Ok, there are threads for knitters, sewers, cooks, gym junkies... any other horse owners looking for a thread?
I have a 13 year old QH gelding, 15.3hh living in my back yard. Ok, so it is acreage and he does have a paddock!! I'm actually his 'foster mum' - the short story is that he belongs to a friend of a friend who doesn't have the time to care for him but has owned him since a foal so she can't bear to sell him. So we have a 'shared care' arrangement of the boy - I do the daily bizzo, we split costs and she can visit him whenever she likes. She is lovely and only lives 5 minutes away so the arrangement so far has been perfect.
I have always dreamed of having a horse (have ridden all my life but never had my own horse) so I'm a bit like a kid in a candy store! I'm sure I'll have lots of questions and lots of stories to share. Anyone else got a horse they'd like to chat about??
Yep! I currently have:
American Quatre horse - 15.3 hands
Ex race horse - 16 hands
Welsh x arabian pony about 13 hands
Mini pony - little!
I have been riding for 20 odd years!
We are adjisting some horses on our property!! I dont know specifics.. lol i know one is a palameno (sp), two are appalouso (sp) two are brown lol and one is a little pony!! They are really great. the kids love them!! Ocassionally yhey find themselves in our back yard and they do a great job of mowing the lawn lol!!!!
I am still yet to ride any of them- I really want to, but we just havent been organised to get together with the owner to do it!!
I so badly wish I was coming in here with details of a horse I have. I lost my boy a long time ago now (9 yearsago) and it took me a long time to get over and then I had my girls but now I am ready to start looking. I miss been around them terribly, since I was able to start working I have worked with horses until 2006. I want to get my girls involved too, DD1 is always talking about horses, she is going to be just like me I think
Kazzo, like you I wish I was coming here with happy news. I had my boy 25yrs and about 6wks ago got the call to say he looks like he had broken his leg....which of course was true and had to be put down.
He was a 16HH brown Andalusian. I had him since he was 2yrs and even now I can barely think about what happened.
We did pony club, dressage, one day events everything...he was a champ of a horse! He even won classes at the Royal Melb show....
I didnt get to ride him as much since getting preg with DD and now this one but I just always thought he would be there when I got back to riding. I think Id only ever had a vet out to him twice in his life.
But I think I will get another horse after this baby is here and we are settled. Its the first time since I was 13 that I have been horseless and its not a nice feeling. Kazzo I want me DD to get involved too...luckily I have a lovely friend who has some horses that my DD gets to ride whenever we go up so we still have some involvement....I think its going be be a while before I start looking.....
I have a 30 year old chestnut Standardbred. Have had him for 18 years and he's always been my beautiful boy. His buddy passed away in September, a beautiful bay Thoroughbred gelding. We got him six months after we got the other horse so they've been on mum's property for a really long time! Both were ex-trotters and I'm currently in the process of researching the Standardbred's history through his branding. A friend of a friend has something to do with the Standardbred association so looking forward to seeing what they find out.
Yes we have a few as well.
I have worked with horses all my life. Both in a professional and personal sence.
Horses are unique animals. Once you have had a relationship with a horse they become a life long addiction.
I was horseless for a few years. I sold all my show ponies when ds was 6 months old and I stayed horseless for 2 years...it was a long and hard two years.
I ended up getting back into ownership when a friend was sending her slighlty damaged horse to the knackery.
Well we got her home with the intent on fixing her and selling her on....um........we have had her now um 10years his september......so you know the selling her on worked out wonderfuly. chuckle.
She is a 22 year old 14.2hh mixed breed, possably a QH/Appy mix although the slight dish in her face suggests there is a little arab hiding in there as well although the appy temperament is a definate as is her colouring.
We recently sold our cart horse. He was devine, but young and I don't have the time for him at this preset point sadly.
We also have a 15hh bay endurance horse that is also for sale. I have someone looking at him this weekend so with some luck he'll have a new home soon.
Hard to mix competition horses and young ones with babies and sickness so off they go to new homes.
We are currently looking at a new property so we wont have to agist anymore so once we've bought a place I'll be adding a pony for dd and a new and suitable cart horse which I hope to compete with. (not a standard breed) thinking about a welshy, hubbie wants a bigger horse......we'll have to wait and see. I want to do cross country racing in harness.
I'm a "wish I could talk about my horses" too. My old boy - the first horse I owned - passed away at 30 years of age ten years ago this October. I've been riding since I was 6 and really miss having a horse in my life. My first horse was a 3/4 arab. I then moved on to some crazy thoroughbreds, a warmblood and a miniature pony stallion - we were going to breed and show him but ended up that he was just a cute little pet.
When we bought this house a couple of years ago we had originally been looking at 5 to 10 acre properties so I could have horses again, but ended up on an acre in a golf course resort - definitely no ponies allowed! I've been looking into where to take my girls for riding lessons, but want to wait until DD2 is another year older before they start. Then if they're keen I think we might be having to look at moving again to a bit of land - no way we could afford to adgist three or more horses/ponies. DH doesn't ride, but said he would like to get into it when we were looking at land. I've always done dressage, and done the flatwork side of things for a girlfriend who does showjumping, so I'm really hoping the girls are keen.
Will have to become a silent stalker of this thread I think, and enjoy living vicariously through all your beautiful fur babies for a while.
I know what you mean about the cost of multiple agistments. It's a killer. It took us a while but found a nice old farmer who didn't want to sell his land and is now too old to maintain his property so we came to a deal.
We do the fencing which was already in reasonable condition, and maintain the shedding he pays for materials and we do the labour. All for the cost of paying agistment for one horse, even though we had three.
It works out well for us and for him. His family is happy as we keep an eye on him throughout the week when they are busy at work. If he's not able to get himself to the doctors/shopping/bowling we take him. I go up in the mornings and dh evenings so its not a huge deal. and he keeps an eye on the water for us and lets us know if he spots anything wrong with the horses so I think it works out for all.
We'll miss him when his time comes for his next big adventure or we find a property which ever comes first.
He has become a big part of our family. It's nice to have an adopted great granddad for the kids.
Oh, there are quite a lot of us! My boy has been with us for about 6 weeks now and has settled in well. He is loving all the attention and is very curious about what we are up to every time we go outside! I feel like we have established a mutual trust and I love it when he trots over when I call him.
DD1 is almost 9 and loves horses. We have told her that if she helps with my boy for 12 months we will consider a pony. So far so good, she is out there every morning and every afternoon rugging, grooming and feeding him. She even helps with the poo! He is a great boy with lovely manners, not much perturbs him. His 'birth mum' has done riding for the disabled with him (her DS has special needs) and his entire manner relaxes when one of the kids is on him.
He does have one bad habit... he's a wind sucker! Apparently he has done it all his life and he has worn the collar with no success. Any suggestions?
Company works well for wind suckers - check out the equiculture website, I'm pretty sure Jane has written about windsuckers there. Wind sucking is a stress response and they don't learn it from other horses, they develop it early on in response to stabling, mostly. Being in a herd lessens the need for this response and can extinguish it with good management. If you can't get the horse socialised, then you may need to look at some other fencing options that will stand the punishment the horse will give it!
I had a windsucker and he didn't do it much when he was in a herd, but it's all he would do when kept on his own, or in a paddock with just sheep for company. I had a collar with a metal hinge U on the throat bit. Not convinced it made any difference to the damage he caused, and it doesn't teach them to stop windsucking or crib biting, it just teaches them how to do it within their new constraints. It's like thumb sucking or hair twirling in humans!
Once a wind sucker, always a wind sucker, even if they stop doing it, because stress (a new home, new paddock, etc) can bring it on again. There are no 'cures' as such.
I have 4. A absolutely beautiful Clydesdale filly, a Shetland coloured mare who my daughter will be showing this year, a welsh mare who is also lovely and my 1st horse Whois rising 30. Ivebeen riding for 20years.
I have 1. I've been riding all my life (was born into a horsey family), but since I moved interstate at 18 and lost my mare at 19 I was out of horses a few years. Got back into it in 2008, but not with the same confidence I had as I broke my leg falling from a horse on a cross-country course in '08 and its rattled me. I use to do a lot of eventing & showjumping.
My boy is a 16hh Thoroughbred, he'll be 19 this year. I've had him 3years in October. We use to do pony club, and done a few little ode's, but then I fell pregnant so I leased him out. I've had him back since Dec last year, but I havent been able to ride him :/ Its hard finding the time, I have no support here so no one to watch DS. DP doesnt get long enough breaks during the day, and as he is agisted at a paddock 10mins drive away there's no time for me to nick out for a quick ride.
Hopefully though I can figure out a way to get him ridden a day or two a week, I sure do miss riding!
Another horsey one here Although I dont currently have one, I sold her last year (a palomino
But I am surrounded by them daily, I am a saddler, so no escaping them lol
Thanks for the advice. He is alone in the paddock but on one fence line he has alpacas and on the other he has miniature horses (?!). They're little but the don't look solid like shetlands... His 'birth mum' tells me that he has been a wind sucker all his life and he seems to do it out of habit. He seems very happy here and doesn't show any other signs of stress. We have electric tape inside the fence (it's what he's used to) and we have placed a strip of tape up in front of the wooden support beams so the fence is safe! There are some trees in his paddock which provide lovely shelter and shade... and apparently are quite tasty!
I took the boy for a long ride this morning, the first time I have taken him off our property. He was such a good boy, very relaxed. He seemed to enjoy the ride as much as I did. When we got back we trotted around the back to his paddock and he let out a huge whinny, as if to announce 'I'm home!!'. DH and the kids came running outside thinking something was wrong! Very hot here today so after our ride DD1 helped me to shampoo and condition him so he is lovely and shiny now.
The boy is barefoot and his feet were looking a bit dry so I bought some Farrier's Choice goopy stuff which the lady in Horseland said to paint over his entire hoof. I noticed a couple of small cracks in his hooves, is this normal or of concern? It doesn't look like they need to be trimmed yet, but perhaps the cracks are an indication that it's time? I am very careful to only ride him on soft ground and apart from one road to cross we ride in a reserve with plenty of grassy paths. Talk to me about shoes vs. barefoot...
My first horse was barefoot (cute!) but he ended up being shod because he got very bad sand cracks. The farrier would burn a little line above the top of the crack to try and stop its progress but it was hard to stop them coming along. I had him in suburbia and while there was bush to ride in, we had to walk on roads to get there so that didn't help.
I just found having him and subsequent horses shod was so much easier (albeit much more expensive!). The farrier also did a bit of corrective shoeing on one of my horses too, which was useful.
Your ride this morning sounds beautiful. I really miss early morning rides when the rest of the world is still quiet and sleeping . . .
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