You Can Never Desensitze Your Horse Enough

You can never guess what another person may decide to do while you're riding.

Since it's impossible to make this stuff up, you just have to desensitze for movement and noise, and be as proactive as possible.

"Hey, what are you doing? I'm riding!  DON'T do anything crazy now."

"Oh, heh. I didn't even see you there. I was just chasing the geese away."

The Freakin' Heat

Summer arrives officially on the 22nd of June.  But here in Florida, we are already feeling the extreme heat.  The Weather Channel app on my phone reports it is currently 94 degrees out, with the humidity, feels like 104 degrees.  The motto of those of us still riding our horses is ride early, as close to sunrise as possible, or ride late, as close to or after sundown.

The problem in Florida, and several other Southern States, is that horses, can "shut down" or stop sweating. There is no "cure" for anhydrosis or"non-sweating",other than to send the horse to a cooler climate. However, non-sweating can be managed. Horses need to be kept out of the sun under fans and as cool as possible.  For more information on non-sweating, check out these websites;http://www.non sweater.com/anhydrosis and https://vetmed-extension.sites.medinfo.ufl.edu/files/2013/05/Healthy-Horses-2013-Presentations.pdf.

I am off for the summer and have the luxury of being able to ride almost every day.  I am aware that keeping my horse cool and out of the extreme heat can prolong his usefulness and keep him healthy.  It is a slight inconvenience, during my vacation, I must get up earlier than I want to.  I feel I must  rescue my horse from the sun and flies around 6:30 in the morning.

In some ways, it is still better than visiting my mother in western New York for the summer, where the assortment of flying insects is much greater.  There, I must still rescue my horse.  When the sun breaks the tree line,shedding light on the barn area, the flies "wake up".  In New York, the  freezing winter temperatures, send the insect population into dormancy.  In Ft. Lauderdale, we have stable flies and mosquitos, but nothing like the amazing variety of insects that inhabit rural Western NY. For a number of years, my husband and I visited my mother from mid-June through early August. There, I had to rise early to get the horses in before the flies woke up. They seemed to "sleep" when it was dark or below seventy degrees. The flies were so bad that, once the temperature rose above 70, the  horses actually preferred to be in the barn.

Progress comes when you least expect it  at least that's what I find.  Thursday, the most amazing thing happened!  I was out riding OV and the crazy neighbors set off some left over fireworks.  Now, let me tell you, there was a day  when that kind of loud noise would have launched my horse into a tailspin.  Without thinking, I sucked in my breath and tightened up.  OV felt it and hesitated, but I pushed him on through it.  We kept riding, and THE OTHER TRAINER showed up to work a horse. Under her critical eye, OV held it together, trotting on without flinching during several major explosions.  I must say, I was really proud of my guy.  It may seem like such a small thing to a non-horse person, but that simple act of trotting on and not blowing up during a big distraction represents the culmination of a lot of hours of hard work and time spent with that horse  doing simple, repetitive exercises and waiting for the correct response.  In .OV's  case, it meant I sweated and ran around a lot too.  Most horses might give it up quicker. or a trainer with better timing and more experience than myself,  might get better results a lot quicker.  But
to me this is a HUGE achievement and I feel great!

With horses, just when you think everything is going great, something happens to slow you down.  Is that a corollary to Murphy's Law?  For example, I find a great trainer, the horse is doing super in training.  Then the hay changes.  For whatever reason, the timothy is now grass (not timothy even though the feed store will argue that until you are blue in the face). Although the hay is  green and the horses love it, the horse in training is constantly clearing his nose.  Clearly some kind of allergic reaction.  Now, instead of proceeding full speed ahead, you have to call the vet, do a treatment, try to figure out what hay he can (eat with out snorting) and is willing to eat (due to flavor, texture, smell, and whatever other criteria horses place on their dinner.)  And while you are figuring this out, bam, full speed ahead slows to a snail's crawl. 

Manna Pro Wafers Apple 25 Pounds - 0093006128

Fourth of July  poses an interesting challenge for South Florida horses.  Most of our horses are not used to the noise and lights.  All horses react differently, some take it in stride no big deal, others fall apart.  Last night, I was really proud of my boys.  They were excited to be turned out, because some early birds had been shooting fireworks off before dusk, and they could hear it from their stalls above the fan noise.  Charlie didn't even look up from his hay.  Overherd did a couple slow laps around the little tree and settled in to grazing.  This is a huge improvement from when I first got OV and had to keep him inside on the Fourth and New Years Eve.   I don't know if it's age, experience, training, or Charlie's relaxed  attitude that rubbed off on him.  Whatever the new calmer OV can be attributed to, I am thankful to know the horses had a laid back  Fourth of July enjoying the fireworks on a balmy South Florida night.

Horses...it's always something.  Just when you're trotting along really having a good time, your horse steps on himself and pulls a shoe, ripping half his hoof with it.  You get some new, really  beautiful looking hay and your horse develops an allergy to it.  You get your horse fit, sound, ready to race, and a big piece of cardboard blows up the shed row, and boom, you're doing damage control.  That's the thing about horses...it's always something.

Dressage Diva

DRESSAGE training or the horse, oh and in my case the rider.  Why is it that a person can intellectualize why and how, but when it comes to physical reality, struggle with the implementation?  After riding for many years, I am back to relaxing a minute muscle in my inner thigh that involuntarily tightens when I think a fearful thought on my horse's back.  Trying to be a Good Do Be, my horse slows down or halts.  I can feel myself thinking it.  But I can't seem to stop myself from thinking it. I can react,and push the horse on.  But in  order to prevent it?