White Horse Pilgrim

Journey Europe

The internet has brought me a new and intrepid acquaintance - Karen Hardy. 

Karen and her daughter Olivia are riding from Italy to England, a 1,500 mile, five-month journey, to raise awareness of abandoned and neglected horses. You can read more about their trip here. 

They will be arriving in England at the beginning of July. I'm arranging their route for the final two hundred miles across southern England, ending at the famous Uffington White Horse. 

I am really impressed by Karen and Olivia's courage and energy. They have set off in the snow with three rescue horses, crossing foreign lands where English is by no means universally understood.

They have triumphed over border bureaucracy and succeeded in finding accommodation and new friends. Now the media has picked up on their trip too, and they are becoming adept at being interviewed and filmed. 

Do follow Karen and Olivia via their blog, and please do pass on their address to your friends. 

 

The Riding Holiday Centre Handbook - eBook now available

Good news - the eBook edition of The Riding Holiday Centre Handbook is now available.

As the publisher's blurb says: This unique and comprehensive guide is aimed primarily at anyone who is considering starting a riding holiday centre. It will also be valuable to equestrian professionals who already own or manage established tourism businesses.

After outlining the nature of the riding holiday industry, the authors consider the market research and planning required to found a successful riding holiday centre. The essentials of premises and equipment are examined, followed by selection of suitable horses. Excellent equine management at home and on the trail­—the foundations of a successful riding operation—is considered in detail. The authors elucidate the specific skills, rarely covered in equine literature, that are required to manage trail riding horses covering appreciable distances away from home. A combination of able guiding and thorough support is central to the operation, and both specialized equestrian guiding skills and suitable general staffing are considered. Examples drawn directly from the authors’ experience are highlighted throughout.

Trail planning and customer care are vital to success and are discussed next. Each riding centre owner needs a sound grounding in marketing, operating a booking system, and commercial and legal matters, which are explained in the closing chapters. The book ends by bringing everything together with a typical trail ride programme. Annexes include a bibliography, sample itineraries, equipment lists, booking forms and disclaimers. 

Both the eBook and the traditional softback are available from Lulu.com. 

Rugs again

It's that time of year. Brena's rugged again. I know that she is a tough outdoor Noriker, unclipped and possessor of a good coat. I've provided a field shelter, and the earth inside is beaten flat with hoof prints. But the wind is whistling across the field, cold and rain-bearing. 

In the wild, I thought tonight, she and the other horses would be down in the valley, seeking shelter from terrain and the trees. Up here on the hill we've constrained them with fences. So a rug seems a good and fair compromise. 

In some ways I've become soft. My horses used to go out unrugged in -20C, and I was content with that. I lived in more primitive conditions too, working long and hard outdoors. 

But they had a big shelter where they stood or lay together, out of the wind and rain (or snow, more likely), and they received as much hay as they could eat. The tips of their ears were warm, which was a good sign that they were not suffering. I felt the cold more in my draughty old house. 

I stood by Brena as she ate a dinner of mix, alfalfa and carrots, dreaming of my perfect home. It would be a simple cottage by the field, a balcony running the length of the front below broad eaves. But my dreams have moved on: this would be a thick-walled warm straw-bale house with a well insulated roof. I'd be cozy inside. I don't need a lot of space. A combined kitchen and living room plus a bedroom and a study, that would be enough. The study would be lined all around with bookshelves of course. And it would be a nice warm house. All those Transylvanian winters I dreamed of warmth for me. Now I'm warm in my home. The cottage seems like a lovely idea, out in the fields at the frings of the woods. Maybe one day? 

New girth

Brena's old girth is a few years old now. When the saddler came a couple of weeks ago to re-stuff the saddle, she pointed out how the leather had stretched with the effect that the bearing surface had narrowed. 

Here's Brena's new girth. It's a broad gel-padded item with lots of area to spread the pressure. I do try to keep the girth no tighter than necessary. However Brena is a rotund mare. 

I used to hold to the maxim that natural materials should sit against the skin, hence leather tack and wool blankets. By and large I still do. But neoprene girths proved to be an exception, and they are so easy to clean too. For years I used neoprene girth sleeves on my trail horses' tack with great success.

Back then the burden of keeping a dozen sets of tack in order was stiff, and any saving reasonable in labour was welcome. Nowadays time and money are easier. I've had the saddle fitter out twice in a year. In the past, with fifteen trail horses to care for, and the nearest saddler six hours away, tack was allocated on the principle of best fit. There were surprisingly few problems. Most of those stemmed from clients over-tightening girths when my back was turned. 

It's rewarding to have just one riding horse in a place where excellent services are available and to be able to take thoroughly good care of her. 

Spring activity

What a lot of hair on the ground. I wonder to whom it could belong?

Ah yes, Doru. He's a hairy creature. Actually a little less hairy thanks to my labours.

What a mess we've made. Still it's good to root around in, Doru. It smells of you!

The birds will soon clear away this welcome supply of nest-building material.

Trimming chestnuts

Today I set to trimming Brena's chestnuts, which had grown to impressive proportions. They showed no sign of being shed, and I was beginning to be concerned that they might become caught on long vegetation. On occasions we do find ourselves picking through bushes fallen across the trail or thick tough scrub.

I removed about half the length of each easily with a good pair of hoof nippers, then smoothed the ends of the remaining parts with the less aggressive side of a hoof rasp leaving them tidy.

The inside of a chestnut proved to be rubbery, indeed almost waxy, rather like the inside of the frog. I had expected hard horn all the way through, though I had no reason to imagine them hard or soft inside.

There are some curious folk tales about chestnuts. Foals are said to be born without them, which in fact is not true. Back in Transylvania I looked at a newborn foal in order to check - and that mysterious land is just the place where a superstition ought to be true.

Other people hold that a foal's legs are held together at the chestnuts in the womb, which is also untrue. At least that might have sounded plausible back in the days before x-rays and ultrasound enabled us to look inside a pregnant mare.

Then there is the superstition that one can catch a loose horse more easily when carrying a piece of chestnut. Apparently the chestnut emanates a peculiar smell that somehow attracts horses. (I checked. The pieces cut from Brena were almost odourless.)

However a piece of chestnut is by no means the only thing supposed to grant a man power over his horse. In days gone by there were the ploughman's 'knowledge' that was secret to the uninitiated. Perhaps it was something strong smelling that masked or modified a horse's senses?There were 'magic' words to be whispered into a horse's ear too. They might just have been a hoax to put others off the trail of just what a skilled horseman really did. After all knowledge is power. It's best to keep the competition off the scent - or, rather, on the wrong scent.

Attention and lack of it

Brena's rug has come off, gone back on and now come off again. Rain came and went, heavy whilst it lasted. It's cool out, but dry, and she retains most of her winter coat. Now she's a little grubby from rolling. The frosty white places are expanding. And the grass is growing, at last.

So, a bit of attention on my part, and none on the part of the teenage girl who drives about throwing hay into the fields. I had to remove this mouldy end of a bale from the field. It's not that she doesn't care (the manager and staff are all concerned about the horses' welfare), just in a great big hurry.

Managing

It was only through asking when hay would begin to be fed that I discovered the truth about worm counts. I had commented that the grazing was becoming sparse, and that Brena was a little more interested than usual in food therefore I'd been giving her extra. At that point the vet, who also keeps a horse at the barn, passed on the news. A number of horses were discoved through testing samples of droppings to have really quite high worm counts.

The barn staff, who are paid to remove droppings, have been simply harrowing the fields. Horses come to the barn, are moved between fields, and all the time worm larvae are spread to new hosts. Brena interited a dung-strewn field used to winter a group of New Forest ponies. Now I have an agreement with the manager that, after the next worming, all of the droppings will be removed. I said that I'd clean Brena's field after work. However the impact of lazy pasture management is clear so the job that I pay for monthly will be done properly. Worming and cleaning will take place over the next few days.

Salt

I admit failure at persuading Brena to use a salt lick. Doru may enthusiastically consume one salt like after another. However Brena will not lick the block. Of course she will lick my sweaty arms and chew soil. Therefore I have started adding a tablespoon of salt to her evening feed. This evening she licked the rubber bowl to a rare degree of cleanliness, her big pink tongue picking up every salty granule that fell through the feed. So I know that she likes salt. I'll keep on adding a bit to her feed. The old Cavalry Manual of Horsemanship recommends a tablespoon of salt daily so I'll start with that amount.

My course of anti-inflammatory medication has ended, leaving me a bit sorer and perhaps therefore more careful. That said, this evening I helped another rider with her new horse in the arena this evening and managed just fine walking across the sandy surface. It amazes me too how much better my back feels not having uneven hip  joints. I can sleep right through the night again.

Reflecting on the degree of degeneration in those joints, I am glad that I stopped riding professionally when I did. There would have been no surgery available out there, nothing except steadily stronger medication. It would have been a slow and painful slide down into immobility. So there was a silver lining to the end of that career path. Still being able to walk and (soon, anyway) ride: a sobering perspective.

We see plenty like this...

Here is the left fore foot of a three year-old spot horse at the barn.

As my Goya-esque title supposes, we do see plenty of feet like this, both unshod and shod. And, like some of Goya's images, they are disturbing.

Why buy a youngster and spend an appreciable amount of money on barn bills, then allow this to happen?

I know that it is cheaper simply to pay for the farrier's most junior apprentice, rather than someone experienced and properly qualified. But sooner or later someone will expect this horse to jump, do dressage and compete.

He isn't getting a fair start with feet like this.