotton batting, and then finished with vetwrap, snugging the whole thing up to and around her elbow to immobilize the whole leg, top to bottom.

Our regular vet was closed, so we went to a new vet. My husband walked in to ask if they could see her immediately, and they let us jump in front of some non-emergency cases. When we walked her in, the vet and several assistants were waiting to help. She hobbled in on three legs, and the vet looked at the wrap job. He then asked us why we were bringing her in to him if she had already seen a vet. The wrap job looked professional and correct – as if a vet had already seen her and wrapped it for us. There is something to be said for learning enough to handle minor issues or stabilize vet-worthy accidents.

As a last note, research is your friend. Often, vets with long-established practices have not become educated about the latest information. They can be quite resistant to change, but if you find something that will help your pet, research it and then bring that information to your vet. Some do not enjoy being ‘upstaged’, but the better ones will appreciate that you cared enough to bring it to their attention! Doesn’t your pet deserve that small extra effort?

"Just" a Trail Horse

I see this in print and spoken a lot. There really is no such thing as “just” a trail horse. They are not created in bulk at the trainer's in 30 or 60 days. A trail horse is one that must think, balance, and remain calm in a constantly changing environment with no boundaries. The horse must be brave in order to face random obstacles – including wildlife that suddenly bursts from cover. They must watch for variances in the terrain, and change their stride accordingly. They must be able to accommodate crumbly, rocky, hard, or deep footing. They must be able to negotiate water of unknown or murky depths. They must be able to handle the driver flying by and honking, the dog running out to bark, the flag waving, and the balloons on the mailbox.

A well-trained show horse must listen and respond correctly to their rider’s cues, on flat terrain with extremely small chance of wildlife. A trail horse must be able to listen and understand the rider’s cues, but it must also be able to think for itself enough to correct for terrain and distractions. If you can’t see the difference, go grab that winning trail course obstacle or western pleasure mount and take it out on a real trail. Don’t want to? I don’t blame you.

In my opinion, it takes a different class of horse to be a good trail mount. There must be no spook, balk, or silliness. They must be able to listen without the restraint of fences, and remain calm in the face of adversity. Being able to put a saddle on and ride down the driveway does not a trailhorse make.

A trailhorse should be able to lead the group, or follow at the back. It must be able to ride alone, and trust you enough for cues – not go blasting off down the trail because the other horses took off. It should stop and stand patiently and willingly for you to mount and dismount, on the trail or off. It should be willing to push through thick brush on cue, and not panic should it become entangled in a vine or unseen wire. It should be able to tolerate a fly bite without bucking out of control, and remain calm enough to listen to all instructions even if you rile up ground bees. You should be able to add or remove large, colorful jackets or rain gear from the saddle without the horse spooking. The trail horse should also tie easily anywhere, and load and unload easily from all sorts of trailers. It should not fear the sound of a soda can cracking open or the sound of Velcro ripping. It should be able to drink water from strange containers or streams on the trail.

In short, the trail horse should be a steady, intelligent partner with a mutual trust for its rider. The best trail horses are true diamonds, and worth more than their weight in gold.

Does your saddle fit?

Does your saddle fit? How do you know?

Over my years of riding, the most frustrating thing I have dealt with is getting a saddle to properly fit a horse. It is generally much easier to figure out that your saddle DOESN’T fit. Indicators can be a sore back, rubbed hair, uneven sweat marks, or white hair. White hair means that the saddle has been ill-fitting long enough that the skin has been damaged.

The biggest problem about saddle fit is that the horse’s back moves. Saddle fit is generally checked while the horse is standing, and the back is static. Another problem is that the horse’s back will change with age and level of fitness. You also have to consider that, like an ill-fitting pair of shoes, short-term use might not cause any serious problems, but chronic or long-term use can cause cumulative damage. In other words – you might not see any problems on those 30 minute rides, but once you start spending hours in the saddle, more misfit issues can arise.

To further complicate things, saddle measurements can vary between manufacturers.

Generally, the two saddle measurements are the gullet and the bar. The bars are what sit lengthwise down the horse’s back. They use terms like QH bar, semi-QH bar, Narrow and Wide. The tilt is what differs; but again, there is no set standard of what that is. The gullet indicates how far apart the bars are, and is measured in inches. Unfortunately, the gullet measurement is taken on the bare tree. Once the leather of the saddle is added, the measurement is distorted. Both gullet and bar work together to create correct saddle fit. (Aside: in traditional English saddles, there is wool flocking underneath the saddle tree that can be shifted and repacked to help fit.)

In a properly fitted saddle, the pressure-bearing surface is as large as possible. The bars will sit flush along the back, not digging in anywhere. (It is the spots that “dig in” that cause the pain and ultimately the white hairs.) Think of the saddle like a backpack. If it is well-balanced and “hugs” your back, it is easy to carry. If it is lumpy and puts more pressure in one area, it quickly becomes uncomfortable.

There are also a whole slew of gimmick saddles out there. They promise to fit a wide range of horses, or erase all saddle fit problems. Mostly they do not perform as promised, and generally cost a whole lot. I have fallen into that trap, lured by their promises. Don’t believe everything they say to sell their product. Some people really like the gimmick saddles, and they work for their particular horse – but NO saddle is “one size fits all”.

How do you find a saddle that fits? Well- you can try the “hand” test. First, set the saddle directly on the horse’s back. This way you can see any obvious mis-fit issues. Look at the contours of the horse’s back and the contour of the saddle. They should match closely – with the saddle gently cupping the back. Then, you take your hand, and place it underneath the saddle on one side. Slide your hand down the length of the saddle. You should feel even pressure all the way down. This really only evaluates major fit issues. If all looks okay, then you can do the white towel test. Use a white towel on the horse’s back, saddle up and ride. After riding enough to get the towel good and dirty, untack and take a look at the towel. You should see even amounts of dirt all the way under the saddle. Darker or lighter areas indicate pressure differences and a saddle fit issue. There is also now at least one company that markets a gel pad that does the same thing, but with high-tech materials. Ride for the designated time with the gel pad, untack, and you can see the problem areas.

Another way to evaluate saddle fit is using the wire method. Several saddle makers offer fit consults if you use a bent wire behind the withers, and then you can measure the wire once you remove it. Pictures of the wire on the horse’s back can show a saddle fitter what type of tree would be best for the horse. However, even professional saddle fitters can get it wrong.

The most recent method that I have found for figuring out saddle fit has been very helpful. Using templates printed onto paper and then cut out of cardboard, you can see which bar/gullet combo should be a fit for your horse. After many years of buying and then reselling saddles that did not work, I made a “reverse” template of my mare’s back behind the withers, and then farther along her back as well. I was able to take these two to a large saddle shop, and fit these “Reverse” templates to the underside of a saddle. Finally – a saddle that fits! Amazingly, my saddle used to always slide around – no matter how I tightened it, I still needed to find a step to mount or the saddle would come over. It happened so much, I was getting a complex about it. Turns out, a saddle that fits DOES NOT SLIDE! To use a cliché, it is the best thing since sliced bread. The crupper and breastcollar that were indispensable are now no longer necessary. We travel significant inclines, so that is saying something. I can mount from anywhere without the saddle sliding – even with a loose girth!

The saddle that fits your horse is out there – just try not to fall for gimmicks, and remember – if it doesn’t seem to fit right, it probably doesn’t. Good luck.

Too Early to Ride

There is NO reason to ever ride a horse for more than 5-10 minutes before it is a 3yo. By 3yo, I mean a horse who has been outside of its mother for 36 months . For those of you who don’t know, some registries give all horses of that breed another ”year” of age on January first. For example, a TB born in May of 2009 is officially a one-year-old on January 1, 2010. This means that the so-called two-year olds competing on the track could still be months away from actually having 2 years on the ground.

I have bolded that first statement for a reason. I would like to underline it about a hundred times. So many people train and compete horses who are still very much immature. Every time I hear ”the vet told me it was okay” I want to respond with “Well, of course – he knows he will get a lot more business from you down the road as your horse breaks down prematurely, too.” As a society, we have become enamored of instant gratification. This has moved into the horse world as well. We breed, raise, and train horses in the highest levels before they are physically or mentally ready to handle it. The earlier you train them and compete them, the earlier you can get your money out.

Disciplines that frequently ride horses as long yearlings are: racing, western pleasure, reining, and the TWH show horses. I’m sure there are other pockets of this behavior, but I have not had the (dis)pleasure of seeing it myself. The first three do so for “Futurities” – competitions that showcase 3 year olds. How do you get top performance out of a 3 year old? Start training it as a yearling.

Let’s look at how the Futurities started: Futurities started out as what it sounds like – a showcase of what young stock might be able to do in the FUTURE. A 3yo was not expected to be perfect or excel – a futurity would just showcase a nice prospect for future buyers/owners. The REAL training would happen after the horse had matured. Eventually, the Futurities became THE showing arena. These horses peak AT THREE, and then are retired to breed or sold off before the injuries induced by stress on an immature horse create serious problems. In show barns, it is not uncommon to see four-year olds receiving hock injections to keep them sound. WTF? Horses should not need help remaining sound until their teens at least!

By six, most show horses are retired. At six, trail horses are just hitting their stride. FEI will not allow any horse younger than six to compete in jumping. FEI champions are frequently in their teens. Why is that? They were not rushed into training, nor were they ridden in infancy.

This is one of those areas where greed overcomes intelligence. It is NEVER OKAY to ride a horse that young! I do not support Showing of 3yo’s, and I do not support racing. I do, however, enjoy competitions involving horses started intelligently – show jumping and dressage, among others.