365 Days in Horse Country – Lead-Line Class     Horses aren’t just for teenage girls, cowboys, and middle-aged women.  Tiny tots enjoy horses, too.   The lead-line class, seen in both English and Western shows, was created for young children who want to be part of the action. Lead-line classes feature a well-behaved horse or pony, all decked out in her best show apparel.  Children ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Leather Care One of the most intoxicating smells to a horseperson is the smell of leather.  Walk into a tack room, and the scent overwhelms you with warm feelings about time you’ve spent with horses. Your leather tack is valuable because you love the way it looks, smells, and feels.  It’s also valuable because it also does the work for you.  You depend o ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The Cleveland Bay Said to be England’s oldest established horse breed, the Cleveland Bay takes its name from the Cleveland area of northeast England where it was developed.  In the Middle Ages, the Cleveland Bay was bred at monasteries for use as pack animals.  Its ancestors probably included pack horses from the Yorkshire Dales knows as Chapman horses for ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The New Forest Pony Some 3,000 wild New Forest Ponies still roam England’s New Forest, a 90,000 acre (36 421 ha) preserve in Hampshire on England’s southern coast from which they get their name, but these days the quiet, willing ponies are also known as versatile athletes.  Their speed over rough terrain and natural jumping ability ensure their reputation as ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Natural Living The trend toward living naturally is well established in humans, and it’s starting to take hold in the horse world, too. With horses, this trend is not just about natural supplements and organic food.  It’s all about daily lifestyle. Researchers have studied wild horses to learn how nature designed horses to live.  They discovered that wild ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Applying Eye Drops  It’s not unusual for horses to suffer injuries to the eye.  They can have run-ins with stable doors and fence posts or receive a kick from another horse.  Grass seeds or thorns can scrape or puncture the surface of the eye as well.  Infection or disease can also affect the eye.  For all situations, eye drops may be required for treatmen ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Mares and Foals   Horses make some of the best mothers in the world.  Watch a mare with her foal, and you can learn lessons about love and parenting that you could never learn from reading a book. From the moment a foal is born, the mare begins cleaning it.  This is the beginning of the bonding ritual, securing baby to mother in a tight bond that only death ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The Unicorn    The unicorn is one of the most common fantastical equine images.  Little girls seem to love unicorns, and the animals have made their way into popular culture in the form of dolls, fantasy paintings, and even movies. The image of the unicorn as a horse with a single horn in the middle of its forehead is a modern one.  The unicorn of ancient C ...

365 Days in Horse Country – The Akhal-Teke   The national horse of Turkmenistan, the Akhal-Teke, is an ancient breed that developed from the horses used for raiding.  The breed hasn’t changed much since the eighteenth century, and it is the purest living descendent of the ancient Scythian horse.  Some experts believe the breed is even older than the Arabian, which is usually consid ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Equine Influenza    Humans aren’t the only ones who get the flue.  Horses come down with it, too.  Called equine influenza, it has many of the same symptoms as the human version.  Horses develop lethargy, a high fever, and a thick nasal discharge.  Some horses come down with a cough as well and secondary infections can develop as well, including pneumonia. ...