ShortStuff

I am going out to check out this horse this week, and I want to know what you all think of his conformation. He is a 13'1" icelandic. He is pretty light boned for an icey, but to me he looks strong and healthy - short back, deep loins, etc. He is four gaited with five gait potential. I'll be using him mostly for pleasure, with some dressage and competitive trail mixed in.

http://www.freewebs.com/pegasuspassion/apps/photos...

Hi all!

I am planning on buying a horse this summer, and it is more than likely that he will be out of state. Despite the fact that I have been riding for 12+ years, I have never owned a horse, only leased. I am flying out to meet the horse, test ride, and get a vet check, but I will be hiring someone to transport him, as I don't own a trailer. The drive should take 10-15hrs, and I am a little worried about the summer heat. Do you guys have recommendations for finding a reliable horse shipper? What types of questions should I ask the transport company? Also, are there other things I should consider during the purchasing process?

Thanks!

I know the general rule is that you should not trot a gaited horse under saddle, but I have never been really clear on why. Icelandics are required to show both trot and gait naturally in pasture and under saddle. Does anyone know why they are the exception?

I have been courting the idea of buying a lovely little horse, who seems to be perfect in every way except that he apparently can play pretty hard with other horses (I have asked for specifics, but have yet to hear back). He would be turned out during the day with a small group of geldings, and there is no way to "test" whether or not he will integrate well, as he is out of state. Would this be a deal breaker for you? Are there ways to diminish any agression he might have? This horse is pretty much ideal in every other way, and it would be a shame to pass him over for a problem that could be mitigated... however, it would also be a shame to buy him and find out that he just doesn't get along well, and be stuck with a problematic animal. Thanks for your opinions!

Is it really the methods (which I think are pretty useful, and use rather often) or does it have more to do with other things like the unnecessary showmanship, inflated prices, and the my way or the highway reaction which NH devotees have? That last one I think actually applies to both the NH people and the people that bash it. Those are the things that bug me. I know just mentioning natural horsemanship in a group of horse people is enough to start a full blown civil war, and I don't understand why people are so dramatically divided. I think that there are a lot of people who bash NH who actually have the type of relationship with their horse that NH promotes. Maybe it's the fact that the NH gurus label natural horsemanship as a revolutionary new idea, when it is really old? I am just trying to understand what fuels such a dramatic debate. If you are on either side or in the middle, I would love to hear your take on it, but please keep it as civil as possible.

I have been riding horses seriously for over ten years (I am 21), and I am finally going to get a horse of my own. My father has decided to buy the horse and pay for board and other expenses, so I would like to get him a book that he can flip through to get an idea on what it means to own a horse. I want something that covers all the bases, is easy to follow but not child level, and something not too thick would be ideal. I don't want to intimidate him out of getting me a horse after all! In case you are curious or if it makes a difference to your suggestions, I am buying an Icelandic - probably a little five gaited mare named Hera.

I am a big video game fan, and I am quite versed in iPhone games (Dead Space, N.O.V.A, etc), and some compter games (Limbo, Dragon Age, Aquaria, Portal), but I want to learn how to play on an xbox. My brothers have an xbox, but I never play on it with them because I am always embarrassed at my horrible lack of skill with the controller. The only game I have ever played through was Portal 2. What would be a good, beginner level game for me to play on xbox, to teach me the controls and not make me feel like a complete idiot. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Do you think this is the right category for this question?

I have never had to move a horse long distance before, and I don't really know how to find this out online. I don't need anything specific, just ball park. Is it 50 dollars? 100? 5,000? 10,000? 100,000? I really have no idea, and I am having trouble finding out via google. I am thinking of buying a horse from Canada this summer, and I would like to know ballpark how much getting him home will be.

I was at a draft horse competition today, and I was walking around in the stable behind the show when I saw a woman wrapping her horse's legs in plastic wrap, and then put a polo wrap over it. This looked exactly like soring to me. I had never heard of soring drafts, but I guess it makes sense because they are judged by leg action, and they do do awful things to their feet in terms of shoeing. It was a large show, so there were security people walking around, and I mentioned this to two of them. One knew nothing about horses and brushed me off, and the other was unbelievably patronizing. I am in a wheelchair so it is sometimes hard to get people to take me seriously. Anyways, one said that she would go check it out, but I doubt that she did.

My question is could the person wrapping the horses legs have an actual GOOD reason to do it? Is there any medical treatment that it could have been? Also, if I see something like this in the future, how and who do I get the attention of to get it looked into?

Hi everyone,

My name is Andi, I am 21 and I have been riding for about 12 years. For the first time, I find myself in a position to buy a horse. I have a few tricky requirements which makes finding a suitable breed tricky. Here are my top three in order of importance.

First of all and most importantly, I am rather severely disabled at this point in my life. I have a spinal condition that is very painful and limiting in terms of flexibility and strength. Surprisingly enough, horseback riding is one of the most important things I do for my back health, as it straightens my pelvis and strengthens my core. My doctors (who used to be skeptical) are now the biggest the voices pushing me to find a horse of my own. Because of all of this I am looking into gaited horses, as the concussion on my spine will be less in a smooth gait. It also means I need a breed of horse that is known to be level-headed, as any falls put me at risk. Obviously I know that no breed can guarantee a level head, and falls are a natural part of riding, but I would like to limit the chances.

Secondly, I love dressage. I don't ride competitively, but I want to have a horse that I can use for dressage up to second or third level. This means I need walk, trot, canter as well as gait. It would also be nice to have a horse that has a body type that is functional for dressage, if not lending itself to it specifically. After dressage, the next discipline am most interested in trail riding. Therefore sure-footedness and at least a bit of stamina are important. I don't know many breeds that have w/t/c and a smooth gait, so I would love to be enlightened in this regard.

Third, I am extremely short. I am about 4'9" and 110lbs. I would like a horse that fits me, possibly on the smaller side of fit. Because of my back, getting on and off anything tall is rough on me. Not to mention that it is a shorter way to fall if I make an unplanned dismount onto my tailbone. Obviously I don't want my feet dragging on the ground, but I don't want that big concussion through your spine you get from dismounting something tall.

Right now, I am leasing a fantastic little Icelandic horse, and I am thinking that they might be the right breed for me. Unfortunately, this mare does not have the best of gaits. Her walk and trot are pretty good, but her tolt and canter are quite pace, and her flying pace is really rough. This means she is probably not an ideal long term match for me. All that said, I adore her. She is the perfect height, spunky and energetic (sometimes overly so), but at the same time she is amazingly quiet. Nothing phases this horse. I have never met a horse with so much energy, AND the ability to control it. Her owner has had Icelandic all her life, and says they are all like that. Daladis is trained through level 3 dressage and is a hoot to ride on the trail. I have a brilliant trainer and Daladis's owner is such a doll.

Since I have never owned my own horse before, I have ridden a lot of horses, so here is a list of breeds I would/would not consider:

Arabian/TB - no, too much energy and too harsh a gait

Quarter horse - maybe, but it would have to really be the right one

Fjord - I love these horses, if only they were gaited!

Rocky mountain horse - possibly, I hear they are hard to get to trot

Welsh pony - maybe, same statement as with Quarter horses

Andalusian - love these guys, fantastic traditional gaits and brilliant personalities, but if you want quality, the are quite pricey

Paso Fino - I hear they have odd trots and canters

Icelandic - currently top of my list

Also, here are two videos I mad that might be enlightening:

This is me and Lady, a Rocky Mountain welsh cross that I free leased in exchange for training her. I worked with her for four years or so, and this is a video I made before going off to college a few years ago:

http://youtu.be/kCHVjwk4P30

Here is me riding Daladis (the Icelandic) over a month ago, on a bad day for me interms of stiffness and pain, but you can still get an idea. I actually filmed this for my physical therapist, so she could understand my problems and help me target my "riding" muscles.

http://youtu.be/cN9rtSjPXE8

One of the things that makes me a bit nervous about entering into the Icelandic network, is most people use very harsh training methods on these little guys. Huge guys (with feet so close to the ground he might need rollar blades!), with huge spurs, huge whips, huge bits, rough hands, dropped cranked nose bands...bleck. This is all stuff I hate about the horse world, and I don't want to support this system by giving them my money to breed and train more traumatized horses.. There is one farm in Canada (www.icefarm.com) that has a good approach. It is owned by the sister of the founder of TTouch, and they seem to know their stuff.

Thanks so much for your advice!

Andi

I need a stirrup leather that works like the wintec webbers, but I would like to buy it in real leather in order to protect my saddle. Do you know of anything like this? Below is a link to the wintec webbers:

http://www.valleyvet.biz/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30E...

I have horrible veins for no particular reason. I am 20 years old, rather healthy, I never did drugs, I am not overweight, with good low blood pressure, and I have a high pain tolerance so I am not "squirmy."

Almost every time I have to have an IV placed, it takes the nurses forever. Five years ago I was in a horse accident and broke a few bones, and they couldn't get an IV in to give me pain meds until after I was ambulanced in, I went for about an hour without an IV. Three years ago I had a two neck surgeries where they ended up putting a central line in, because they couldn't start a regular IV. Last December I needed to get surgery to remove some hardware, and it took 7 nurses and 45 minutes to get a line in. This summer I was hospitalized for Serotonin Syndrome, and because I was on a heart monitor I needed to be on an IV. It took 3 nurses to get the first one in, it went bad after a day, and then they tried to get another one in for an hour and a half, before just giving up. I am REALLY hard for nurses to stick. They try everywhere, up to my elbows, on the backs of my hands, in my wrists (that one hurts most), and even on my feet.

Tomorrow I am getting a small procedure done on my neck, and I will need to have an IV. I am going to hydrate as much as I can before I have to stop having liquids, I am going to take a muscle relaxant and just hope for the best. I called the surgery center before hand to let them know how bad my veins are, and they didn't really seam to believe me. I hate going through so many sticks, and I hate the bruises that run up and down my arms afterwards.

I want to know what I can do to help the nurses out...what will make my veins easier for them to do?

I was just reading an article about a young African American woman with goals of riding in the 2012 Olympics. I then noticed that I think I don't know a single African American horse rider. This seems really silly to me. Now it is true that I live in a rather "white" community, but the proportion of African American horse riders to other races is significantly less than the population's proportionality. Looking at other sports, African Americans have gone above and beyond in innovating and improving athletics. Why do you think horse riding as a sport is so far behind in terms of diversity?

P.S. Sorry if there is anything politically incorrect about this question...I am really just curious.

My boss is going to have me start blogging my experience with horses on her website.

I have a bad physical condition called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, which basically means most of the bones in my back are malformed. I have ridden horses for pleasure and for physical therapy for the past 10 years or so, but this year is a little different. I have had a really bad year in terms of pain, and I have been out of the saddle for about 10 months. I have just started riding again at therapeutic riding stable. I am working with a horse who has some similar problems in terms of stiffness in her shoulders and neck (not nearly as bad as mine, and not bone related, just stiff). I am riding once a week, and training on the ground 3 or 4 times a week. The focus of the blog will be both of us improving health together, helping each other heal. It will also focus on the importance of ground work in a training program, and how people with bad backs can continue to ride horses safely. It will include pictures, videos, and of course written articles. I am not a particularly "pretty" person, and I am not a graceful rider, due to my condition, and I have been treated badly in the equine community because of that. This is another thing I want to touch on. While all of that sounds dreadfully boring and depressing, I do consider myself to have a pretty decent sense of humor, and pretty good writing skills.

Would you ever read a blog like this? If not, what would help get your interest? What should I make sure to include/avoid as I write this?

I already posted a similar question in the Horse section of Y!A, but I also want to know if non-horsey people would be interested.

I am on a bit of a Shakespeare bender...I love his works. I have a hard time simply reading through the plays, and there aren't many on stage around where I live. I really want to watch movies that use his original language so that I can read along, but I am having a really hard time finding them. For some reason the internet seems to think that Shakespearian movies and Shakespearian ADAPTIONS are the same thing...I can't find a good list that just has films that are true to his language.

Reminder: I am looking for TRUE to the TEXT versions, not adaptions. Thanks in advance, I am looking forward to your answers!

My boss is going to have me start blogging my experience with horses on her website.

I have a bad physical condition called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, which basically means most of the bones in my back are malformed. I have ridden horses for pleasure and for physical therapy for the past 10 years or so, but this year is a little different. I have had a really bad year in terms of pain, and I have been out of the saddle for about 10 months. I have just started riding again at therapeutic riding stable. I am working with a horse who has some similar problems in terms of stiffness in her shoulders and neck (not nearly as bad as mine, and not bone related, just stiff). I am riding once a week, and training on the ground 3 or 4 times a week. The focus of the blog will be both of us improving health together, helping each other heal. It will also focus on the importance of ground work in a training program, and how people with bad backs can continue to ride horses safely. It will include pictures, videos, and of course written articles. I am not a particularly "pretty" person, and I am not a graceful rider, due to my condition, and I have been treated badly in the equine community because of that. This is another thing I want to touch on. While all of that sounds dreadfully boring and depressing, I do consider myself to have a pretty decent sense of humor, and pretty good writing skills.

Would you ever read a blog like this? If not, what would help get your interest?

Due to a neck condition, I need to find a lighter option for my helmet. Currently I use a Troxel Legacy. For some reason I cannot find a site that compares helmet weight...do you know what brands/models tend to be lighter?

Hokay, here is the deal, I just bought these spurs:

http://www.smartpakequine.com/m-toulouse-soft-touc...

I ride in paddock boots with half chaps, and my boots don't have a spur rest. Where is the best place to have the spur placed, what is the best way to keep them from slipping, and is there anything else I should know?

More unnecessary info on why I need spurs/help (read or don't, I don't really care):

I have been riding english for about 10 years now (I am 21), and I haven't worn spurs in about 7 years. I started out riding hunter/jumper, and almost every rider wore spurs - if you didn't have them you were a newbie and everyone looked down on you (stupid, I know). After a bad accident (four surgeries bad) three years into my riding career, I switched barns and disciplines to dressage, and learned a bunch of natural horsemanship. While riding does NOT come naturally to me (I have to work really hard to do it right), I found I am awesome at teaching naughty horses ground manners. The combination of those two disciplines taught me that I was using a spur for all the wrong reasons in all the wrong ways. Since then I have ridden mostly dressage and competitive trail, dabbling back into hunter jumper in the past two years, only because I think it is important to know how to safely ride a jumping horse, especially if you trail ride like I do (cross country, not many trails). Durring that whole time, I avoided spurs because I was afraid of misusing them again, and the level of riding I was doing didn't require them for subtlety of communication.

Fast forward to 8 months ago: my rather impressive collection of birth defects in my spine start acting up. I am essentially bed/wheelchair ridden for 6 months - I lose all my riding muscles. Now go to 2 months ago when I convince my doctors to let me start riding again (it is actually really good for my back), but only if it is through a hippotherapy program with a licensed physical therapists and a therapy horse. And now we are at today. I am up to being in the saddle for 30 minutes at a time, and my physical therapy sessions are now about 50% physical therapy, and 50% retraining my body how to actually ride. I basically have all the muscle memory, but none of the muscle.

Now about the horse I am riding: beautiful dappled palomino quarter horse, trained from the get go to be a therapy horse and not a riding horse. She is perfectly happy to have both physically and mentally handicapped people on her back, and she will walk out beautifully, ignoring essentially everything going on on her back (screaming, hitting, flopping, kicking, etc). If you put a competent rider on her back, with a gentle snaffle in her mouth, she knows how to turn, but not to bend, she knows how to stop, but not collect, and if she ever decides to listen to your leg, all cues mean go forward. I have fallen desperately in love with this little mare, and I have gotten permission to start trying to get a little bit of training into her. I will be doing ground/ wheelchair work with her (what I am really good at) and half of my riding sessions will be devoted to training/real riding. She is the perfect horse for me to start all over with.

Two problems: she is dead to the leg (since she was trained that way), and because of the combination of nerve damage and muscle atrophy, I don't have the leg strength to support her, and I may never redevelop it. My hands and arms have enough nerve damage to them that I can hold reins OR a dressage whip, but not both. However, because of the muscle memory thing, I have both quiet hands and legs (I am SO glad I learned that before I had this flare up, I would never be able to learn it now). Obvious solution: spurs.

I bought myself some really gentle spurs, dusted off my old spur straps and battled them onto my boots. My boots don't have spur rests, because when I bought them 3 years ago, I never expected to need them. I know you can use spurs on boots without spur rests, and you are supposed to put them at the seam between the heal and ankle, but I really don't see them staying there, no matter how tight I make the spur straps. My other boots are my tall boots - which I don't want to wear because they block too much of the remaining sensitivity in my legs, and my trail boots which are ariat terrain boots and do have a spur rest but not enough ankle support for arena work.

Anyways, I am going to ride in my new spurs for the first time this coming Tuesday, and I foresee a few problems: Will they slip, will I be able to apply them correctly, and even though I know that I won't hurt her (my leg is still and these are super gentle), how do I keep my confidence up while using them? I can see myself riding with my leg pulled off her side in order to make myself sure that I am not poking her, which is not helpful to either of us.

Thanks in advance,

Andi

I recently bought 100 meal worms from a local dealer to feed my to my gecko. I let them all hang out and eat for a couple days before putting them in the fridge to hibernate. Today, when I was getting ready to put them in the fridge, I noticed some a black, sticky substance like tar on some of the worms. The tar is only on their heads and the tips of their tails, but it is sticky enough that pieces of oatmeal stick to them and won't come off. The worms with the tar seem more lethargic than the ones without the stuff.

Does anyone know what might be causing this? Are these worms safe to feed to my gecko?

Thanks,

Andi

Hey all!

I have just been cleared by my doctors to get back in the saddle! Horray! I have not been able to ride for almost 4 months now, and I am so excited to start riding again. My physical therapist says to keep rides under 20 minutes and only work at the walk for now. I am currently recovering from a serious flare up in my spine due to a congenital condition.

I will most likely be riding a 13hh welsh/rock mountain cross that I have worked with for about 5 years (she has put up with me through 4 surgeries, serious fear issues, and relearning all sorts of stuff). She is being ridden by her owner, a 9 year old girl who doesn't have that much control, and Lady has been taking advantage of her.

Are there exercises that I can do at the walk that will keep Lady thinking (she gets bored very easily, and her boredom leads to her being testy), and possibly improve her responsiveness to the her owner?

Thanks all!

P.S. Here is a video I made two years ago of Lady and I before I left for college. It is super cheesy, but it was a lot of fun to make:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTg__4O8Qh4