Why are we in such a hurry with horses?

I have just read this excellent article by Nic Barker at Rockley Farm on why we shoe horses. Basically the answer is that shoeing a horse is a quick fix. if you don't shoe, you have to put a lot more time and effort into getting the horse's environment, feed, exercise etc. right so his hooves can function as nature intended. I have heard more than one person say "I'd love to go barefoot, but it would take too long to transition and I need to do x, y and z with my horse this year....."

This got me thinking. It's not just shoeing that we do to hurry along what we want to do with our horses. Let's take rugging. Another thing people do because they want a clean horse, don't have time to brush him, don't want him to get too hairy or want him to look "nice" and clean. I have heard convenience used time and time again as a reason to rug. Not the horse's convenience, when it's 25 degrees (like it is today) and he's sweltering under a rug though.

We're also in a hurry to get on the horse's back. Can't have him standing around in a field doing nothing for too long. People apparently find it normal to back them as three year olds. But they don't finish growing until about 6 and a half. So why do people feel the need to have a four year old jumping over a metre high (something I saw regularly in France) or going eventing? Why rush getting them backed and potentially ruining them, physically or mentally, for the rest of their lives?

Because we are in a hurry, we can't wait, we need to feel we're getting our money's worth out of this animal that many of us are just too busy to bother to find out about properly. How many people spend time hanging out in the field with their horses? Not just popping down to stick a rug on, or grabbing him to bring in to tack up (if he's lucky enough to be turned out, that is, and not kept in a stable for our convenience) but just being with them, watching them interact, giving them a good old scratch, letting them sniff our clothes, nibble our hair?

Cartoon by Fed Up Fred

How many people have time to spend training a horse correctly? Why spend months and years building up her balance and muscles working on the ground before ever getting on when you can just get her used to a rider and away you go. If she doesn't move how you want her to, stick a gadget on, that'll do the trick (draw reins seem to be the favourite in France). And if it still doesn't do he trick, if she can't canter a circle after you've had her for a few months, just decide she's not the right horse for dressage and get a different one.......

But to me, horses are not disposable commodities, they do not "need" to be stabled, rugged, shod, bitted, or even ridden. I do not need to get my daughter a "proper" horse for eventing or jumping, we have the horses we have and we try to enable them to do the best they can for us, taking as much time as they need to be able to do what we ask of them. Some things are just worth taking your time over.......

Cross country

Sky was a total star today. Sarah at Team Green was taking one of hers to a local cross country course and she offered to take Sky along for a play too. She had to go in the big lorry and once she'd figured out where to put her feet she loaded OK, between Twinkle, Sarah's home-bred eventer, and Destiny, her former problem horse turned schoolmistress. Yes, OK, she looked very scruffy and small compared to them and the other horses there, but once she got going, she really went for it.

Twinkle gave her a lead, after an impressive bucking session straight off the lorry, which is apparently entirely normal as she gets very impatient to be off, and Sky barrelled along after her like she'd done it before!

She wasn't too keen on the white house, but jumped it after Twinkle proved it wouldn't eat horses, and had no problem at all with the corn cob or the carrot.....

She went for a splash in the water and up and down the bank, and over some solid-looking fences like a proper XC pony

At the end, we sent them off over a couple of jumps without Twinkle, she was less keen on this, but did it eventually

A good start :-)

Latest French update.....

Easter holidays are here, which means we could go back to France, sadly this time only for a few days but it was great. We made really good time down the motorway on Saturday so naturally went straight to the stables so Ali could have a quick lesson. When we arrived, the previous group was still in the school, including Diane-Claire riding Kinna.  Kinns turned and watched us walk over from the car, stared for a bit, then sauntered over to the gate to say hello! She had to be reminded that she was supposed to be working, and eventually did some jumping with Diane-Claire, she seems totally at ease with it all, not a Tigger bounce in sight....

Then it was Ali's lesson, and she was really good, none of last year's arguing, she clearly now knows her job and gets on with it. Maybe there's some hope for Sky after all.....?

Ali seemed pretty pleased anyway

Then a couple of days later, Ali and I went down to Sheila's to see Fina. She was on form, jumping her trademark huge jump, and not being too worried by the big green ball

Went for a nice walk/hack with Sheila and Lucie in the sun. Ali says Fina felt marvellously relaxed. So nice to see the ponies looking happy and fluffy in the sun. Miss them........

Horse archery course

Yesterday we went to the Centre of Horseback Combat for our first proper mounted archery lesson. Have ben looking forward to this for a while and it didn't disappoint.

First we had to get the right equipment. As we would be drawing the bow with our thumbs we had to tape them up so we didn't lose any skin. Epic fail by the teenager who managed to get her tape stuck to itself rather than her thumb and had to be rescued by mother. Then we were issued with natty little gloves for the bow hand to stop further skin loss as the arrow looses. Might also come in handy for preventing skin loss during ride and lead with naughty baby horses who like to stop dead to get their heads down to the grass......

Next it was time for a bow or two. "What's the poundage of your usual bow?" Karl, our instructor, asks the teenager. Blank look, shrug of shoulder. Luckily her father knew the answer.....

So suitably equipped, we went out to the garden for a bit of practise on the ground. We were carefully shown the thumb draw technique and practised everything really slowly one step at a time. Took a while for my old brain to get it right and just as I thought I'd got my head round it, Karl announces that the average run lasts 14 seconds so let's see how many arrows you can get off in that time. Er, one......

More practise without the time pressure. Then he timed us again. Still only one! Meanwhile, Karl and Michael, one of the BHAA guys who had joined us, effortlessly got 3 shots off in the time. So some work for me to do there! Next we had a little competition to see who could get 3 arrows off the fastest, I managed to beat Ali the first time, but then she got her own back and beat me the rest of the time......should be used to it by now.

After that, it was time to get on a horse. I got to ride Jupiter, the horse Ali rode at the BHAA Championship last year. First time I have ridden a horse in a bit for a long time, felt very strange. Also was strange to have a horse brought out all tacked up ready to go, doesn't seem right really.......

To start with, we went up the run at a walk, Karl holding the horse so I only had to worry about getting my arrows off. At the walk, you have considerably longer than 14 seconds, so this went well.

Ali did the same, in the other direction since she shoots left-handed.

Once we'd done a few runs at the walk and managed to get 3 arrows off each time (so that's me ready for Club 3 next time we go to France) it was time to move up a gear to trot. This meant poor Karl had to trot along beside us, shouting the litany of "bow, string, push, pull, thumb, finger, nock, loose....." so I could get it fixed in my brain. Kept forgetting to slide the arrow up to the nock on the string so arrows were going all over the place! I did get a few in the target though and was starting to get all 3 off in the runs at the trot before we stopped for lunch, so quite pleased with that.

Even remembered my "flourish", you bring your arm back over ready for the next arrow as soon as the first one has gone, and you don't have time to stop and watch whether you've hit anything or not ;-)

Meanwhile, the teenager and Michael were off and running, making it all look easy......

Once we stopped though I realised just how windy it was getting as I noticed a freezing cold Éowyn standing by the run, and my photographer was looking a bit disgruntled too. The horses were  on edge because of the wind and Karl decided that it wouldn't be prudent to continue in the afternoon since the weather was set to worsen as the day went on. So sadly we didn't get to do the rest of the course but the good news is we're going back in May. Can't wait :-)

Livin' in a box.....

So today I notice two of the newspapers (although I guess that's a term you can only loosely apply to the Daily Mail) have articles about a new study that has revealed the astounding news that horses don't like being shut up in individual stables.

Really? Who knew?

Marvellous revelations abound in the Telegraph article such as  "Group housing provides horses with an environment where they are able to display natural behaviour, and contact with other horses improves overall welfare." and "Researchers.......found that the animals became more stressed and increasingly difficult to handle the more isolated they became."

Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious.

Sadly though, in my experience many horse owners, who consider themselves caring, expert owners really do say that they'd rather have their horses "safely tucked up" in a stable under a pile of rugs in the winter than out in the field getting wet and muddy. They claim that their horses are always waiting by the gate ready to come in at night because they want to. But what I reckon is that the horses wait by the gate because they know that when they come in, they get a nice big bucket of feed and a haynet. They accept that they have to go into a stable to get this food, so they are happy to do it. But what about when the owner has gone home and the hay has run out? What do they feel like then with many hours of the night left to go with nothing to do, no interactions with other horses, nothing to eat? Given the choice would they want to stay shut in?

My horses live out all the time for most of the year, but in here on our farm livery in the UK, the rules are that they must come off the land at night for a few months in the winter. Because otherwise the field would get too muddy. This is what it looks like out there when they do come in at night, can't imagine it could get much worse if they didn't, but it's not my land, so I don't get a choice.

They don't go into a stable because quite apart from the negative social aspects of that, Gandalf's COPD would kick off. They go into a yard with an open barn down one side of it, next to the cattle. Do they choose to stay in the barn all nice and sheltered? Judging by the state of them in the morning after a night's rain (soaked) I'd say no, they'd rather be outside......

When we first start bringing them in at night, all the other liveries wait by the gate since they know they're going in for those nice big feeds, which apparently they need, all being thoroughbred types, but mine choose to stay down at the far end of the field. Night after night, we have to go and fetch them. They seem reluctant to come with us, judging by the amount of stopping they do (or buggering off refusing to be caught in Sky's case). After a few weeks of wading through acres of mud looking for them, we give in and start giving them a small feed when they come onto the yard. They eventually get the message and start waiting for us by the gate. But they wouldn't bother if it weren't for the buckets! And in the morning they are all jostling for position by the yard gate to be let back out. Says it all, really.....

Teeny TRECcer!

We made it to the last of the winter TREC comps today, the NO decided she wanted a go, so I lost my ride and had to follow them over there in the car......

Ali is looking really happy in this pic, she and her sister managed to argue pretty much the whole way there.....

Anyway, Gandalf was great, as usual, and as Éowyn was in the starter class where lead reins were allowed, I basically just did the whole thing as in-hand obstacles, and she managed to fall off the mounting block

But she still managed to score enough to come 6th (OK, it was only out of 7, but she wasn't last!), and even got 4 tens (thanks to Gandalf )

Sky was of course a total tit, there was no control in the control of paces, she just went as fast as she could, then in the immobility she managed all of 2 seconds before wandering off. She did manage to do the gate quite well though.....

We took advantage of an empty outdoor arena to do a quick bit of work with her afterwards, and she was much better in there, I don't think she likes the indoor school much......

By this time, Éowyn was cold and tired and Ali was only too happy to bring both horses home since she'd had enough of her sister, did a good job with the ride and lead too...

So, not exactly a brilliant performance, but all good experience. Wish we could do some proper TREC comps like we used to do in France, I miss those......

Kinna goes jumping

Just seen some pics from Mademoiselle's first outing to a proper Showjumping competition at St Seurin sur l'Isle, home of Jappeloup and the sort of place where you're expected to look posh.

Doesn't look like she gave her young rider an easy time judging from these......

....and, er, this!

I'm sure Diane-Claire won't mind me putting these pics on here as they're already on Facebook. But fair play to her for sticking with it and getting Missy to jump round the course (which is more than we're getting Sky to do at the moment)

Seems like she's been for  bit of a haircut too ;-) Looking good though....and full of beans!