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. ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Feeding Grain  Every horse loves oats, but should every horse have grain?  This is a question that equine nutritionists have asked for years. The question you should ask yourself is whether or not your horse should have grain.  While grain is a necessity for horses performing regularly at very demanding activities, such as racing and three-day eventing, i ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Finding a Trainer  In an ideal world, horse owners would be able to train their own horses.  After all, most people manage to train their own dogs.  But horse training is different in several ways, two of the most important being, quite simply, that horses are a lot bigger than dogs, and you ride them. If you have a young horse who needs to learn the ways ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Botulism  Most people know botulism as something you get from eating contaminated canned food.  Horses can get botulism, too, although not in the same way most humans get it. Botulism is a deadly toxin produced by a bacterium called clostridium botulinum.  The metabolic process of this bacterium produces neurotoxins, which affect the horse’s nervous syste ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Trigger One of the most famous horses to ever emerge from Hollywood was a part Thoroughbred palomino stallion named Trigger.  During his career, Trigger stared in eighty-two movies.  The trusty mount of singing cowboy star Roy Rogers, Trigger was named Golden Cloud before he became Roy Rogers’ horse.  Trigger made his first appearance with Rogers in a film ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Take  a Lesson    Whether you have been riding your entire life or are new to the hobby, everyone can benefit from taking a lesson. If you thing you have all the skills you need to ride well and the idea of taking a lesson seems silly to you, consider this: Even Olympic equestrians who compete at the highest levels in the world still take riding lessons.  ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Herd Behaviour  If you can count on horses for one thing, it’s to be highly tuned into other horses.  This is an expression of herd behaviour, which is an instinct that has been programmed into horses for millions of years.  Try to take a horse away from his buddies, and you will see this instinct in action. Herd behaviour developed in horses as a means o ...

365 Days in Horse Country – Dutch Warmblood  First created to be a multi-use farm and riding horse, the Dutch Warmblood is the result of breeding a native Dutch horse with English, German, and French horses.  The Dutch maintained strict standards for breeding these horses because they were so important to the livelihood of Dutch farmers.  Horses that were lacking in soundness, intellig ...