365 Days in Horse Country –  Stretching  Most athletes stretch before the work out, so why should your horses be any different?  Stretching helps prevent injury and mitigates soreness after a workout – your horse would benefit from a good stretch before he is asked to exercise.  However, since you can’t expect your horse to do his own stretches, you’ll have to give him a hand. Here ...

365 Days in Horse Country –  From Humble Beginnings  It’s difficult to believe that the modern day horse was once only the size of a fox.  That, at least, is the general consensus among the scientific community who have studied the evolution of the horse. The horse has undergone incredible physical change over the past sixty million years.  The very first horse was a creature calle ...

365 Days in Horse Country –  Man O’ War Probably the most famous racehorse of all time, the legend of Man O’ War, nicknamed Big Red, still lives on today, almost 100 years after his birth. The chestnut coaly, foaled in 1917 to a mare named Mahubah out of stallion named Fair Play, won twenty out of twenty-one races by the time he was three years old.  He went on to sire sixty-four stak ...

365 Days in Horse Country –  Rain Rot Also called rain scald or more formally, equine dermatophilosis (after Dermatophilus Congolensis, the cause of the problem), this condition is a bacterial infection on the surface of the skin.  It is a common problem for horses during wet winter or spring months, but it can occur in horses turned out during any extended period of rain or wetness. ...