Horse Sense

Fancy Dress Friday - The Explorers Pony and Children dressed to Explore

This is a great idea for a family, especially if there are siblings arguing over who is going to take the family pony into the fancy dress competion.

 

Other  Equine Fancy Dress Friday posts include:

Pegasus Chariot Amazing Equine Fancy Dress

Video of horse and rider costumes

Moulin Rouge costume for horse and rider

Native costumes

Three Wise Men Shetland Style

Dachshund dressed as a horse

Lord of the Rings Ringwraith

Sinterklass

Little Bo Peep has lost her Sheep

Pony dressed as Ballet Dancer

Horse as giraffe

Night mare costume for horse & children

Invisible horse

Horse dressed for diving / swimming horse costume

Hula Hula Horse

Ladies Day

Horses dressed as fish

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

Horses and Ponies dressed as Unicorns

A foal with wings

Horses as Zebras

Harry Potter Horse

Fancy Clip - Camel 

How to paint your horse's skeleton

Horse dressed as elephant

Horse dressed as dinasour

Horse dressed as a car, 

Spanish Lady

Dog dressed as horse

Sunflower Horse and Bumble Bee Handler

Pirate Ship

Skeleton

Easter Bunny

If Wishes Were Ponies - Franga Designs

Fancy Clips

BRC Quadrille Selection 2011

Miniature Horses in Fancy Dress

Pony dressed as lion

Pony styled as a poodle

Instructions for making an equine poodle costume here

The Nine Ethical Principles of the True Horseman

1. Anyone involved with a horse takes over responsibility for this living creature entrusted to him.
2. The horse must be kept in a way that is in keeping with his natural requirements.
3. Highest priority must be accorded to the physical as well as psychological health of the horse, irrespective of the purpose for which is it is used.
4. Man must respect every horse alike, regardless of its breed, age and sex and its use for breeding, for recreation or in sporting competition.
5. Knowledge of the history of the horse, its needs and how to handle it are part of our historic-cultural heritage.  This information must be cherished and safeguarded in other to be passed on to the the next generations.
6. Contact and dealings with horses are character building experiences and of valuable significance to the development of the human being – in particular the young person.  This aspect must be respected and promoted.
7. The human who participates in equestrian sport with his horse must subject himself as well as his horse to training.  The goal of any training is to bring about the best possible harmony between horse and rider.
8. The use of the horse in competition was well as in general riding, driving and vaulting must be geared towards the horse’s ability, temperament and willingness to perform.  Manipulating a horse’s capacity to work by means of medication or other “horse-unfriendly” influences should be rejected by all and people engaged in such practises should be prosecuted.
9. The responsibility a human has for the horse entrusted to him included the end of the horse's life.  The human must always assume this responsibility and implement any decisions in the best interest of the horse.

   First Published in 1994 by the German National Equestrian Federation in Ethical Principles for the True Horseman

How to ride a horse 1950 Walt Disney Goofy cartoon

A very amusing Walt Disney cartoon from 1950 "How to ride a horse" starring Goofy, very entertainting!

Oats for horses

Oats,  once the traditional grain fed to horses, lost favour over recent years but there are many reasons why oats are much, much better for horses than other grains. Take a look at this extract from The Equine Feed Oats Project:

"Oats are a favored grain used in horse feed. Owners of thoroughbreds, show horses and other high-performance horses still choose oats first over other grains.

Research has proven that oats are safer and healthier for horses than other grain choices for several reasons: 

• Oats provide a more efficient source of energy for the horse - as oat starch is digested it creates glucose. The starch in other grains is not as easily digested by the small intestine and therefore moves on to the large intestine, creating volatile fatty acids. Glucose is a much better source for energy than volatile fatty acids;
• Horses that are fed other grains instead of oats have a higher chance of getting colic. Many cases of colic are associated with starches that are not digested by the small intestine, therefore moving on to the large intestine where it can rapidly ferment;
• Oats are less likely to contain mycotoxins, which can be fatal in horses;
• Oats contain higher levels of fiber than other grains;
• Oats do not have to be processed in order for them to be safe for horse consumption;
• When feeding oats over other grains, less protein supplementation is needed.

Oats are sold in various forms:

• Whole oats: Unprocessed oats complete with the husks (or outer casing);
• Crimped oats: Oats that have been “crimped” which damages the husk and increases surface area;
• Hulled oats (groats): Oats that have had the husks removed;
• Rolled oats: Groats that have been flattened;
• Crushed oats: This is a rougher process, which involves breaking both the husk and the kernel of the oat.

Today, many horse owners choose a pre-mixed or pelleted feed for their horses for convenience. Ingredient labels often detail the grains used in the feed and owners can look for feeds that incorporate oats. Many owners also buy oats as a supplement."

The Equine Feed Oat Project (EFOP) is an initiative of the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA), a volunteer farmer organization representing 20,000 hard-working Canadian oat growers.

 

Do you need to breed? World Horse Welfare video

World Horse Welfare take in about 200 neglected horses every year, every single one of which started life somewhere. While the choices of responsible, ordinary horse owners can seem far removed from the terrible cases World Horse Welfare deal with on a daily basis, the Need to Breed? initiative is to spread the word about the impact that breeding just one foal can have.

 

Find out more about World Horse Welfare's Need to Breed campaign by clicking here

Win a $5,000 Shopping Spree from Smartpak

Smartpak are offering residents of the USA a chance to win a $5,000 shopping spree  all you have to do is visit the Shopping Spree page and  sign up. You could win a $5,000 SmartPak Shopping Spree, good on everything from tack and apparel to supplements and pharmaceuticals! You must be 18 years or older, and a legal resident of the United States to enter. See official sweepstakes rules for complete details.

6 Crazy / weird horse related laws

In Australia bars are required by law to stable, water and feed the horses of their patrons and taxi cabs are required to carry a bale of hay in the boot /trunk.

In Canada it is illegal to drag a dead horse down Yonge St, Toronto, on a Sunday and an Alberta Provencial Law requires all businesses to provide rails for the tying horses to.

In the USA it is illegal to allow a horse to sleep in a bakery within community limits in Paradise, California and in McAllen, Texas you can't take a photograph of your horse on a Sunday.

 

People ought to quit worrying so much about whispering to their horses ~ Greg Darnall quote

"People ought to quit worrying so much about whispering to their horses and just start listening to them." Sound advice from Greg Darnall.

Click the following links for more horse quotes:

Horse Quotes, Favourite Horse Quotes,

Never to lose one's temper with the horse is a good precept - Xenophon

Good riding is an affair of skill but bad rising is an affair of courage - Colnel VDS Williams OBE

Brazillian proverb - He made the horse

The jewel of my childhood - ponies -Nell Gifford

Your horse should be a trusted friend - Xenophon

Praise for thoroughbreds - Dianne Grod

The horse is a very noble creature - Desmond Morris

Make him your FRIEND - Oliveira

stables are the real centre of the household - George Bernard Shaw

The Queen and Horses,

Monica Dickens - You and your horse,

Sherlock Holmes - Game of Shadows

Black Elk - A Sky Full of Horses

Don Vincenzo Giobbe

Seabiscuit - Quotation from the film

Elizabeth Taylor - on horses

Anna Sewell - quote about bad tempers and horses

Image:   is of Australian origin and is now in the public domain because its term of copyright has expired. According to the Australian Copyright Council (ACC), ACC Information Sheet G023v16 (Duration of copyright) (Feb 2012) It has been digitised by the State Library of Queensland, and provided to the Wikimedia Commons as part of a cooperative project. The metadata has been released by State Library of Queensland under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

Show Jumping Horses - The Ultimate Athlete

Remembering the London 2012 Olympics, this footage was taken using a high speed camera  300 frames per second. This frame rate is nearly 25 x faster than the human eye.

Foal dumped in a river

“If you’re born a boy horse, you’re in trouble, male foals are not wanted because they are costly to castrate and cannot produce foals." Nicolas de Brauwere of  Redwings

This foal was left to drown in an Essex river, he is now named Stephen and is being cared for at Redwings Horse Sanctuary

“The river ran by a waterworks. We have no idea how he ended up there, but there was no sign of a broodmare, so we suspect that, sadly, he may have been put there." 

An RSPCA spokesperson said:”It is appalling and heartbreaking that a young foal like this could be dumped with no thought to his care or wellbeing. This is indicative of the sort of serious neglect of horses that we are increasingly seeing. We are grateful to Redwings for taking him on and caring for him.”

Senior Welfare Coordinator for Redwings, Rachel Angell, said: “More and more often we are seeing young colts like Stephen being deliberately abandoned as their value is so low and yet so many continue to be bred who are just not wanted. In Stephen’s case it is looking increasingly likely that this was deliberate as no owner has come forward. It is heart-breaking that anyone could do something so cruel. His rescue really was a case of teamwork and we’d like to thank everyone involved for bringing him this far. We will give him the best start in life we possibly can, and hopefully get him recover from his ordeal as soon as possible.”

To read the full story, click here River rescue foal arrives and if you feel able and wish to donate towards Stephen's ongoing care, please follow this link, thank you!