Baby, Its Cold Outside...

...and we have a clinic this weekend!

If you have hot water in your wash rack (or a wash rack at all), consider yourself blessed.  If you have heat lamps, well, you’re just living the dream.  For the rest of us, presenting our woolly beasts looking their best during the cold winter months takes a few tricks and a whole lot of elbow grease.

The Woolly Beast, slightly less woolly to help prevent puddle playing.

First, there is absolutely no substitution for daily grooming.  You’ll run across some people who tell you not to groom in the winter because it strips the natural oils from your horse’s coat.  That’s baloney.  Too much washing or using grooming sprays and stain removers can remove those oils, but good old fashioned scrub-a-dub rubbing is one of the best things you can do for your pony.  Plus it’s an excellent work out and will warm you up quickly.

Along with good deep currying, pick out your horse’s feet, and invest in a good super stiff brush.  Brushes come in as many shapes, sizes, materials, and bristle lengths as custom ordered saddle pads.  Probably more.  Each has its purpose, but you can pretty quickly evaluate which brushes will work best for you.

This is my “Mud Brush.”  I only use it to get caked on mud off legs and on fuzzy, fuzzy horses in the winter (its getting a little ragged and needs to be replaced - I know).  It has very stiff long plastic bristles.  The stiffness will flick the mud chunks off and the long bristles reach through the thickest coats to get the grime up from the skin.  It’s one of my winter staples.  It is also handy for brushing mud off the outside of turnout blankets in between washing.

If you’re lucky enough to have a horse with a relatively thin winter coat, you’ll need a brush with a little less bite.  Long bristles are still important to reach down to the skin and to help flick dirt up, but softer is kinder to those with a little less fluff.
I rarely use a finishing or soft brush in the summer (I usually just use a rub rag), but in the winter, a good quality (horse hair is you can afford it) short to medium bristled brush is great at removing dust and carrying those natural oils throughout the coat.  It makes them shine and helps protect them against the elements.

If you really do groom daily and you keep your brushes clean, you’ll be set with just those simple tools.  However, everybody takes a holiday now and then and occasionally there are occasions that warrant an extra special sparkle.  Even in the winter your steed can turn heads.

My favorite curry.  The big teethe break up dirt well.
The small side is perfect for faces and hard to scrub spots like the hocks.

First, start with a solid grooming session.  Your currying should bring any dirt, dandruff or scruff to the surface.  Now you have two options.  If you’re into disposable and you don’t have easy access to hot water, baby wipes are your friend.  Baby wipes are the best dust remover hands down.  They also work wonders on manure stains.  Scrub-a-dub and use a new one frequently.  They are also great for finishing touches like wiping out your horse’s nostrils and wiping out under his dock.  I also use my baby wipe supply to keep the inside of my horse’s blankets clean.  I just use a wipe or two to wipe out the grime that accumulates around the shoulders.  Just a little attention to detail can really help prevent shoulder rubs.

If you have hot water, you can save a bit of money by “hot toweling” instead of using baby wipes.  I like to work with two buckets of hot water and several towels.  Most people like to use dish washing gloves, but I’ve never been nice to my skin, so I don’t bother.  Basically you wet the towel in hot water, wring it as dry as you possibly can, they scrub an area.  When the towel gets to dirty or too cold, rinse it in the second bucket of water, wring it out, dunk in the first bucket, wring and repeat your scrubbing.  It takes a long time and a lot of water, but if you’re careful to get the towel dry enough each time, the horses seem to really enjoy it.  It’s kind of like going to the spa and having a hot towel yourself.

Finally, if you want your fussy pony to look her best, you might consider making her just a little less fuzzy.  Besides a tidy bridle path, your clippers can trim up the billy goat whiskers (if your horse lives outside, I wouldn’t cut the feeler whiskers on his nose, just the long shed hairs under this jaw bones), outsides of the ears, and the fetlocks.  One note of caution with fetlocks, if your horse is prone to scratches, don’t take off all the hair.  Clip carefully leaving a little peak at the back of the fetlock.  This helps precipitation drip off instead of pooling between the heel bulbs leading to all kinds of unpleasantness. 

I let my horse’s manes grow a bit longer in the winter.  We don’t have a lot of shows in the area and none that require braiding.  I think just a little extra fluff can help keep them warmer.  I certainly don’t like going out without my stocking cap!  If you’re trying to be presentable, don’t hesitate to even things up a bit, or even pull to about four inches.  If you want to leave it long – the French braid is your friend!

For finishing touches, wood putty matching your horse’s hoof color can fill in cracks.  Baby powder dusted lightly into white leg marking can lighten them up a bit, and don’t forget the importance of clean tack!  You’ve scrubbed the horse; don’t ask him to work in dirty equipment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a lot of work, but pretty much anything in life worth doing is.  So, bundle up and get scrubbing.  The cleaner they are before you ride, the cleaner they’ll be when you’re done.  Grooming is good for them, good for you and more than a means to an end.  Hopefully by Spring you’ll have a Fresh Perspective on grooming.

 

 

Reaction

“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually.  One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.”   - Rita Mae Brown

There is a lot of reacting in the world right now.  We’re reacting to tragedy.  We’re reacting to prophecy.  We’re reacting to holiday sales and reacting to holiday stress.  Why are we so compelled to react? 

Reaction, an action performed or a feeling experienced in response to a situation or event.  Reactions are a response to physical or mental external stimuli.  We can’t avoid outside stimuli.  Perhaps for brief moments we can escape, but invariably the world will get through.  As compelled as we may be to try and create a utopia around ourselves, it won’t happen.  Something will always upset the balance.  Our horses will throw shoes and people we’ve never heard of will make decisions that leave gaping holes in our lives.  We can’t control the stimuli but we can actively prepare.

Reactions tend to be negative.  Since a reaction is a response, something came first.  You’re already one-step behind.  Navigating life a step behind leaves us feeling like we’re always running to catch up.  It isn’t much fun and lately it has a host of people feeling helpless and out of control. 

With horses and life, you know that someday something is going to go “wrong.”  You’ll arrive at the show late, missing half your tack, the wind blowing, and Mr. Sleepy breathing fire.  Will you react by blaming the weather, the traffic, your work schedule or your lack of planning, all while hyperventilating or will you have a plan for how to deal with the circumstance?  That’s the difference between reactive and active thinking.

You obviously cannot plan for everything.  There will be unimaginable circumstances, but if you’ve practiced dealing with situations, your brain is going to handle a new “crisis” a little better.  Take the example of Mr. Sleepy hopping off the trailer breathing fire.  How will you handle the situation?  Will you react by getting upset at the circumstance or will you actively take steps to make the circumstance better?  Stay positive.  There is a lot of power in visualizing your desired outcome.  So Mr. Sleepy is dashing around the dressage warm-up like a barrel horse, ride him like you want the ride to go.  Post slower, breathe deeply, smile!  You’ll be amazed how well actively choosing your ride can make it a reality.

Due to current world circumstances, I wouldn’t feel right ending without mentioning that there are situations that we have absolutely no control over.  No amount of preparation will prepare us for them because they are unimaginable.  However, that doesn’t give us a free pass to react out of pain or anger.  Be actively compassionate, but look to the future not the past.  There is so much more I could say about choosing to be an active thinker both in and out of the saddle, but for now I'm going to leave you with this.  Be active in your life.  Make a difference to those around you, because you choose to, not because they do something to prompt it, and that’s my Fresh Perspective.

Yo-Ga Girl!

Time to hit the gym.

What?!?  I thought the holidays were a time to slack off a bit.  Let yourself go.  New Year’s is the time for gym busting.  Well, with a swim suit clad vacation looming and the horses on their self-inflicted winter break, I figure this is the perfect time to start the toning.

Normally I rely on manure bucket slinging (64 calories per stall), wheel barrow pushing (63 calories every ten minutes), hay bale hauling (20 minutes – 249 calories.  Straw 20 minutes – 181 calories) and the ever present hike for the horses (ten minutes – 40 calories) to help maintain my fitness, but this season we’re stepping up our game in the saddle which means I need to step-up my game outside of the tack.

It’s nothing fancy and it’s fast.  I have to fit my “work-out” in on my lunch break, which makes me feel a bit like wonder woman by the way.  I dash to the gym, do a presto-quick-o change of clothes, a set of twenty-five decline bench sit-ups, elliptical or stair climber for a mile, then a second set of sit-ups.  That leaves just enough time for either stretching or a quick cool down walk followed by a shower.  It might not be glamorous, but it’s a great way to refresh your brain before heading back to work.

After a couple of weeks, I’m really starting to enjoy the routine.  Hopefully the horses like the idea, because unbeknownst to them, they are getting ready to hit the gym too.  Nutmeg can throw her shoes and Admiral can spend every day recreating his mud pack, but when dinner rolls around its yoga time!

Nutmeg and I ventured to a new chiropractor over the weekend.  There were a lot of little things nibbling at me telling me she needed to visit the chiropractor, but I just couldn’t get to the big city to see our previous expert.   It was an informative afternoon and she didn’t beat around the bush.  She pointed out that compared to her neck and hindquarters, Nutmeg’s back is pretty weak.  Enter horsey sit-ups!

If you’ve ever goosed a horse by getting cold water under their tail before they were ready, you’ve seen a horsey sit-up.  You can stimulate that tucking motion without the cold water enema by stimulating a point on either buttock about a hand's with from the top of the tail.  We will also be doing belly lifts and shoulder stretches.

I’ve always said Nutmeg was a stiff horse, but our discussion with the chiropractor was really enlightening.  Just like I desperately need to stretch every day to keep my mobility, Nutmeg needs similar stretching to keep her limber.  There are a plethora of loosey-goosey horses that stay limber all on their own, but Nutmeg is not one of them.  Since I’ll be taking her to the gym each evening, Admiral is going to participate as well.  Stretching and muscle building will compliment his recovery program very well and it’s something we can do even when he insists of remaining covered in mud.

The holidays are a great time to take a break.  Your horses need time to relax and let down just as much as you do, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn them out into the wild and turn a blind eye for a month.  There are lots of ways to take a break, without losing all the hard work you put in over the year.  Spend time working on ground manners, go for some leisurely trail rides, groom, groom, groom and my Fresh Perspective for this winter, pick up the habit of horsey yoga!