Category: Horse

If you own a horse, there is no doubt that you have gone online to look for horse tips. There are plenty of websites that have valuable tips, but also plenty of tips that are simply outrageous for many reasons. Some recommendations you may find online will tell you to do things that humiliate the horse, hurt the horse, or psychologically damage the horse. Other tips may tell you to do things that create a level of fear between the trainer and the horse that is simply unacceptable in today’s world.

Good horse tips are ones that, generally speaking, allow a healthy and safe relationship to blossom between the trainer and the horse. The best training is done not by a professional trainer, but by the owner. Because trust is such a big part of training, the person who will be riding the horse must be the one that the horse trusts. That is why it is important, as an owner and a rider, to be a good trainer.

A new owner starts their relationship with a horse with very little knowledge. They may have some vague thoughts about how to train a horse, most likely based on how they trained a dog or even brought up a child in the past. But, training a horse is much different.

One place to start looking for quality horse tips is Eric Bravo’s Gentle Natural Horsemanship. This type of training is beneficial to the horse in that it doesn’t humiliate her or depend on intimidation to accomplish training goals. The gentle training allows a relationship to grow between horse and owner, one that will last for years to come. You don’t need to pay a lot of money and wait a long time for a professional trainer to train your horse – you can do it yourself!

There are innumerable joints and ligaments that are found in horses, and they tend to be very important, as an injury to them can lead to serious problems. The horse suspensory ligament is one such important ligament present in the legs of the horses. A serious injury to it can result in making a horse lose its inherent ability to run very fast, thus making them incapable of running well.

The injury of the horse suspensory ligament is found to affect usually those horses which participate in races. As the injury can affect any of the legs, it may spell doom for the racing career of the horse.

The horse suspensory ligament is in fact a muscle that has modified into a ligament. This ligament is built up of different fibers, namely muscle fibers and tendon fibers. A major portion of the fibers that build up the horse suspensory ligament are the tendon fibers. The numbers of muscle fibers building up the suspensory ligament is found to vary from breed to breed.

The sesamoid bone, distal sesamoidian ligaments and the suspensory ligament all together make up the horse suspensory. As horses run the weight of the body is transferred between the legs. The suspensory facilitates this weight transition from one leg to the other, by supporting the fetlock joint. As the weights are transferred from one leg to the other, the injuries to the horse suspensory is increased.

The injury to the horse suspensory is found to heal back on its own. The healing process however takes some time, as there are several steps that the body must complete in order to recuperate from the injury. At first the white blood cells present in the body have to remove the tissue that has been damaged by the injury. Once the tissue has been removed, new tissue needs to be developed by fibroblasts, which then helps regenerate the tissues.

However it is to be understood that although the body would help in rebuilding the horse suspensory, it will not be of the same standards as it was before. It tends to be weaker than before, thereby making it more prone to getting damaged all over again, the next time it is affected with an injury.

Recovery from an injury to the horse suspensory would take a lot of months, during which the horse owners need to take proper care of the horses. They should not be allowed to move too much, and after they have recovered fully, they should be made to do some small exercises before starting running once again.

By now I’m sure you will have guessed that am a bit of a bridle bit junkie. I’m so hooked on learning more about bridle bit that I search ALL day some days. Well yesterday, I found a fantastic article about bridle bitand I wanted to share it with you.

Check it out below and then come back and click on the link at the end of this sentence if you wanna know more about bridle bit.

This informative article discusses the types and variations of equine Bridles and also their applications in the equestrian world.

Hackamore – This is a bitless bridle which is effective in controlling the horse via pressure points on the horses head and face. Reins are attached to the nose band/nose piece. This form of large leather bridle is often a good choice for horses with sensitive mouths and helps maintain good control of the horse. However, most shows don’t allow the use of Hackamore bridles.

Pelham – For use with a single pelhon bit, this English type bridle allows the use of either a snaffle or curb rein.

Double – As the name suggests, this bridle uses 2 bits; a Bradon and a Weymouth. Each has their own set of reins. Due to the potential severity of this bridle and the skill it can require for use it is more commonly used in high levels of riding.

Western – As you would expect these bridles are usually worn in ‘western’ scenarios. They don’t have a noseband and are frequently seen without a brow band. The missing brow band is often replaced with a single ear design that wraps around one ear for security, helping to keep the bridle on.

Gag – This bridle is for use with ‘Gag’ bits. The cheek pieces are rounded and pass through both top and bottom holes of the bit attaching directly to the reins. Pressure on the reins slides the bit up or down the cheek pieces putting pressure on the corners of the horse’s mouth. This bridle if not used with caution can have a severe action. A common bit used in Polo, Rodeo and Show Jumping.

Halter – Commonly used by trail riders, for endurance riding and on ranches. This bridle has a ‘halter’ design and quick release cheek pieces. This is a brilliant safety feature for when wanting to tie up horses and for relieving the horse of the bit without having to remove the whole bridle.

Snaffle – One of the most commonly used bridles in English Riding. This bridle uses one bit, usually the Snaffle bit and one set of reins. It can be used with and other bits that use single reins.

There are many variations of bridles and they can be very specific for their purpose. Some bridles provide pressures on areas of the horse’s head, e.g. poll or lips, which assist in controlling the horse.

Parts of the Bridle – from top to bottom

Headpiece – A strip of leather that sits just behind the horses ears, the straps at either end are, on either side, the cheek pieces. The strip of leather on the horses off side is the throat lash; on the nearside is the throat lash attachment.

Brow band – Additional security to prevent the cheek pieces slipping back. Noseband attachment and headpiece run through either end of the brow band. Decorative jewellery or colourful ribbon can be sewn on to brow bands for decoration, often matching the rider.

Cheek pieces – Either side of the horses face, are found on either end of the headpiece. They are used to attach the bit to the bridle.

Noseband – Attached through the ends of the brow band and follows the same line over the horses head as the headpiece. Used to keep the mouth / jaws closed, or for attaching certain martingales.

Throat lash – Fitted as a strap under the horse’s throat for additional security. Should not be fitted tightly.
Reins – Attach to the bit, below the cheek pieces attachments. They are the rider’s form of contact to the horses head. They can be made of rubber, plain leather, braided or laced leather or non-slip material useful for when riding in wet conditions.

There are other attachments or accessories that can be worn in conjunction with these basics; these include Bit Guards, Curb Straps, Lip Straps and Blinkers. All of which will be added if and when they are needed. There are also a range of pony show bridles.

Fitting and Safety
Horses should never be tied up using the reins of their bridle. If they were to pull back severe injury to the horses head and jaw can occur.

A correctly fitted bridle is essential for the horses comfort and the riders’ control. A correctly fitting bridle will help when trying to develop a good working relationship between horse and rider.

Horses are tamed for their brilliant performance and stout physique. Their strong legs with hard hooves help them to be one of the fastest animals in this planet. This quick mobility is attained by strong and healthy joints. Horse joint health is one of the important factors which horse owners need to worry about. Maintaining great joints is an important necessity for a brilliant horse that gives outstanding performance. Healthy joints are very much important for its stability, fitness, stamina as well as its flexibility. It is very important to keep horse joint healthy because unhealthy joints in horses can lead to their developing mobility problems, which results in their getting frustrated and staying lonely most of the times.

Generally horse joint health can be maintained by outstanding supervision and nutritional controls. Horses develop joints problem if they are too old or due to profound training and tough workouts. During this workouts the joints are used efficiently which in turn produces free radicals in their body. These free radicals eat up the anti oxidants present in the synovial fluid or the joint fluid. Due to this, the dense fluid turns in a thin liquid and the cushion between the cartilage and bone ends. After this, workouts can be really harmful, as the cartilage and the bone come closer to each other and starts chafing themselves. Due to this injury occurs and this in turn leads to unhealthy joints, which results in your horse suffering from a bad horse joint health.

Horse joint health can be maintained by taking several necessary precautions. You should start the heavy workouts after a certain age. Maintain proper nutrition of your horse. Avoid overfeeding to your horses and maintain a proper diet with low calories. These are some of the useful factors that can highly affect your horse joint health.

To maintain your horse joint health you should regularly visit veterinary for regular check ups. Feed the horses with vitamin and mineral rich food. Feed your horses with phosphorous and calcium rich foods like blue green algae. Do not feed your horse with carbohydrate rich foods as it is very harmful to bones. According to the workout maintain proper nutrition. There are various horse joint supplements, injections and vaccination that are found to be very effective in maintaining a good horse joint health.

These are the few overviews of some ideas that will help you to ensure that your horses maintain satisfactory horse joint health. Maintaining these can surely be beneficial for ensuring good joints in your horse. We should incessantly search for the different new ways to help the overall health of our horses.

With regard to training tips, horses can be very difficult or very easy to train. It all depends on the horse and what situation he has come from. If you have a horse as a baby, training will be significantly easier than an older horse that is still wild. If you are looking for training tips, horses are either already in your life, or you are interested in getting your very first horse. Helpful guides such as Horse Training Secrets Revealed will help you train a horse whether you are new or a veteran.

Horse training is described as various techniques which can be used in order to teach horses to accomplish a variety of specific actions. Horses can be given many jobs such as transport, sport racing, therapeutic actions such as giving rides to the physically disabled, or even basic riding. Each of these tasks requires different training to accomplish.

Even though you can not ride a horse when it is still an infant, some of the early skills are best taught at this age. Things such as desensitization, driving in ground, biting, and longeing are popular skills to teach a horse that is still young. These can all be taught before the horse is taught to ride so that things are easier when you get to that point.

Once the above training processes have been completed, riding is a possibility. The first thing you need to do is get the horse used to the saddle and any other riding equipment that you will need. Teaching basic commands such as go, stop, and turn around are important to teach the horse so that you can enjoy riding it. Properly training a horse will help you develop a deep bond with the horse, and you can enjoy a lifetime of riding.

Injuries can affect any living being in this world. People can develop injuries while going about with their normal work schedules. The same way horses also often get injured, and develop horse injuries that are very severe and could affect a horse badly. Horse injuries can sometimes even result in the death of the horses. Horses being animals are incapable of knowing what or what not can harm them. You may pay a lot of attention in trying to bring up your horse, but in spit of all the attention you pay, they will develop injuries some how. All you can do is make sure that the injuries in your horses are kept minimal.

We should try and find out the various horse injuries and their after effects. Thus by knowing the after effects of several injuries, we can prevent the damage caused by them by lowering their intensity. Some of the common injuries that are often found to affect horses are lacerations, contusions, puncture wounds, general lameness, scrapes and abrasions. The most dangerous horse injuries among these are contusions and puncture wounds. A contusion is a horse injury that is caused when a horse is kicked by another horse. It can cause severe damage to the muscle in various parts of the body. Puncture wounds, which are caused by bacterial infection on the wounded areas, are not visible and are seen to infect the tissues.

There are various ways to prevent these horse injuries just by taking little care of horses. You should just inspect the grazing land or the pasture area time to time. You should remove different iron particles, plastic or metal trash from the pasture land. There could be innumerable particles on the grass which could intensely hurt them. You should inspect the stable area same as the pasture area, because unwanted metal trash can be anywhere and could cause horse injuries.

You should secure the horses within a protected area by maintaining a suitable fence around their stables. Take care that the fence should not be rounded with wire. The wire around the fence can lead to horse injuries like scars.

You must ensure that the horses that are kept together have a good bond among themselves; otherwise they would fight with each other causing horse injuries. This can cause them puncture wounds which can be quite severe for the horses. The horses should not be confined for long s they will try to move out and destroy the fences. This can also cause severe horse injuries.

You have to be alert that wild animals like snake or dogs should not enter the area fenced. Dogs often carry infection like rabies which can harm your horse. These are some of the horse injuries that may affect horses and may lead to serious trouble for them.

If you have decided to train your own horse instead of hiring a professional trainer then you have a lot of work ahead of you. It is very rewarding to train a horse because not only will it raise your own confidence, but it will also raise the confidence of your horse and form a strong bond between you. If you have never trained a horse before, there are many resources that can provide you with all of the information you need in order to be successful when you train a horse. One of these resources is Horse Training Secrets Revealed. This guide will teach you absolutely anything you need to know when training a horse. It is a valuable resource that I would recommend to anybody who wants to take on the task of training their own horse.

An important thing to remember when training your horse is to be patient. Remember that every horse is going to learn at a different rate and pushing it is only going to frustrate you and the horse. So keep this in mind when you begin training. Some horses take a very long and intense training and these horses are often called problem horses. Some people will give up on these horses or call in a trainer to help. The good thing is, the guide I mentioned earlier can help you personally deal with these hard to train horses.

Horses are very beautiful animals, and a great addition to any farm. Whether you want a horse to ride casually, race, or perform well in agility courses the horse will need to be trained for all of these tasks. Picking up a good guide can provide you with all of the skills to train the horse yourself, without the expensive help of a professional trainer.

Horses are often seen by people in racecourses across the world. Many a times, people must have wondered at how energetic these horses are, and how healthy they must be. However, horses are not completely safe from diseases, and are in fact prone to many health problems. They need to be taken care of in the proper manner, to ensure that they remain in excellent health. Apart from the diseases that the horses are often affected with, there are many horse infections too that may create health hazards for them.

Horse infections may be affecting different parts of the body of the horse. The results of these infections may either be mild ones or can even be of a very serious nature. It is up to the horse owners to try and detect horse infections in their horses when there is enough time. Often it is noticed that people are late with their detection of infections in horses, and the poor animals have to suffer a lot of pain before they are finally relieved from the infections.

It has also been noticed that horses tend to develop wounds on their body. These wounds are a result of the tough training that is sometimes given to horses, or the ones that they developed after having an accident. If these wounds are not dressed up within time, horse infections may result due to the attacks of bacteria on the wounds. As soon a wound is noticed on the body of a horse it should be dressed properly after treating it with antibiotic ensures. Doing this would ensure that the horse do not suffer from some sort of horse infections.

Many horse infections that are seen to create health problems for the horses, find their way into the body of the horse through the respiratory tract. There will be no signs of any infection on the horses, until the infection becomes severe. However by vaccinating the horses against some of the well known horse infections would ensure that the horses are completely safe of being affected by any serious infection.

Whenever a horse becomes affected with any of the common horse infections they are found to develop some symptoms. These symptoms may often not be too pronounced, however if the horses are regularly checked it is possible to even detect the minor symptoms. Once any symptom is noticed the horse should be taken for a checkup by a veterinarian, to find the possible horse infections that may be affecting it.

By taking the horse for routine checkups, horse owners can stay updated about their health conditions, and will be able to know whether they are suffering from horse infections or not.

Before you decide to follow your passions and get a horse of your own, there are some important issues you need to know. Leave no room for mistakes: you don’t want to regret your decision. Once you have decided to proceed, you need to start searching for the horse.

Once you found the horse you want to buy that looks right for you, what do you do? What do you want to achieve and how do you know if this is the horse for you? What is the reason you are buying a horse? Are you planning to use this horse for riding? In many instances, horses are used to drive a cart or buggy.

Do check the temperament of this adorable creature before you pay for it as sometimes looks can be deceiving. Choose the one you would likely get along well with, one that suits your temperament. A pushy horse will soon have you at its disposal of you aren’t that familiar with horses. Is you are getting the horse for rides, do not go for those prize winning breed that have heavy price tags. Do not purchase a young horse and try to train them yourself if you do not have enough skills to do it. The unfortunate combination of untrained rider with an untrained horse simply spells disaster. Wait a while until you have more experience or you pay the price for your mistakes – such as injuries to you and your horse because you did not know what you were doing.

Take an experienced friend with you to check out horses as they will be less biased. It is not uncommon for people in their enthusiasm to end up buying a horse that will be too much of a handful for them if they do not have someone along to temper their decision. If your companion is an experienced rider then so much the better – they can test the animal on your behalf. Often, owners will be happy to show them riding the horse but be reluctant to allow anyone else saying there is no need – this should ring alarm bells.

There are many diseases that are seen to affect horses in different parts of the world. Some of these diseases tend to be confined within a particular geographical area, while many others are found to be affecting horses all over the world. It is not possible to find information on all the diseases, and hence horse owners need to take their horses to veterinarians, to find out the nature of the disease that may be affecting their horse. The Monday morning illness is a very common horse illness that is found to affect innumerable horses throughout the world.

This horse illness was initially among those horses that were used for helping people in their work, like carrying loads for them or helping them in drawing a carriage. The horses that were seen to be affected with the illness, usually used to work throughout the week from Monday to Saturday. They were allowed a full day of rest on Sunday, on which day they need to have to do any work. It was noticed that when these horses were taken out to work on Monday, they showed a reluctance to move and also suffered from some symptoms. As this effect was seen in horses on Monday morning, the horse illness came to be called as Monday morning illness.

There are several symptoms that are shown by the horses that are suffering from this particular horse illness. The usual symptoms include development of cramps on the body and stiffness of different muscles. Other symptoms included an irregular breathing pattern and too much sweating. The most marked symptom of this horse illness is that the horses tend to show a general unwillingness to move from their places.

Monday morning illness is found to affect horses in three different forms: sporadic, chronic and recurrent. The sporadic form of this horse illness is noticed in those horses, which had been working without any problem till some time back. The chronic form is seen in those horses, which have been showing the symptoms of the disease for quite some time. Thoroughbred horses and those originating from Arabia are noticed to be mostly suffering from the recurrent variety of the horse illness.

The treatment for different forms of the horse illness is noticed to be quite different. However the best possible way to counteract the Monday morning illness is to make some changes on the diet of the horses. Grass hay and rice bran have been found to be quite effective in treating the illness. Also it is suggested that foods with high fat levels should be avoided, and the horses should be provided with some exercise on a daily basis.