Author Archives: Katie

How to spend your money – the Porta-Grazer

10 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Horse Care, How to Spend Your Money

≈ 27 Comments

I like the horses I care for to have hay in front of them 24/7 in order to prevent ulcers.  Having treated ulcers before, I can honestly say that preventing them is much less expensive than attempting to cure or manage them.

Even if it means buying a Porta-Grazer.  Which is what I did (actually I bought two) when I went to the Equine Affaire last fall.

Ulcer prevention wasn’t my only reason.  What actually prompted the expenditure was a new horse, who likes to take huge bites of hay, the bigger the better, dunk them and eat them.  I’ve never seen a horse go through a flake as quickly as this one.  I can throw a flake into his stall, walk down to the end of the aisle, and by the time I return, it will be gone. The only thing I’ve seen like it is my Yankee-Irish horse whispering boyfriend with half-a-dozen donuts from Mrs. Murphy’s.

They don’t have slow feeders for donuts, which I could definitely use, but they do have slow feeders for hay.  When a slow feeder looked like the best alternative to two bales a day or an empty stomach all night, I immersed myself in the virtual world of slow feeders.  In the process, I visited a lot of websites that reminded me just how unnatural natural horsemanship can be.

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The return of the diving horse

09 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

I’m not sure why, but it’s looking like nostalgia week here on the blog.

It’s been a long time — 34 years to be exact — since horses dove into the water at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  And now the diving horse is set to return this summer.

The act, c. 1930

The original act began in 1913 when Lorena (or Leonora) Carver became the first woman to dive off a platform into water on the back of a horse.

Lorena’s father, William F. “Doc” Carver, a show partner of “Buffalo Bill” Cody, invented the diving horse act in 1881.  What inspired him? He was riding across a wooden bridge when it collapsed and he and his horse fell into Nebraska’s Platte River.

Hotel developer Frank P. Gravatt brought the diving horse act to Atlantic City’s Steel Pier in 1928.  Over the 50 years in which the act was performed, over 19 women donned swimsuits and leapt into the water on the backs of over 14 horses.  The exact number of performers and many of their names, both human and horse, are lost to history.

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Heart and kidney

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

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Sixty-nine-year-old former jump jockey Richard Pitman just donated one of his kidneys to a stranger.

How’s that for heart?

As good as any ‘chaser.  Mr. Pitman decided to give away a kidney after watching a friend suffer from kidney failure and then blossom after receiving a donated kidney.  “The point is you have two and you only need one,” he said.

Today, Mr. Pitman is a BBC TV commentator on the sport in which he once successfully competed.  And he knows of what he speaks.  He won both the King George VI Chase and the Whitbread Gold Cup.  He rode Crisp in the Grand National of 1973, one of the great sporting contests of all time.

How’s this for heart?


Against the odds

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Inspiration

≈ 7 Comments

Do you remember Stroller and his rider Marion Coakes Mould?  You may not, if you’re not of a ripe old age or have a fondness for equestrian stars of the past.

Stroller was a pony, standing 14.2h.  When Marion Coakes was 14, in 1960, she spotted him at a horse show.  Her father bought him for a thousand British pounds and they picked him up in a field behind a butcher’s shop.

After just four years together, the pair began an unprecedented winning streak, triumphing in 61 international competitions including the Hickstead Derby, two Ladies’ World Championships, the Queen Elizabeth II Cup (twice), and the Leading Show Jumper of the Year.  With Marion aboard, Stroller tied with Alwin Schockemohle and Athlet as winner of the Puissance class at Antwerp in 1967, clearing the wall at 6’8″ and putting a brick out at 6’10”.

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Rules – a double-edged sword

06 Monday Feb 2012

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Continuing the discussion of rules regarding the welfare of the horse, it’s time to look at the FEI “blood rule.”

While this is, indeed, yesterday’s news, the subject will be revisited this spring, when the Veterinary Committee presents its proposal for a general rule that is valid and applicable for all FEI disciplines.   The rule will be discussed at the FEI Sports Forum this April, for adoption by the General Assembly in 2012 and implementation next year.

The elimination of Adelinde Cornelissen of the Netherlands at the World Equestrian Games, brought the issue to the fore last year.  Her horse Parzival, who was found to have bitten his lip, was eliminated after bloody foam appeared in his mouth.

Currently, in FEI dressage competition, any visible blood on the horse falls under the purview of this simple guideline for elimination: “The performance is against the welfare of the horse.”

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Another look at the two-finger rule

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Horse Care, Tack

≈ 1 Comment

Yesterday, I contrasted the “two-finger rule” established by the United States Dressage Federation with the “two-finger rule” proposed by the International Society for Equitation Science.

There are many points of divergence which I highlighted yesterday, among them being where those two famous fingers actually go.

To recap:  The USDF says “under the noseband on the side of the face under the cheekbone.”  The ISES says “between the noseband and the horse’s nasal midline.”

What difference does it make?

Well, let’s take a look at a horse’s skull:

Drawing by Pisanello, c. 1433-1438 @ The Louvre

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The two-finger rule

03 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by in Horse Care, Tack

≈ 4 Comments

The International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) released a position statement a few days ago relating to nosebands.  Yippee!  Every little bit helps (actually, often a smaller bit does help, but we’re talking about nosebands now…more about bits later).

The ISES states that the “two finger rule” should be applied to nosebands in competition.  Just like the USDF.  Where they vary is where the two fingers should go, and in their general attitude towards the welfare of the horse.

According to the ISES, the two fingers should go (actually, they recommend they should “fit easily”) between the noseband and the horse’s nasal midline.  To avoid any gray area, the ISES further recommends that the noseband tightness should be officially measured during competitions, with a taper gauge.  The statement reads, “The gauge should be placed without force and be clearly marked to show the desired stop which, in alignment with established industry guidance, should be the dimensions of two average adult fingers.  Riders should be advised and encouraged to use the same gauge in practice.”

Pretty taper gauge commonly used for body piercing

Don’t you think that taper gauges similar to the one I’ve pictured at right could catch on?  They’re so pretty.

Much prettier than the USDF rule regarding nosebands.  Here it is, rule DR121.6, established in January of 2010 (the italics and boldface are my own):

“6.  Only those bits listed with Figure 1 are allowed.  At any level of competition, a cavesson noseband may never be so tightly fixed that it causes severe irritation to the skin, and must be adjusted to allow at least two fingers under the noseband on the side of the face under the cheekbone.  Cavesson nosebands may be used with a chin pad.  At any level of competition, a browband may be multicolored and may be decorated with metal, beads, gemstones and crystals.”

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Haplogroups hippique

02 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Until the other day, I’d never heard of a haplogroup.  But the concept is essential to our understanding of where horses came from.

Simply (or not-so-simply, depending on your scientific bent), a haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome and can be traced along a maternal line, right back to the original “mother.”

Mitochondrial DNA - bella, no?

The first complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of the horse was reported in 1994.   Now, a research team headed by Alessandro Achilli, from the department of cellular and environmental biology at the University of Perugia in Italy, has made a breakthrough discovery. Analyzing equine mitochondrial DNA (which is inherited solely from the mother), the team has discovered how many horse haplogroups exist as well as identified the Ancestral Mare Mitogenome.  You can read the full article here.

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How to spend your money – the Sharpie Rub-a-Dub

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in How to Spend Your Money

≈ 5 Comments

If you have numerous horses and numerous blankets and sheets…if you board at a busy barn…if you want to easily identify what’s yours and what’s not, I recommend a Sharpie Rub-a-Dub.

With a cute, 1950’s kind of name (think wash-omatic), the Sharpie Rub-a-Dub does everything a Sharpie does and keeps it from coming out in the wash.

My only wish is that it came in colors.  It only comes in black.  So if you have black or navy sheets, the way I do, it’s trickier to label them.  But there’s usually someplace on a blanket — even if it’s the fleece at the withers or the binding, where you can identify that it belongs to your horse.

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