ozpoz
Well-Known Member
Funny enough, as an American I cam over here and was shocked to see how pampered the horses were!
Put it this way, our show horses lived out all winter, shoes off, no rugs. They weren't overfed, rarely did I see an obese animal. Okay, some might say we're daft for not wearing hats back in those days - and never even heard of hi=viz unless it was deer hunting season and I do appreciate that things have changed re hats over there since I was a younger rider - but I told my aunt about putting on hi viz and she was wondering if I'd lost MY head? Clippers came out only if they were still really hairy in April just before teh show season commenced. Mind you, I'm from New England and winters are a helluva lot harder there than they are here. Hay fed from the floor or outside on the ground is mostly what they'd eat - sometimes a wee hard feed if they were still in work. Carrots and apples added to feed? Pshaw...why?!
Beds in stables over here look like thick mattresses. Ours back home were a deep bed of sawdust usually. None of these bales of lovely large flake stuff unless at a show (which is all you could get). I was really amused that you could look in any stable and just about see people using a spirit level to get the perfect shape to the banks and the front edge looked like it'd been done by an architect.
And yet now that I've been keeping a horse here in the UK, that's the done thing and I just do it....just because...well I don't know. It's just the way it is.
So...saying that you thought it might be an American thing - think again - or perhaps go and visit sometime. Or if you have, and you've seen more pampering there than you do here....then WOW, I have been away from home a long time. Cos most of the folk I know back in hte US are still "roughing it" relatively.
Um,no, Puccin' Pony.. I was meaning the (possibly wrong) idea/ stereotype of American's not understanding the meaning of the word 'ironic' ....
Alanis Morisette's song being a classic example- ok, she's half Canadian, but you get the idea