Do you think horse people are getting softer?

[Marydoll]

Mine are rugged appropriately to their needs in inclement weather, to each his own, i know my horses, and their needs better than anyone

 

[sam72431]

I own a 14 Yo Dutch warmblood who will NOT be clipped under sedation or any other circumstances, I rug her well enough that she doesn't grow a winter coat because shock horror I would actually like to ride in the winter she is perfectly happy she doesn't sweat or get too hot I keep a careful eye on the weather and never let her overheat, in fact in my experience if you rug horses properly you don't actually have to clip I'm not saying you make them boil but if you keep them warm then they don't grow a coat, I've owned her for years and never had a problem, her coat is always gorgeous in the summer and I always get comments year round about how well she looks, I also owned a pony who also wasn't keen on clipping I could of as she was only little but she was petrified due to being poorly treated she was a tb x possibly welsh but not 100% sure I kept her rugged up and again she kept a summer coat all year never ever sweated up she just grew furry legs, I expect I'll get slated but my way has worked for the past nearly 9 years with three different horses never sweating never being unhappy and not having to clip and all in fairly heavy work, I also worked for a short time on a race yard where the horses were kept rugged up and didn't get clipped, I would like to add also that everyone keeps horses in different ways as long as the horses are happy and healthy why does there have to be a right and wrong way?!

 

[Puzzles]

CarolineJ - that's really inspiring and refreshing!

 

[whitehorsewhitenose]

Rugging should be dependant on horse and not dependant on owners attitude. Regardless to if they are classed as soft for rugging or "knowledgable" for not rugging.

I have two Cobs that live out. One is rugged every single day and one is only rugged if absolutely necessry and this year the heavy rain and high winds and change of field have meant he has been rugged for than normal.

The one that is rugged all the time either has a sheet or fly sheet on or LW rug.....No I am not soft, but his skin is and he suffers from flies and also from rain.

The other one is a warm horse, he doesnt need a rug but if continually wet through during high winds he does get cold.

Unless you know the horse personally it is very unwise to judge the owner.

 

[jalapeno]

ooh Good post. I have not read all the replies...

I think that people impart human emotions on horses too much. That being said, aslong as a horse is not uncomfortable I don't think rugging them for peace of mind is harmful. One of mine is rugged at the moment because he is out with other hooligans and I want a bit of protection against flying hooves! Some may argue that a rug is more dangerous when hooligans are playing, but it works for me, his rugs fits nicely and since wearing it I have no hoof shaped bald spots!

When I had a baby I was always worrying about the temperature of her bedroom and how many blankets and layers to put on her, I then bought a little card thermometer type thing - it had the temperature in numbers and then next to it said 'too hot, warm, just right, cool, too cold' and even had suggested number of layers! This was invaluable to my inexperiencedness!! I was always surprised how warm it was. I would think it was freezing yet the card said just right! Perhaps someone could invent similar for horses...?

 

[Jesstickle]

I mean this in the nicest possible way here guys but I honestly don't care how any of you rug your horses. That was not the question I was asking. A few people have answered the question which I actually asked, most have not.

Those of you moaning about the tone of the thread (which I personally don't see a problem with FWIW) or telling me you know your horse best and should be left to your own devices, could perhaps spare a thought for me, the op, who's thread you've hijacked with your winging. As it happens I don't care as I recognise that conversations often get side tracked in this way. But perhaps we could all just accept that we do things differently and turn our attentions back to my original question rather than sniping at each other. As it is the day of our Lord and all that and I don't think we're supposed to fight

Plus I really hate rugging posts and this was most definitely not supposed to be one of those. I only used that example as it was the most recent one I had...

 

[Flame_]

Well the question was are horsepeople getting softer because they think horses need rugs on, right?

What exactly did you expect other than people debating rugging and being narked at being called soft if they identify with your friend's more than your way of thinking?

It's not even gone off topic.

Are you saying horsepeople are softer in general, not particularly about rugging, because I didn't get that from your OP?

If you want an answer to that one... Not particularly, but I do think there are a lot of inexperienced horse owners now because livery is available, whereas is the past you needed a horsey or farming family plus land to get a horse.

Actually, there are more people, probably for kind of the same reason as above, who see their horse as a pet rather than a commodity or farm animal than in the past, so I suppose in that respect they are more likely to spoil them?

 

[Jesstickle]

Flame_ I suppose in my head it was a much wider question with that as an example but you're right. Reading it back it does sound like a post about rugs. Perhaps I'm not very good at expressing myself!

I certainly wasn't expecting 100 people to tell me whether they rug their horse or not, I was hoping more people would tell me why they think it is that something which wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in my own mother's youth would now be a serious cause for consternation.

Anywho, everyone ignore me and carry one. I'll just go and read something else instead

 

[Spring Feather]

Do I get a gold star?

 

[Jesstickle]

Do I get a gold star?

Yes, if you want one. You get a gold star for being able to understand the absolute twaddle that I ramble on about. Lucky you

 

[tallyho!]

Awesome!!!! Thirteeen pages just on rugs despite the question being something about cobs lying down to sleep and thick twits on horseback... :

 

[rhino]

Yes, but some people just love to be offended

 

[little_critter]

Not quite so simple, some opinions are completely daft People are entitled to voice them, no problem, but the idea that any yearling cob needs a rug is just plain ignorance. Youngstock have coats that are much thicker than older horses, to compensate for the fact that a smaller body has more surface area to lose heat through. No healthy cob "needs" a rug, never mind a yearling one.

Being called 'ignorant' is a bit strong. I didn't know youngstock have thicker coats per your quote above. Having never owned or handled youngstock it's not something I've ever needed to know.
Did you explain this to her as she expressed her ignorance or did you leave her to carry on being ignorant?

 

[Ibblebibble]

i fully understood your OP, JT
I think horse people are getting softer because we are being conditioned by advertising and influenced by large livery yards full of 'pet' horses!
Horses used to be owned by serious horse people and treated more as livestock , now anyone can own a horse and the fashion is to treat it as a pet or child! yes there are still serious horse people who know why they are doing something the way they do rather than just following the crowd but they are thought of as the 'hard owners' rather than sensible
If you think back there were only a couple of equestrian magazines available and they were full of news about the horse world, they were not the glossy advertisement filled mags we have today full of articles on how many rugs your horse should own and which colour jods are most 'in' this year.
The horse world, like everything else has been taken over by commercialism, we are made to feel inadequate/cruel if we don't have all the latest gear, 20 rugs per horse, feed 5 different supplements and treat our horses like china dolls rather than the half tonne hardy lumps that they are!

 

[Spring Feather]

Yes, if you want one. You get a gold star for being able to understand the absolute twaddle that I ramble on about. Lucky you

I understood your twaddle perfectly! Although perhaps that in itself should be viewed as worrying

 

[saffytessa]

Well my youngster definately does not grow a thicker coat than my other horse and never has done. Both are rugged so if that makes me a softy so be it. May I also say that they were both out naked on boxing day despite normally being rugged in either a sheet, 100g, 200g or even 300g if the weather called for it

I don't think rugging is the only aspect where horse people are getting 'softer'. Handling horses is also where people are imo a bit too 'nice'. When 500kg of horse is dragging you over a patch of ice as it is being turned out my responce wouldn't have been 'slow down for your mummy' in a simpering voice. But then again I would never have let my horses drag me around like that in the first place

I think new owners are often lacking the timing and knowledge of how to read a horses body language so are a bit soft so as not to be mean when it wasn't the horses fault. This then becomes their habit and often the horse learns it can walk all over them.

This is of course me being judgemental

 

[monkeybum13]

jesstickle I understood your twaddle, does this mean I get BH as a reward?

 

[Jesstickle]

I understood your twaddle perfectly! Although perhaps that in itself should be viewed as worrying

I think you should be terrified frankly. It is only a short hop from understanding my nonsense to total insanity!

jesstickle I understood your twaddle, does this mean I get BH as a reward?

God yes, please take him. He has been absolutely vile these two weeks past. Would you like to take Nitty as well as she really hasn't been much better

 

[Fantasy_World]

Saffytessa I would not call that being judgemental, just simply pointing out what is true on a lot of livery yards. Some folks simply forgetting that horses are animals and as such need to be treated as one. Communication and discipline works best in their language, not ours.
Rugging up of horses is not an indication of someone being 'soft' imo. However I will never condone over rugging where horses are indeed sweating and uncomfortable as the rug chosen is simply too heavy for the weather.
Example a horse in summer ( it was hot) turned out in a medium weight fully necked rug when it was carrying condition.
Same horse in winter, weather cold and raining a lot ( horse had lost weight, noticeably and also clipped) in a lighter weight rug than before(didn't fit properly) and no neck
Horses that were not good doers ( and had lost weight and were struggling with it) clipped out and turned out with rugs too small, not fastened correctly, or not thick enough for the weather.
This was not some new horse owner but someone who should have known better, through experience and job!
So I would have to say that mistakes do not always come from those who have spent little time around horses or are new to them.

 

[JFTDWS]

Jess, I understood your OP, though my initial comment may not have shown it. I just got sidetracked by all the other stuff. I do think owners are generally softer now - I, in my heathen way, believe that if owners weren't fluffier, not only would feed, supplement, rug and certain bitting companies would suffer major losses, there is no way NH methods and alternative therapies would be so popular. It's not enough to own a nice horse now - livery yard chique is about owning a rescue horse-come-good through extensive animal communication, fattening up, carrot stick waving and general imbuing of human principles onto the horse.

Not that all rescue-come-good horses go through this, naturally, but it seems to be the general methodology employed in certain levels of equestrian society...

 

[Honeylight]

I had a pony as a child in the 1970s & he was woolly in the winter & lived out, all the horses & ponies on the yard lived out except the two thoroughbreds who were brought in at night. None wore "hats" & none had a pink saddle. Now it seems even unclipped horses wear rugs.
I saw a horse ii a purple & pink polka dot New Zealand rug out in a field yesterday.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Flame_ I suppose in my head it was a much wider question with that as an example but you're right. Reading it back it does sound like a post about rugs. Perhaps I'm not very good at expressing myself!

I certainly wasn't expecting 100 people to tell me whether they rug their horse or not, I was hoping more people would tell me why they think it is that something which wouldn't have raised an eyebrow in my own mother's youth would now be a serious cause for consternation.

Anywho, everyone ignore me and carry one. I'll just go and read something else instead

IMO (and my youth was probably around the same time as your mother's), it is because a large number of people do not have the sort of training that your mother and I did. I didn't come from a particularly horsey family, in that my parents did not have horses although granddad had kept a horse for his business, but I learned to ride at an excellent RS, where we were expected to learn about management as well, just as part of everything we did, not on specific courses although we did those as well in the summer. We were also trained to ride on the road responsibly (another bugbear of mine).
Nowadays people, especially adults, seem to have 6 months of lessons and then buy a horse, which they keep on a 'livery yard' run by someone who knows very little more than them. The rug and feed companies, especially, direct their marketing towards these inexperienced people, who then spend a fortune on multiple rugs, bags of cereal-based feed and multiple supplements. Passers-by, who know even less about horses, see these animals in their rugs and think that those of us who do not rug every time there's a drop of rain are cruel.
There's a standard-bred stud near me, the mares, foals and youngstock are out all year round. There is very little natural shelter, we are on a very exposed part of the South Pennines but the Standies have constant access to big bale haylage and a large daily ration of carrots.
The local dog-walkers et al frequently comment on 'how cruel' it is that these horses are out without rugs. They are all very healthy and well-covered, not a rib to be seen. In the 17 yrs that we've been here I've only known of them losing one foal, possibly because it was born during some exceedingly bad weather.
I wouldn't actually want my horses to be out with them, ours come in overnight, the oldie is rugged in bad weather but there is nothing wrong with them.

 

[Caol Ila]

I think people very much get into the mindset of, "I'm cold so I need to put a massive, heavy rug on my horse" and do not realize that horses have much better physiological mechanisms for keeping warm than we do.

My current YO was amazed I didn't have a neck piece for my horse. I said, "She has a winter coat, a thick mane, and those things are way more hassle than they're worth." Unlike the other YO I wrote about in my earlier posts, he at least let it lie there, rather than put extra clothing on the horse that I did not find necessary and did not want on her. He's a good YO and doesn't seem to think most owners are inherently morons, as have some other YOs.

If your horse is clipped, blanketing them to the nines is understandable but if it's not, then you easily risk over-rugging.

 

[Puzzles]

I think people very much get into the mindset of, "I'm cold so I need to put a massive, heavy rug on my horse" and do not realize that horses have much better physiological mechanisms for keeping warm than we do.

My current YO was amazed I didn't have a neck piece for my horse. I said, "She has a winter coat, a thick mane, and those things are way more hassle than they're worth." Unlike the other YO I wrote about in my earlier posts, he at least let it lie there, rather than put extra clothing on the horse that I did not find necessary and did not want on her. He's a good YO and doesn't seem to think most owners are inherently morons, as have some other YOs.

If your horse is clipped, blanketing them to the nines is understandable but if it's not, then you easily risk over-rugging.

I agree. One of my bugbears is when people clip their (often fine-coated) horses who are only in light to moderate work anyway, and then rug them up to the eyeballs in heavyweights - which leave the belly exposed anyway, which is often clipped!
I remember an equine researcher (I can't remember who) writing about an experiment where a cob with full feathers was stood in water for 10 minutes, and they found that his skin underneath was still completely warm and dry! Also, horses with a full winter coat stood in rain often have warm, dry skin because the ran runs off the top of the coat.
We use our own warmth/coldness to dictate whether our horses are cold, but a better comparison would be if we were covered head to toe (including a balaclava) in one thick inculating layer. Perhaps only then could we make a more accurate comparison.

 

[Caol Ila]

I agree. One of my bugbears is when people clip their (often fine-coated) horses who are only in light to moderate work anyway, and then rug them up to the eyeballs in heavyweights - which leave the belly exposed anyway, which is often clipped!
I remember an equine researcher (I can't remember who) writing about an experiment where a cob with full feathers was stood in water for 10 minutes, and they found that his skin underneath was still completely warm and dry! Also, horses with a full winter coat stood in rain often have warm, dry skin because the ran runs off the top of the coat.
We use our own warmth/coldness to dictate whether our horses are cold, but a better comparison would be if we were covered head to toe (including a balaclava) in one thick inculating layer. Perhaps only then could we make a more accurate comparison.

Yeah, then there's that. I know quite a few people who ride two to three times per week at most and just potter around at walk and trot for not more than half an hour, yet they give their horse a full body clip. Why? I don't get this one at all. Horses with winter coats aren't going to start dripping with sweat the moment you sit on them. I have to trot and canter hard for about 45 minutes before my completely unclipped, fuzzy horse starts breaking into even a wee bit of a sweat. Usually I'm knackered before she gets really wet, fit critter that she is.

 

[Ladydragon]

Is it just me that thinks it is really odd to ride past a snoozing younster and think it's cruel that it's out without a rug? None of my horsey mates who come from horsey families would ever think that. Is it the case that horse sense just doesn't permeate to new people? Or are horsey people just getting softer?

I'm not sure it's horse owners getting softer - more, maybe, a diversification in why people have horses and the number of people who now do...

When I was young, just 'having a horse' was rare or restricted to people with good finances or their own land... The others worked for their keep - ie, pulling the veg cart... I was raised in a villagey area of the city and could count on one hand how many people I knew with horses for leisure... I now live in a rural village where you can throw a stone and hit one - the world and their dog has at least one and those not living on farms have them in allotments, livery or 'the bit of ground at the back of the house'... When I was young, this was a mining village and whilst probably still having more horses per human head than my city; it might not have been much different - ponies down the mine, working the farms, pulling produce carts and most mining households too poor to have anything other than something that would live on grass alone and provide some service... Hardy natives or working drafts were the norm and TBs an expensive to maintain luxury...

The only coloured ponies I ever saw were little things on the gypsy area in the city outskirts - I nearly keeled over seeing how many coloured horses of almost every type were around now... More people now can afford to keep horses by choice and purely for leisure... Whilst perhaps not quite considering them a pet, they aren't going to have the "earn its keep" mindset either - and plenty of variations of ownership in between... A bit like the chap who keeps his lurchers for lamping and has them live in the outdoor kennels... I'm not a ridiculously soft dog owner but he treats his dogs very differently to my 'pet' dogs and probably thinks I'm somewhat barmy for for letting my old pooch sit on my sofa and shadow me everywhere... That's still a long way away from an owner who'd paint claws and have a wardrobe of coats for their pooch...

There's also soooooooo much more conflicting advice to be seen now - perhaps because it's easier to come across other horse owners in a locality or perhaps the likes of the internet opening the door to many more opinions - then there's business and marketing targeting this more diverse (and less experienced) horse owning population...

Anyway...the short version of that rather epic reply... "Maybe, and lots of possible reasons why"...

I'd rug it up if it was snowing or raining. Not if it was just 'cold'. I'm sorry if I didn't write my reply as clearly as I intended.

Ah...get a TB like mine when you do... Doesn't grow a winter coat worth talking about and gets rain scald at the drop of a hat... He's definitely fairly high maintenance and you can sate your 'soft' feelings whilst bemoaning the cost and storage space... Although he's still rugged less heavily than a heavyweight gypsy cob at the yard who's been rugged to try and keep his coat down so he can still be grabbed and ridden during the owner's odd work schedule without turning into a sweat bog before exiting the drive...

 

[CarolineJ]

In answer to the OP, yes I do think we're getting softer. My guess is it's partly to do with the gender balance in the equestrian world shifting over the last 50 years to be predominantly female - and our hormonal make-up naturally inclines us to mother our animals.

This is the first winter I've had Merlin unrugged (he did end up in a mediumweight a couple of times when we were due 80mph+ storms and I didn't know if the field shelter was going to stay upright) and there have been nights when I've lain in bed at 2am listening to the rain and the wind and felt dreadfully cruel for not having him all wrapped up...but when the guilt got bad enough that I actually got up, put the oilskins on and went down to check on him, he was warm and dry and now I don't worry about it. Interestingly, talking to his previous owner and loaners, this is the first winter he's spent unrugged and not stabled in this country (7 years) and this is the first winter he's not dramatically dropped his weight.

 

[starbar]

I saw a horse ii a purple & pink polka dot New Zealand rug out in a field yesterday.

erm, yeah...and?? My gelding's got a pink rug, he doesn't care

 

[Spudlet]

Is it that people are soft, or is it that rugs are more heavily advertised, available in more colours / weights / neck combos etc and that therefore people assume they must be essential whereas in reality lots of horses could manage without them...?

 

[starbar]

I agree that horses are very often tougher than we give them credit for, but what I don't get is this often 'holier than thou' desparate need to leave them stuck out in windswept, mud drenched sodden fields becasue it is their natural habitat. Actually, being in a field is NOT really that natural, horses are designed to roam and graze and find shelter and better land as they so require and desire. I live in Wales, our fields are very wet and so everyone comes in at night. Not because I am soft, but common sense dictates that is won't do horses a huge amount of good to be fetlock deep in mud all winter, particularly youngstock. The 3 babies come into a barn all together and have a deep straw bed which is mucked out every day. They also get 10 hours of turnout with 30 acres to roam over. Every night without fail within an hour of coming in all 3 will be lying down in the straw, they get chance to dry off thoroughly and fill their bellies with good quality haylage and then back out they go. This to me isn't 'soft', it's good horse management