Recent content by spookypony

Like the others commenting, I think it depends on what you are measuring against (what are your expectations of the horse's job, and how is it doing relative to that?), but also against what is normal in your general horsey context. I'd probably be thinking in terms of "leisure horse suitable...

Our yard is on a cycling route (in Austria), but the route is largely gravel farm tracks and similar, and so attracts day tourists on e-bikes rather than Strava-segment-chasers. The tourists tend to be polite and reasonable. The Ballerina Mare did find one particular cyclist a bit scary: she was...

I think there are three separate types of consideration here, that would affect if I'd think about paying a 16yo to do any type of looking after horses/horsey chores. First, entirely separate from the teen and her competence/my level of trust, is the question of legal liability and insurance...

I've had to move yards a few times in the past few years, and my mare gets quite insecure in the school each time (hopefully, we're settled now). My strategy has been: 1. keep time in the school as short as it needs to be. At first, our goal was to spend 2 minutes walking in a circle, and then...

I know you're just looking for padding (in which case, nappy), but for poultices, people here (Austria) use sauerkraut! I'm not making this up; this happened: I got asked to change a poultice, and found my Animalintex, but there was sauerkraut already open, so I had to finish that off! I see the...

To clarify, for online searches: "Christ" is the brand name. "Lammfelle" just means "lamb fleeces". https://www.wernerchrist-horse.com/ is the homepage, where you can see all the brand's products: they do riding pads and all sorts.

I've used these for quite a few years now, and love them: the crescent-shaped ones really suit my mare's shape. After wrecking one by being a bit rough on it with washing and brushing, I've learned how to deal with them better, and tbh, I rarely wash them now, but brush them lightly with a...

I'm really sorry to read this. RIP Hovis.

...I did use to imagine putting an electric fence around the empty patch of rough grass beside our work building in Scotland and parking a horse there for the day...and I may have imagined already what it would be like to let the Ballerina Mare graze in the central yard of my current workplace...😊

Exactly! To get from my small town to the shopping district of the nearest city (about 6 miles) is 7 minutes by train, 12 minutes driving (and then worrying about parking). So I only drive there if I need to buy feed or other big things: the feed store isn't near the train station, and I don't...

No, but I did take my pony to the university several times for a St Martin's Parade with the university nursery! A vet I know rode to work, however, when she was otherwise snowed in! I couldn't ride to work, now: it would take most of the day, going at Endurance speeds, just to get there, and...

When I had them on a private yard where I could organise things for myself, I found that the best way I could manage with the resources at hand was to keep them on a track with hay from April till October, and then in the long grass in the middle with NO extra hay from late October to early...

My little mare has a short strong back and a shortish neck and somewhat straight hocks, and also finds it easy to avoid using herself. As @ThreeFurs mentions, shoulder-fore and shoulder-in are your friends, and it can help a lot to enlarge into a corner or on a circle by asking the inside hind...

That is a disturbing turn of phrase. Horses aren't "kit". Skis are "kit". I guess for me, the limit is if I would use the phrase on my friends. E.g. teasing that I would expect to be understood as teasing. My horse doesn't know the difference (other than tone), but I do.

I'm going to stand up for "it", as a German, since the (linguistic) gender of horse is "it" unless specified as a mare or a stallion or a gelding. A child is an "it" too, by the way, and it's not derogatory in the language; it's just that gender doesn't come into it until the sex is relevant. I...