Black patch disease strikes the clover in our pastures!

Clover infected with Black Patch disease causes excessive slobbering.

I thought that the torrential downpours, muddy footing and soggy grass were bad enough. Now it turns out that the weather has caused an epidemic of Black Patch disease. Horses that eat clover infected with Black Patch drool. A lot. It seems like buckets of saliva drip from their mouths.

Technically, Black Patch is a fungal infection that is called Rhizoctonia Leguminicola. We have never had this problem before with our pasture, but then again we’ve never had this much rain and humidity during the summer either, and those are the conditions in which the fungus thrives.

Our horses started to salivate excessively after eating the problematic clover for two or three days. The symptoms abated fairly quickly after they were pulled off the pasture but the fungal infection is not always that benign. Pregnant mares that eat the clover over an extended period of time can abort and horses can also lose weight.

During a summer when one of the only bright spots was that the grass is growing like crazy, it’s a crying shame that now the pasture is off limits too!

Honest Scrap Award

I was thrilled to find out that Equine Ink has received the “Honest Scrap” award from The Literary Horse. It really makes me happy to learn that people enjoy reading my blog, especially when it’s Jane because I so much enjoy her blog (and cannot believe that she is not funny in person).

Now comes the tough part. I am supposed to follow the rules here, which are:

• Recognize your award presenter and link back to their blog in your post.
• List 10 honest things about yourself.
• Present this award to 10 admirable bloggers who have moved you, and link to their blogs.
• Notify recipients they have been awarded, so they can retrieve it.

Of course Jane at the Literary Horse has already given the award to most of the blogs that jump immediately to my mind as worth recipients, so I’m going to have to dig deeper to come up with a few more recent blogs that move me.

I’ll start with 10 honest things about me.

1. I hate bad grammar. That doesn’t mean that I don’t slip up now and then, but as an English major, a lot of the writing I read (especially on the Web) puts my teeth on edge.
2. I don’t read a lot of blogs. By the time I check a few of them and write my own post it’s too late to surf.
3. I am addicted to mysteries. I read at least one a week and sometimes stay up way too late to finish them. I probably should be reading blogs.
4. I am a saddle addict. At present I have three at my house, one in my trailer and three at the barn. I only have one horse right now so that’s a bit embarrassing.
5. I spend waaaay too much time on the Chronicle of the Horse Forum.
6. I am a recovering eBay addict. I have mostly broken this habit (which is linked with the saddle addiction mentioned above).
7. I read www.perezhilton.com so I know who my children talk about. Okay, I’m supposed to be honest here. I like to read Perez Hilton.
8. I have too many animals. At last count that included two dogs, four of “our” cats, two kittens that we’re fostering for a rescue and a horse. At one time we were fostering five cats (mother and kittens) that was enough to put even me over the edge.
9. I am a masters swimmer who prefers distances (a mile is good) because I hate to sprint. My philosophy is that if you swim distances most people watching are too bored by the end to notice how fast you went.
10. I am starting an equine product review web site so that eventually I can declare my horse expenses (especially the saddles) as a business expense.

And now for a few blogs that I enjoy. I can’t come up with 10 that haven’t already received the award, but am working on it!

• Global Horse Culture. I find this blog really fun because it gives you a glimpse into other cultures. I love the photos. Since I’ve never commented, I doubt the author even knows how much I enjoy her blog!
• Rock and Racehorses. I think Sarah K. Andrew is an unbelievably talented equine photographer. I see her photos all over the web so it’s nice to have them in one place for easy viewing.
• Artistic Dressage: Reading this is my current substitute for taking a dressage lesson. What he writes makes sense.
• Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider. This is a blog I only just found and am really enjoying.

Brown horse, brown horse, what do you see?

Maybe it’s because I recently visited the Eric Carle museum, but when I was out riding Freedom after a torrential rainstorm, he reminded me of the author’s Brown Bear. Everything must have looked different to him because there was a lot of snorting and spookiness.

So with a tip of the hat to Eric Carle . . .

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see a blue bike bearing down on me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see elephant ears shaking at me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see a waterfall rushing at me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see puddles splashing at me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see a sleeping fawn hiding from me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

I see a wet rock shining at me.

Brown horse, brown horse what do you see?

A field of green grass calling to me.

And with that, the brown horse forgot about the blue bike, the elephant ears, the waterfall, the puddles, the fawn and the wet rock and settled down for an after ride snack.

Transitions, transitions, transitions

One of the most useful training exercises available to every rider is the transition. I know I’ve written about transitions before, but I’ve been watching a friend ride a green horse and it amazed me how much of a difference working on transitions made to the quality of her ride.

Want your horse to be more balanced? Ride transitions.

This horse is very balanced, stepping underneath himself and using his back.

Need to strengthen your horse’s hind end? Ride transitions.

Trying to get your horse off its forehand? Ride transitions.

Teaching obedience? Ride transitions.

Want to improve your horse’s trot or canter? Ride transitions.

Here’s the trick, though. You need to ride them correctly. I never realized how difficult a transition could be until I started riding with a dressage trainer. Suddenly I realized all of my inadequacies. I could not guarantee a transition at a specific letter. A couple of strides before, or a couple of strides after? No problem. Nor were my transitions well balanced. Sometimes my horse would fall into a downward transition with a plunk. The concept of riding forward into a downward transition was completely foreign to me. It never occurred to me that I needed to put my leg on to keep my horse active behind.

Our upward transitions weren’t much better. Instead of rising into the next gait, powered from behind, more often than not my horse would pull himself forward by raising his head and hollowing his back.

It was a humbling experience. I had to rethink my riding strategies and relearn how to ride my horse from back to front but the change was significant. My horse developed new muscles. Good muscles. After a few months he had a top line and his over developed under neck had receded. His gaits were more elastic and balanced. He looked like a different horse.

The lesson of transitions is one that I use daily. Every time I ride I think about the integrity of my transitions. Did my horse step up into the next gait from behind? Was his back up and swinging? If not, I start again. I’ll ride 10 trot strides then walk three strides. I’ll do walk/canter transitions changing leads each time. This gets my horse listening and thinking about going forward.

I also ride transitions within each gait. I think of them as surges. If we’re trotting or cantering, I slow my horse down (while keeping him active) then push him forward, asking him to lengthen his stride. Each time you ask for a transition you encourage your horse to step under himself, engage his hind end and round his back. You’ll see the benefits before you know it.

Patriotic Horses for July 4th

In honor of the Fourth of July, a few patriotic horses (real and artistically rendered) for your consideration!

200 year tradition ends as Boston disbands its mounted police unit

The Boston Mounted Police were disbanded on June 30th.

It was the first (and oldest) mounted police unit in the nation, formed in 1873.  But June 30th marked the last day of mounted patrols in Boston — at least until the city can come up with the funds needed to restore the unit.

The 12 horses have been given new homes — five are being leased to the NYC Police department; four were sent to the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office, and three were returned to their former owners. The 10 officers assigned to the unit are luckier. They were redeployed to other districts in the city.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis told the Boston City Council he had to choose between animals and people in the budget, and he chose to keep people.

The ceremonial last ride of the unit took place on June 23rd on Boston City Hall Plaza.

Ever since the cut was announced (in March), there has been a movement to save the 200-year-old Boston Mounted Police Unit.  There is a petition site with 2508 signatures, a Facebook group with 3045 members, and patrons who have pledged over $200,000 in private funds to keep them from being disbanded and put up for adoption – none of it enough to secure the $600,000 needed to maintain them.

They will be missed.

Should you do a PPE before buying a horse?

Watching a horse trot in a straight line allows a vet to evaluate the symmetry and evenness of the gait.

Buying a horse is a gamble since their condition and health is a moving target and there is no way to predict the future. There is, however, a way to take snapshot of the present and to evaluate the past: a pre-purchase exam.

A PPE is a health exam performed by a vet when the buyer and usually the seller are both present. It is done to assess current soundness, to help determine the suitability of a horse for the buyer’s intended use and to help provide the buyer with the information they need to make an informed purchase decision. No horse is perfect and this is not a “pass/fail” exam but it can help you identify pre-existing conditions and decide whether or not it’s something you can live with. A PPE is not a guarantee of future soundness, ability or temperament; it provides just one set of data points for buyers.

Some buyers choose not to have a PPE done. The reasons vary: the horse might not be very expensive, they may have known or ridden the horse for a long time, they trust the seller, or they might feel they have enough experience to make their own decision. I have bought two horses without a PPE. One I had leased for a year before buying; the other I had fostered for six months. I did not regret either of those purchases but I had seen both of these horses in work over an extended period of time.

Flexion tests are usually part of the lameness evaluation.

Every other horse I have bought (or tried to buy) I have vetted. As someone who must board my horse I want to make sure that I don’t buy a horse with a pre-existing condition that might cause long-term issues. It expensive enough to have a horse. Taking care of a lame horse is even more expensive and much less fun. After all, the initial purchase price is a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term costs of horse ownership.

While a very thorough PPE exam can be expensive, especially if you want x-rays of multiple joints from several angles, they don’t have to be that detailed. Several times I’ve stopped a PPE when the vet found something wrong during the basic physical exam — in my case it was a subtle lameness but it could also have been a problem like cribbing, muscle wastage indicating an old injury or incorrect training, or a conformational issue, such as long, sloping pasterns that might indicate the horse was not suited for a particular use. If the vet identifies inflammation or lameness early on I certainly am not going to pay to find out what has caused it! However, a physical exam may raise questions that are best answered by an x-ray and now that many vets have digital equipment you can see the results right away and choose how many views are necessary or required.

While I don’t x-ray horses until they glow, generally when I’ve had a horse vetted I have the vet take x-rays of the hooves, ankles and hocks, even if it’s just a baseline that I can use for future comparisons. Occasionally, you find something unexpected. In one exam we discovered that the horse had previously fractured its coffin bone and that the break had healed oddly. While the horse was sound, I was looking for an eventer and my vet was concerned that this was a weakness that galloping and jumping over rough terrain might re-injure.

Sometimes that exam is unexpectedly good. I sat in on a PPE for an OTTB that had raced more than 60 times. The x-rays showed absolutely clean legs, indicating that his gelding was built to last. It was very reassuring to the girl who bought him.

Often exams shows characteristics of a horse that need to be evaluated in the overall context of its performance and use. I had a mare that had a very slight hitch in her gait when she wasn’t very fit. I had noticed it when I bought her and had quizzed the examining vet. He had considered it the result of weakness and thought it would improve. When I sold her, the buyer’s vet correctly identified it as a slight neurological issue. But he pointed out that she had lived with this her whole life and it had not affected her performance as a race horse or as a riding horse. He did not feel this was a condition that would deteriorate over time and the woman bought the horse.

I have never pulled blood for a drug test prior to a purchase but having read many horror stories, I would consider having my vet hold blood in case I saw a significant change in behavior after bringing a horse home.

I remember when I was horse shopping my husband used to tease me that I would use up my entire budget having horses vetted but in the end I felt that the money on vetting was well spent. I avoided buying horses with problems that I didn’t want to deal with and learned a lot about how to evaluate both current and potential future soundness.

More Resources

Understanding the prepurchase exam
Horses and the Prepurchase Exam This article is on www.horseadvice.com. It’s a subscription site but the fee is low and it has a ton of useful information that has been written by a vet.

And here are two videos that provide an idea of what to expect.

Vanderbilt – Free to Good Home

Van is a 7 year old TB gelding that is owned by a friend of mine and who is at my barn. He is approximately 16 h. He was purchased directly from Penn National about three years ago. Van is being offered free to a great home with references. My friend has decided that he is not the right horse for her and as her job was recently eliminated, no longer can afford to keep him. Van is located in the Boston area.

Van is a challenging horse and needs an experienced rider and handler. He is very smart and tests people who come into contact with him. He can be pushy on the ground and has several times reared up at people who have approached him in his pasture. I suspect he is trying to play but it can be intimidating. At his last barn he bit someone. He has not done this since he moved to my barn last November although he did try to bite/nip me once. He needs to be in a barn where he is handled firmly and consistently.

Under saddle he can be balky and reluctant to move forward. He has a very athletic buck which leads me to believe that if the energy and athleticism can be harnessed, he will really perform for the right rider. He has been in professional training and does well with an experienced rider and daily work. Van walks, trots and canters under saddle but is still green and somewhat unbalanced at the canter. He has been started over small fences and shows aptitude. He has been out on the trails and is pretty quiet. When he doesn’t want to work, he will try to get his rider off by bucking so he is not suitable for an inexperienced or timid rider.

Van was diagnosed with kissing spines two years ago. His back was injected by one of the top vets in the area and he not shown any sign of back pain or soreness since. He is sound and has good feet. Van cribs but it is controlled with a collar. He is up to date on all his shots, recently had his teeth done, and is in overall good health. His issues appear to be behavioral as he has been checked head to toe by two very good vets and his saddle was fitted by an expert.

His owner would prefer to keep him in New England but is open to options. Excellent references are required and will be checked.

Email ali_baba62@hotmail.com directly for more information about Van.

van under saddle last summer

Van about two weeks ago