If you ride in any kind of hoof boot you already know that they require a certain amount of work to maintain them. That amount of work depends on the type of boot and how often you ride in it and how hard or easy your horse is on your boots. It’s no different than [...]
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I really dislike having those awful grease #’s on my horses. Fortunately, most rides that I go to do not use them. It reminds me of a horse that came from an auction. I’m sure for some it’s like having a badge of honor. But at some point, it’s just nice to have it off [...] One of the most useful pieces of advice I was given prior to riding the Tevis this year was to make sure I got in line to vet as soon as I got my horse’s pulse timed in. This is good advice. If you stop for even a minute after getting your pulse and in-time [...] My actual “moving” average speed on the Tevis was 6.07 mph. During the 24 hours of the Tevis Cup there were 2 one-hour holds (vet checks), and eight vet checks total. The majority of the vet checks do not have hold times so you have to ride so that you have time to allow for [...] The first two pads that I am currently testing to see how hot they get on the horses backs are a Toklat Woolback pad with inserts and a Reno Star Alpaca pad. I have heat tested several saddle pads over the years. Using a pad that remains cooler reduces the heat load on my horse [...] Can you tell this is a spoiled horse? I mean really – look at how many bags of hay and buckets of water and feed he has? This is for just one horse! I put out plenty of water so that way I’d have it available for sponging during the vet checks, and also for [...] It has suddenly gotten hotter. It should get up to 90 degrees here today and will get even warmer than that in the next few days. I know in previous years when I have ridden my horses more in the heat, they acclimate to it rather well and have done well on rides that were [...] Here are some of the things I’ve been using on rides recently, mainly as snacks or for an energy or electrolyte boost for myself. I find that if I do a pretty decent job taking care of myself, then I can do an even better job taking care of my horse. It can be hard [...] This is kind of cool. There are lots of neat things you can do online with a GPS (and Google) – and this is one of them. I gave it a try myself and in put the camp location of an upcoming ride and then downloaded it to my Nuvi – and it worked. It [...] I have been meaning to do a thorough post on dealing with scratches. I’ve gotten lots of input from friends this year and have learned about quite a few different treatments and ways to manage horses that are prone to scratches. I’ll need to work on the more thorough post later, till then here is [...] | ||||