Category: horses

2018-10-10

MULE CROSSING: Keys To Successful Training, Part 2: Your Working Environment

Your Working Environment is the second in a series of posts HVB guest author Meredith Hodges will be offering every month on this blog. I ‘met’ Meredith online via the Facebook Donkey Training Group when I asked its members for their recommendations on the best donkey and mule books out.

Meredith’s books, now on this website, came with the highest recommendations… and Meredith herself chimed in. I’m so pleased she’s offered to post with us every month!

So without further ado, here’s Meredith Hodges!

The Work Station

It is important that your equine feels safe and comfortable in his surroundings. For this reason, you should use the same place each day to groom and prepare him for his lessons.

In the beginning, use a small pen (approximately 400 to 500 square feet) that allows you access to your equine for imprinting, tying, leading and grooming, as described in DVDs #1 and #8 of my series, Training Mules & Donkeys (plus disc #9 when dealing with donkeys), and in Part 1 of Equus Revisited.

All the while, you will also be teaching him good ground manners. Remember, routine fosters confidence and trust.

Once your equine has mastered tying and leading in the small pen, he can then move on to a designated work station where he will not only be groomed, but will also learn to accept tack in preparation for the round pen. This should be a place that has a good stout hitch rail and easy access to your tack and grooming equipment.

When working around your equine at the work station, pay special attention to his body language. If he becomes tense or skittish, acknowledge his concerns with a stroke on his neck, supportive words to him and a reward of crimped oats when he settles down. Always learn to wait for him to settle down before you proceed.

Don’t make too much out of unimportant details. For instance, if your equine is pawing the ground, don’t insist that he be still unless you need to approach him and do something specific with him. Many of your animal’s anxious behaviors get unintentionally rewarded by giving him too much attention, which can actually cause the behaviors to escalate.

If you ignore pawing, cribbing, throwing of the head, pushing with the nose, stomping and other anxious behaviors, they will lessen over time, provided that you step in, ask him to stop and reward your animal, but only when he is being quiet.

Before you begin to groom your equine—whether you’re going to brush, vacuum or clip him—make sure you give him the time to figure out what you are going to do. He will exhibit his acceptance with a sigh, relaxation of his muscles or with a turn or dropping of the head.

Once he has accepted the presence of the item to be used, such as a brush, vacuum or clippers, you can begin. Don’t forget to always start at the front and work your way back to the tail.

Keep an eye on the pressure you apply whenever using these various grooming tools. Different animals will have different sensitivity to these tools and will tolerate them better if they know you are not going to cause undue pressure or pain.

Learn to brush the mane and tail starting at the bottom and working upward, and use a conditioner such as baby oil to keep from pulling or breaking the hair. (Baby oil will also keep other equines from chewing on the tail.) A shedding blade can be an uncomfortable grooming tool when used improperly.

When using a shedding blade to remove mud around the head and ears and even on your animal’s body, be careful to minimize his discomfort by monitoring the pressure you apply to each area and working VERY slowly. When bathing him, be extra careful not to get water in his eyes or ears.

These types of consideration for your equine’s comfort will help build his trust and confidence in you, and it will help make training easier and more enjoyable for both of you.

Tack and Equipment

In order to elicit the correct response from your equine, always make sure you are using the correct tack for whatever you are doing. If you are not sure about what tack to use when, go to the Lucky Three Ranch website for more detailed information, or ask the experts in your area.

Make sure all tack and equipment fits your animal properly. If it doesn’t, it can cause adverse behaviors during training.

In the Round Pen

Once your equine is leading well in the small pen, he should be in consistently good posture with square halts, easily negotiating trail obstacles in the open and relatively relaxed while at the work station, he is ready to move to the round pen.

Once in the round pen, you will have an opportunity to assess your animal’s progress so you can begin work on balancing on the circle in good posture and conditioning the hard muscle masses in preparation for performance. The size of your round pen is important—45 feet in diameter is ideal.

If it is any larger, as you will have difficulty reaching him with the lunging whip, which means you won’t be able to have enough control over him. If your round pen it is any smaller, it will interfere with your equine’s balance and ability to develop the right muscle groups.

It should be made with relatively solid walls and be high enough so your animal cannot jump out. Your round pen can be made of a variety of different of materials, such as 2-inch by 12-inch boards and posts or stock panels. Never use electric fencing, pallets, tires or other non-solid materials. The ground surface should be a three- to four-inch–thick base of soft dirt or sand.

While working in the round pen, be aware of how your own body language and verbal commands elicit certain behaviors in your animal. If something isn’t working right, look to yourself and ask yourself what you might be doing to cause the adverse behavior you are seeing.

Equines are very honest about their responses, and if they are not doing what you expect, it has to be in the way you are asking. Also, don’t hurry your equine. When asking for the walk, make sure that the walk is even in cadence, balanced and regular—not hurried.

Only after your animal is correct in his execution of one gait, should you move on to the next gait. When first introduced to the round pen, it is not uncommon for an equine to begin work at the trot and then, as he becomes more comfortable with the new area, at the walk.

If you just let your equine go in an unrestricted frame, he can build muscle incorrectly, which will most likely cause problems later on. To be sure you are building muscle evenly throughout his body, in the correct posture and on both sides, use the “Elbow Pull” self-correcting restraint I devised, as described in DVD #2 of Training Mules & Donkeys.

As explained in DVD #1 of Training Mules & Donkeys, while you were doing passive exercises on the lead rope in the small pen, you were also building the core muscle groups that are closest to the bone. Now that you are in the round pen, you will begin to build your equine’s bulk muscle in strategic areas that will strengthen him and make carrying a rider or pulling a cart a lot easier for him.

It will also minimize the chance for soreness or injury, as well as resistant behaviors. Keep sessions short, 30-40 minutes, and only every other day at the most. When muscles are exercised, they need to be stressed to a point just before fatigue, and then rested afterwards for one day before repeating.

This is the correct and safe way to build muscle. Any other approach will cause fatigue and actually start deteriorating muscle tissue. Remember to use relaxation techniques and warm-up and cooling down exercises with your equine before and after every workout.

In the Arena

The arena is the place to really start focusing on forward motion and lateral exercises to further strengthen your equine, and it is the place to begin fine-tuning his balance while he is carrying a rider.

The arena is also a good place for you to fine-tune your own riding skills, so that you learn to help your equine maintain good balance and cadence, on straight lines and while bending through the corners.

In order for your equine to correctly go through the corners, you will be asking him to bend the muscles through his ribcage so he can remain upright and balanced. Equines are not motorcycles and should not lean around the corners. The power should always come from the hindquarters to keep the front end light, supple and responsive to cues.

If his front end is heavy and sluggish, your equine is not adequately stepping underneath with his hind legs and will thus, lose forward impulsion and power and will not properly condition his muscles.

Open Areas

Open areas are good for stretching and relaxing at all three gaits. They can be used for negotiation of obstacles and to execute large flowing patterns. You can also practice stretching exercises, as described in DVD #5 of Training Mules & Donkeys. Then proceed to working on more collection on the short sides of the arena, and go back to stretching exercises again before you quit the lesson.

The open areas allow for a wide variety of training exercises by giving you the space to use numerous patterns and obstacles. Try using cones to mark your patterns—this benefits both you and your animal by helping you both stay focused. An arena without cones is like a house without furniture.

As far as the open road and in traffic, these areas are for seasoned animals only, so please do not even consider using these areas to school your equine—the results could be disastrous! With the heavy traffic these days, it is really safest to avoid heavily traveled roads entirely. For a pleasurable experience, stick to areas where you and your equine will be safe and comfortable.

You can find Meredith’s books on this website…

under Horsey/Equestrian / Donkey Fiction and Nonfiction menu tabs!

Meet Meredith

A lifelong equestrian, Meredith has been passionate about horses for as long as she can remember. But it was while working at her mother’s ranch in the early 1970s that she really got to know mules and donkeys, coming to love and deeply respect these misunderstood and underappreciated equines.

Meredith’s mules have competed successfully against horses in breed shows and in dressage and combined training. She is also famous for training the first mule to ever reach fourth-level dressage and the world’s first formal jumping donkey to clear four feet in exhibition.

To this day, Lucky Three Ranch remains a cornerstone in the promotion of all equines, from its state-of-the-art teaching museum to its hands-on ranch tours to the beautiful equine sculptures that grace its grounds.

She pooled her resources with the American Donkey and Mule Society and, through their tireless efforts, they managed to, almost single-handedly, significantly increase public awareness of mules and donkeys and their usefulness and unique abilities. Meredith’s decision to champion the rights of these equines actually led to changes in the laws that govern equestrian competitions.

Mules and donkeys are no longer thought of as merely packing, farming and driving animals. They have been elevated to participating in a host of equine recreational events and activities, and are now finally welcome to compete alongside horses in all major equine competitions—a hard-won honor and an enormous stride forward.

Meredith’s years of comprehensive study produced a new, enlightened approach to the humane and safe management and training of all equines, compiled into an extensive encyclopedia of information and reference materials at the Lucky Three Ranch website at www.luckythreeranch.com.

Meredith has found a way to convey her message of treating animals with compassion, patience and respect to children everywhere with her own unique creation and lovable cartoon character, Jasper the Mule at www.jasperthemule.com. Led by Meredith herself, every tour of the Lucky Three Ranch is a personal clinic experience in learning about the management and training of equines that you will never forget!

To learn more about Meredith Hodges and her comprehensive all-breed equine training program, visit LuckyThreeRanch.com or call 1-800-816-7566. Check out her children’s website at JasperTheMule.com.

Thank you so much, Meredith, for blogging with us today, and thanks so much to you readers for visiting! Join our HNVB Book Club and our HNVB Blog via the forms in the right sidebar to keep in touch!

Happy riding and vetting!

Lizzi Tremayne

2018-10-03

Pony Express… It Rides Again! Every Year!

The Pony Express was fantastic, wasn’t it? 400 horses, 120 riders, nearly two hundred stations and several hundred station keepers, water/ feed carters and the like, through hostile territory, alkali deserts, and high mountains, to get mail across the continental USA in TEN DAYS! Unheard of!

The mochila, that piece of leather with the big (locked) pockets, slipped over the express pony’s saddle.

It would leave San Francisco and be transferred from the saddle of one horse to another, across two thousand miles of the Old West, through to St. Jo, Missouri! (They went the reverse direction, too, of course!)

But it only lasted eighteen months, I hear you say! Yes, you’re right!

But now, it’s baaaaaccckkkkk…….

And it’s run every year, by a crazy bunch of historical horse nuts. There’s plenty of info here from the National Pony Express Association about the Pony Express, the trails, the stops, you name it, they’ve got it! There are even classroom lessons!

If you want to join them, they’re always mad keen to have more people get involved to keep ‘The Pony’, as they call it, alive!

And I rode in it a few years ago! Woo hoo!!!!!!

Who wants to do it next year?

I rode through _______________, the section of the trail in Utah where Aleksandra, my heroine in A Long Trail Rolling, has her most dangerous ride!

(Fill in the answer correctly to go into the draw for a digital copy of A Long Trail Rolling. Leave a comment with your answer below and you’ll be in the draw!)

I spoke for a keen group of Pony Express fans in Salt Lake City while I was over there for the ride and it was fantastic.

Not only was I one of the only ones on the ride in a helmet, I even wore a Go-Pro! I’ll have to do some editing and post it in my next blog post!

Here I am riding Sonny down the hill from Lookout…

A herd of mustangs out of Dugway… Utah Pony Express Trail.

Here are some of the Mustangs I saw and photographed on my first trip over the trail!

Anyone recognize this photo? Hint, I took it… It’s in several places on this website!

It’s Clifton Flat, on the Utah portion of the trail. That little bit of trail you see there is probably the piece of trail that looks most like the original trail back in the day!

Patrick Hearty and Lizzi at Rush Valley (Faust’s) Pony Express Station monument, out of Grantsville, Utah.

This is Patrick, the man who’s helped me so much with A Long Trail Rolling, and even written the Foreword. He’s a Past President of the National Pony Express Association and he and his family keep the history alive every year. He’s written several books about ‘the pony’ with Dr. Joe Hatch.

Lizzi at Simpson Flat Station, rebuilt to resemble the original station at this site.

A Long Trail Rolling

The first in The Long Trails series of horsey historical fiction by Lizzi Tremayne

She didn’t expect to become a target… but she is one now….

Disguised as a Pony Express rider, Aleksandra is alone and fleeing through 1860s Utah, hoping to keep her father’s killer from discovering their family secret.

Xavier’s kept the world at arms-length since he ran from his troubles as heir of his Californio rancho family. It doesn’t take him long to discover his new rider-recruit is a girl—one he would like to let in close.

They finally start to let each other in, but the cards are stacking up against them in an ever-worsening situation. Can they learn to trust each other in time to escape the Indians on the warpath, evade the killer, and win through to safety?

Get it here!

Or read more about Lizzi’s books here

With love from NZ, here’s a pic of me and my equine boys… one is no longer with us, but he lives on through his brother…

Thanks so much for coming by.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit at HorseAndVetBooks.com!

I made it for you!

Lizzi Tremayne

2018-09-19

A Bit of Horse Sense

Horse Sense: Learned the Hard Way

My qualifications for writing about horses are ten years as a Riding for the Disabled mum, five as a Pony Club mum, and seven as the reluctant care-taker of one or more obstreperous ponies.

Yet I write Regencies, and in Regency times, gentlemen were as obsessed with their horses as today’s men are with their cars or motorbikes.

In fact, in two of my books, including the latest release, the hero breeds horses for sale.

Which meant I had a lot to learn. I knew the smell of wet pony, and the tricks it can get up to when it doesn’t want the bridle and saddle. That was a start.

Many blog posts, library books, video clips, websites, and questions to friends later, I still think that one end bites and the other kicks.

But I’m slightly more confident about sending my horse-mad heroes out into the wide world.

Horse Sense: from the Middle East to England

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Lord Sutton breeds Turkmen horses he and his family have brought from their home in the Kopet Dag mountains (northeast of Iran). Lord Sutton’s Turkmens, a predecessor of today’s Ahkal Teke, arrived in England well after the heyday of what they then called the orientals, or hot bloods.

Finer boned, thinner skinned, faster, and more spirited than the European horses (known then as cold bloods), the imports from Turkey, Persia, and middle Asia fascinated the English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the two lines came the warm bloods, direct ancestors of today’s thoroughbreds. Indeed, the thoroughbred stud book was founded in the late eighteenth century (for horses intended for racing) and records all English Thoroughbred breeding even today.

A thoroughbred was a horse whose birth and lineage was recorded in the book. Other horses with the same breeding not intended for racing were known simply as ‘bloods’.

If you wanted to sell, or to buy, a horse, you might go to a local horse fair. Or, if you lived in London, you’d drop down to Tattersall’s on Hyde Park Corner.

It had been founded in 1766 by a former groom of the Duke of Kingston, and held auctions every Monday and on Thursdays during the Season. Tattersall’s charged a small commission on each sale, but also charged both buyers and sellers for stabling.

You could buy horses, carriages, hounds, harnesses — whatever a gentleman (or his lady, but ladies did NOT go to Tattersall’s) needed.

And in Regency times, gentlemen visited on other days to place a bet on an upcoming race, or just to meet and chat.

The Jockey Club met there, and moved with it to a later London location and then to Newmarket. Tattersall’s is still a leading bloodstock auctioneer, and still in Newmarket.

Horse Sense: England’s Cavalry

My hero in A Raging Madness had been a cavalry officer. Britain had no formal studs for breeding war horses. Instead, they bought their horses from civilian breeders.

This meant the British cavalry rode horses bred to be hunters, race horses, and carriage horses—usually thoroughbreds or thoroughbred crosses. Each colonel bought the horses for his own regiment.

In 1795, the regulations established a budget of thirty pounds for a light mount and forty for a heavy mount. This budget didn’t change for the rest of the war with France, despite wartime shortages.

Here Alex is telling his brother his plan:

“Father says you are planning to breed horses. For the army, Alex? Racing? What’s your plan?”

“Carriage and riding horses, we thought. I know more about training war horses, of course, but to breed them to be torn apart for the sins of men? I don’t have the heart for it. And there’s always a market for a good horse.”

Alex buys his first stallion from another cavalry office, Gil Rutledge, who is hero of The Realm of Silence (the third novel in The Golden Redepenning series).

Horse Sense for Authors and Seekers

Geri Walton tells us about work horses, especially the heavy breeds. https://www.geriwalton.com/work-horses-in-the-regency-era/

Regency Redingote explains the origins of the term ‘blood horse’, and the pedigree of the General Stud Book. https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-english-blood-horse/

Regency Writing has a useful article on housing horses, and the work of a stable. http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-horse.html

Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink explains the many different uses of the horse in Regency England. https://shannondonnelly.com/2011/07/28/the-regency-horse-world/ This article also describes common carriage types, side saddles and riding habits.

A Raging Madness

Extract

Fear pierced the fog, and drove Ella across the carriage way and into the shrubbery beyond. The soft rain of the past few days had left branches laden with moisture, and puddles and mud underfoot. Every part of her not covered by the woollen blanket was soon drenched, but the chill kept her awake, kept her from falling back into the false happiness of the dream.

Every stone and twig bruised her feet. Her soft slippers were not made for outside walking, and would be in shreds before she reached the village. At least it was not still raining.

The carriage way turned onto the village road. She kept to the side, ready to hide in the ditch if anyone came. Alone, in her shift, and still dazed from the drug? Being returned to the Braxtons would be the best she could expect from a casual passer-by, and the worst… She shuddered. She had travelled with the army, worked as her father’s assistant, been Gervase Melville’s wife. She knew the worst that could happen to a woman at the mercy of the merciless.

A soft whicker caught her attention. Falcon’s Storm. He was a lighter shape above the hedgerow, stretching his neck to reach his mistress.

“Storm, my sweet, my champion.” She stopped to fuss over him for a minute that stretched into a timeless pause, crooning nonsense about having no treats in her pocket for she lacked a pocket. He lipped at her shoulder and her hair, but showed no offence at being denied the expected lump of carrot or apple.

“I missed you, too,” she assured him. “If only you were old enough, dearest, you would carry me away, would you not?”

He was solidly built for a two-year old, but so was she, for a woman. She walked away with a deep sigh. He was the one thing in the world that was solidly, legally, beyond a doubt hers; her only legacy from the swine she had married, born of her mare, Hawk of May, and Gervase’s charger.

But if she took him, how would she feed him? And if they were hunting for a woman and a colt… No, she could not take him with her, and opening the gate to set him loose was also out of consideration. He would follow her, for sure.

She continued on her way, praying that the Braxtons would leave him to the care of old Jake, the groom, or sell him to someone who appreciated him for the future champion he was.

Storm followed her to the corner of his field, and called after her until she was out of sight. She was hobbling by then. Even though the cold numbed them, her feet shot pain at her from a thousand bruises and cuts.

Then the rain began again. She pulled an edge of the blanket over her head, which kept off the worst of it, but it still sluiced down her cheeks and brow, gathered on her eyebrows, dripped over her eyes, and streamed down either side of her nose.

Blurb

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

Meet Jude Knight

Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.

She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19^th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

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