Books with Spirit - Horse Riding

There are ten main reasons that I see horses here at the hospital, 10 ways that you can reduce your vet bills! 

Rider relationship 

I’ve put this first because it’s the most important thing that we can change.

When our horse is out of his comfort zone he lifts his head in the air and hollows his back to varying degrees.  This hollowness translates into whopping impact on the front legs, eventually causing serious and career threatening injuries.  The sagging of his back under our weight eventually makes spinal bones themselves come out of alignment. 

You can have your horse dancing in self carriage, with his back curved beautifully strong in just days with the revolutionary new approach in the electronic book “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You”.  Click here for more information about the book. 

That curved back will enable your horse to carry your weight joyfully and easily - no matter what style of riding you do.  It means a racehorse who is able to use his body calmly and efficiently for long periods of injury free racing - maximum speed with less effort.  It means a trail or endurance horse who can go for kilometre after kilometre carrying their human strong and efficiently.  It means a dressage horse who has the back strength and curvature and softness just begging for collection as the next step.  Ditto for the show horse.  It means a western performance horse who is so finely balanced over his feet that he can give you whatever you ask for when you ask for it.

Feed

Many, many horses are overfed on over rich food - too much grain for the amount of work that they are doing or too much grain for the amount of roughage that they are getting.  Simple well grown, properly harvested grass hay is an excellent base for a horse’s feed, with just a very little grain for when they are working. Many horses are mineral deficient from the use of phosphates in their pasture and feeds and this can have dramatic effects on their muscles, their bones, their nervous systems and their overall health.  Pat Coleby has done some excellent work in this area.  I can recommend her book “Natural Horse Care”.

The Kentucky Equine Research Centre has done some excellent research that tell us that it is not just preferable for horses to get good roughage in the form of hay - but essential. 

This is a simplistic explanation of their research. 

The hay or rough grass fibres, creates a “bed” of ground up fibres in the bottom of the stomach that slows down the progress of the grain and softer grasses and “filters” the rest of the stomach contents, giving them a chance to be digested effectively. 

The hay and/or rough grass fibres stay in the stomach until they are “pushed out” by the next lot of hay or rough grass fibres”.

If the hay or rough grass fibres are in the stomach for too long, they get over digested with stomach enzymes and create an acid, which leads to all sorts of health problems, including stomach ulcers in stressed or performance horses.

According to Kentucky Equine research Centre, they tracked horses who, within four hours of having no hay, had the lesions of stomach ulcers developing. Whew!  That’s pain, often dull coats, not thriving as well as they should on the feed, lower performance and other health problems from that acidity working its way through into other parts of the body as well.

I heard a story (NOT first hand) that because of that fact, Gaye Waterhouse, Australia’s top lady trainer of thoroughbred race horses, will sack instantly any strapper with a horse in their care found without hay to eat. 

Before the research centre’s work, a shocking 97% of racehorses tested had stomach ulcers and not constantly eating hay was the reason.

Teeth

Teeth need attention every year, for the horse to not be in pain and for him to get the best (or indeed any) benefit from his feed.  The dentist also needs to be one who pays attention to the last tooth at the back of the jaw (and some don’t!), or eventually they end up grinding on their jaw bone itself when they eat (like mine were even though I had their teeth done every year.)  Good teeth can save you a fortune in feed and vet bills and frustration.

Feet 

Feet shape is incredibly important to the way our horse can use his body.  If you think of all those leg and hip bones as levers, a small amount incorrectly trimmed at the feet puts huge pressures at the hip and sacral joints.  And then we sit on his back which is reflecting all these lever actions!  I like to barefoot my paddock horses  and am incredibly fussy about the angles when someone has to be shod (like my race horses). 

There is a wonderful amount of information about feet on http://www.barefoothorse.com

Saddle fit

A saddle needs to fit both the horse and the rider.  He can’t use his body properly, his muscles wither away and go into spasm and he lives in various degrees of pain while you are riding on an ill fitting saddle. 

Rug fit

Rug fit is usually not as serious as saddle fit, but if you’ve got a horse who needs to use his whole body effectively as an athlete, then spending 22 hours a day unable to move freely is going to have an adverse effect on his performance.  If the rug rubs, then it probably does not fit. 

I often put gussets into the shoulders of rugs to get decent shoulder movement. There are rugs out there with short gussets which do not do anything to allow for free and natural shoulder movement, that seem to be purely for decoration. 

And I have seen some particularly nasty injuries come from rugs whose “ill-fitting-ness” allow the rug to jam over the top of the wither.  I’ve actually seen a rug that was embedded in the wither all the way to the bone… shudder… If your horse is rugged, someone needs to be checking that horse twice a day!

Cooling down

Lactic acid is a by product of anaerobic work  (fast work where they can’t get enough oxygen from breathing to fuel the muscles, so they take it from their body storage).  For most horses, work at the canter and above is anaerobic work.  Lactic acid is toxic and binds up the muscles if not gotten rid of.  All it takes to get rid of it is a fast walk or slow trot to cool them down at the end of the work out. 

The results of lactic acid building up can be life threateningly serious - tying up, colic, laminitis, cramping, some muscles withering away are just some examples.

As a muscle therapist, I have used Bowen muscle therapy as an excellent method of helping get rid of excessive lactic acid - although there is no substitute for good husbandry!

Warming up

The muscle needs to be warm with some light exercise before we ask our horse to exert himself, otherwise we risk tendon and ligament damage or muscle strain or even muscle tearing.

Not fit enough for the work 

This causes muscle, tendon, ligament and bone problems.  That means preparing our horse for that big trail ride or that great big day at pony club!  It means deliberately developing back muscles to carry us cheerfully for longer periods by starting off with short periods to strengthen the back.  There is an excellent article about how to do this here on this website.

Too much exposure to drugs and chemicals

Over worming, over medicating, using drugs as a substitute for good horse husbandry.  I am constantly reversing the sometimes dramatic side effects of unnecessary drugs and chemicals.  Often people don’t realize what caused the problem because the side effect comes up further down the track.

Make your horse’s life more comfortable and enjoy reducing your vet bills with these ten tips! 

And of course don’t forget the biggest vet bill reduction of them all - listen to your horse.  Don’t know how to or don’t do it as well as you’d like? Click here for the electronic book “Bobby’s Diaries - Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You” You could be reading the secrets of the great horsemen and women in five minutes through the most secure financial website in the world. Love this book or get your money back.