Hello everyone,

I was hoping someone could give me some tips and pointers about fox hunting. I am going to my first hunt tomorrow (a drag hunt), and I really have no idea what to expect. From what I understand we (my instructor and I) will be riding in 2nd field. I am a total newbie about this sport, so any tips for things that I either should or should not do (so as not to look like a fool) would be very helpful!

Thanks so much.

And, so this isn't all text - here's a picture of the soon to be fox hunter:
( picture here )

Here I am again, hope I'm not making myself into a nuisance!

What do you guys give your active senior equines in the way of joint supplements?

I found this community last week and am excited to have a forum on here with all different types of horse-folks. So, Hello, my name is Rachel and live in Arizona. 
Between my husband and I we currently have 9 horses living in our big desert pasture.  We work for a cattle ranch and need to ride as we need to eat.  The recent competitions I've done are in Jumpers and Endurance.  I love for my horses to be english and western savvy... both flashy and quiet in arena and apt enough to help get calves branded and gather cattle usually over quite tough terrain.  I love to start and train horses for people and then help them to learn their newly trained mounts.  I LOVE horses.  I personally have a 24 year old retired Saddlebred gelding named Toby.  A 25 year old Anglo-Arabian named Justin who has been on lease and probably will be until the day he passes to a family who loves him.  Both those horses have been in my life since 1997.   My current riding horses are a half arabian half appaloosa gelding named Moyntain who is who I've competed Endurance on and gathered lots of cattle.  Our goal this year is to become a beautifully soft hunter pony. He is very flashy and smart.  He's six years old and I've had him since he was a late weanling.  He's been under saddle two years now.  Robinson is currently on a pre-purchase trial a couple hours away.  He is a stunning huge black Westphalian Warmblood who has competed 3rd level dressage, we won 3ft jumpers last summer, ropes cattle, and is just really really fun to ride. He's Mr. Personality. I wish him to have an incredibly happy forever home with the nice family who currently has him on trial.  The newest addition to our herd is Sam, an 8 year old Hannovarian/Thoroughbred.  His father is Landkönig and may just be my dream horse.  (probably not my only dream horse, but certainly up there!).  His incredible talent lies in Jumpers, but he is so freaking neat and sensible that he's really taken to our ranching lifestyle in the past 6 months we've had him. 

I want to stop there, but have to mention the other horses!  My husbands two personal horses are Chester and Barfly.  Chester is a beautiful grade gelding (paint/quarter) who is the most reliable horse we have to put beginners on and is Joels Heel Roping horse for competition.  Barfly is Joels Keyhole Smoke bred cutting horse who he bought as a weanling.  He's 8 now and is very sweet and cowy.  Then we have the ranch-owned Palomino Dewey, the reliable mare Reidhead, and the very attractive and cute 5 year old Redbud.  Can't forget the 4 year old Quarterhorse sent to start under saddle who came with the name Squirt.

Well, that's the long introduction! I look forward to sharing and hearing from you all in the time to come.

Hello everyone!

i was finally able to ride in my first horse show this past Sunday! i rode the USDF Intro Tests B and C.

i got 1st place in Test B and 4th place in Test C.

Below is the video of my Test B, i;m still working on editing Test C video (waiting on more pics from my mom).

As always, comments and constructive critiques are welcome. 


( Dressage Test B )

The judges comments for this test were as follows:

E Circle Left 20, - "Nice shape and circle"
F-E Free Walk - "Little rough into diagonal. Eventually nice stretch."
B Circle right 20m - "Good shape and circle, but faded away at the end"

When watching the video and seeing the pictures as well, i noticed a few other things i need to work on..mainly keeping my heels DOWN. i noticed my stirrups tended to slip backwards, and i'm guessing it's because i didn't keep my heels down. i chalked it up to nerves because in all my pre-riding pics, my heels were consistently down.

Edited to add: i'm sorry the video is far away. my friend/room mate who i asked to PLEASE bring the video camera (after i'd cleared a lot of space on it and left in on the kitchen table) decided that the camera on his phone was just as good, and so left the video camera at home. *face palm* 

so that part of the reason i added the pics at the end, because they were closer and clearer.

However, i got a blue ribbon, and for that i'm not going to argue! i;m incredibly happy. 

Hopefully Test C will be posted soon.

Edited to fix link.

Hi~

I am looking at boarding places and have found this fantastic place that I hope isn't "too good to be true." It's got top-notch facilities (although no indoor, but a stadium-lighted HUGE outdoor with crumb-rubber footing). Beautiful wood-fenced pastures. And the board is practically dirt cheap, especially considering the area I live in and what other barns with similar amenities are charging. Grain is even included.

I think I figured out why: the owners and barn manager have full-time jobs and do not run this as their primary business. The horses are fed round bales year-long, and the manager comes by twice daily to grain and water, and turn-in/out (right now everyone is out 24/7).

They do not live on the premises. The owner's parents (retired) live on the property and keep an eye on the horses. Sometimes though, they're out and no one is there unless a boarder happens to come by.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. The price and location is right, the facilities are great, but the absence of people in case of emergency makes me nervous.

Am I just worrying too much?

Under the cut: breeches, tall boots, side reins, SMB boots, and saddle pads for sale. Shipping is at cost - just comment on the entry with what you want and your zip code and I will figure out how much shipping will be.


( Read more... )

Hello! I was curious if anyone in the Quarter Horse Data Base could look up a horse for me!  A 16 yr old stud by the name of
"Bayou Native Cat" I'm looking for pedigree info on him.  :)

Thanks!

So, the broodmare at the dressage barn I work at foaled (a Royal Prince baby, I do believe) a couple weeks ago and I took some pictures of the baby that the BO really liked. She had shown some of them to the sire's owner who liked them as well and so wants to use some of my photos for their studbook. So BO asked if I could do some more pictures but this time without a halter on the mare because last time the mare had her old crappy halter on. So this time I went all-out and even tweaked colors a bit to make them pop. I like how a lot of them turned out. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here's Spiffy and her miniature lookalike of whom she is super-protective.

Teaser...

( The rest are below the cut )

I have been "out horses" for a while and for a variety of reasons one of which is financial.  I have a few saddles of varying quality (an arabian cut billy cook, a western abetta, and a no-name english all purpose).  I would like to sell them so I no longer have to haul them around when I move, won't have to clean them and worry about dogs eating them, or look at them in my living room. I also feel like keeping them would be silly because if I am ever in the position to afford a horse I would need a saddle that fits that horse and if I could really afford the horse I could buy it a saddle.

 I'm not really affiliated with a barn in the area and I don't really know any local horse folk so I don't know the best way to go selling them.   I've called a few tack shops but they only take saddles on trade which wouldn't really help me considering I don't have or want any more horses. 
I was thinking about selling them online but don't know anything about good websites or how to go about shipping a saddle! 

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated! 

*ETA: I currently live in Southwest Missouri

Please pass this along---can anyone help these horses?

As of yesterday, 42 horses are available at the Camelot Horse Auction in New Jersey. Included is this poor old senior. Thirty years old, and ends up at an auction. Shame.



Or this lovely mare: