Strange Horse Laws

Thanks to Lynda Polk at Hoofbeats for compiling some of the wackiest equine-related laws ever on the books.

The links below will take you to her entire lists.

More strange horse laws

My personal favorites are:

• It’s illegal in Marion, South Carolina, to tickle a female under her chin with a feather duster to get her attention while she’s riding a horse.
• Tennessee prohibits riders from lassoing fish.
• Horses are required to wear hats in hot weather in Rasario, Argentina.
• In Guernee, Illinois, it is illegal for women weighing more than 200 pounds to ride horses in shorts.
• In Waco Texas, it’s illegal to toss a banana peel on the streets because a horse could step on the peel and slip.
• A misworded ordinance in Wolf Point, Montana: “No horse shall be allowed in public without its owner wearing a halter.”
• In Raton, New Mexico, it is illegal for a woman to ride horseback down a public street with a kimono on.
• In Marshalltown, Iowa, it is against the law for a horse to eat a fire hydrant.
• In Hartsville, Illinois, you can be arrested for riding an ugly horse.

Cetyl Myristoleate Shows Results in Clinical Trials

Recently I wrote about the inconclusive — and mostly anecdotal — evidence that oral joint supplements have a real effect on lessening the impact of osteoarthritis. Today, I read a report that bucks that trend with some clinical research for a product that I’ve not yet tried: Myristol.

According to a press release issued by the manufacturer’s of Myristol, an oral joint supplement, their product has demonstrated improvements in lameness when compared to horses that were not given the supplement. The blinded, controlled study was conducted on 39 horses over the period of 42 days.

The results of the clinical trial were presented at the 2007 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, held Dec. 1-5 in Orlando, Fla., by Kevin Keegan, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVS, associate professor of equine surgery at the University of Missouri.

Myristol contains cetyl myristoleate, glucosamine hydrochloride, methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), and hydrolyzed collagen. “Each individual ingredient has shown some positive effect in either human clinical trials or in vitro (in the lab) in horses,” said Keegan.

For the study, 39 horses in Missouri and Florida (on a broodmare farm, a Thoroughbred retirement center, and in two university equestrian programs) were selected for naturally occurring osteoarthritis that caused Grade 2-4 lameness on a scale of 0-4. Horses were either in the control group (no Myristol) or the treated group, which received three scoops (4 ounces) of Myristol daily for 14 days, then two scoops (2.67 oz.) daily for 28 days (42 total days of supplementation). Lameness exams at Days 1, 14, 28, and 42 were used to assess the efficacy of the supplement, and subjective quality of life was rated using a specialized 10-cm visual analog scale.

Researchers found that treatment with Myristol significantly improved lameness score, lameness at the walk, response to joint flexion, lameness after flexion, and quality of life (P values from 0.02-0.05, determining statistical significance) compared to controls.

“Despite high group variation, we detected significant differences in five of six variables measured,” he summarized. “Therefore, we conclude that oral administration of Myristol had beneficial clinical effects on horses with naturally occurring OA. The most apparent beneficial effects were in parameters related to joint flexion. For many of these horses, this was a significant improvement in their quality of life.”

More details on the results of the study are available here.

This research is intriguing. I have personally taken Cetyl M, which is a joint supplement whose prime ingredients is cetyl myristoleate, Glucosamine-HCL, MSM and Hyaluronic Acid. I thought that I felt a difference in my creaky knees (which always feel worse during hunt season), but it’s hard to judge how much impact can be attributed to the placebo effect. I have not yet tried it on my horses,

Myristol, unlike Cetyl M, is available only through veterinarians. Given that they do not publish prices on their Web site — they say only, “Because of the numerous active ingredients in Myristol, it will cost more than some supplements,” I can only assume that the price is frighteningly high.

It is certainly worth investigating, though, and I will follow up here after I speak to my vet.

Have some Chardonnay with that Equine Senior, why don’t you?

One day I noticed that the owner of one of the ponies at the barn had switched her pony’s feed. I asked her why. She had been feeding the pony a regime prescribed by a nutritionist that had come to the barn and evaluated several of the horses.

Her reply? The new feed looked more appetizing. Or at least, it did to her. I wondered what kinds of “side dishes” she would serve next, or perhaps she would offer the mare a glass of Chardonnay to wash it all down.

Forget whether or not it was a suitable feed that met her horse’s nutritional needs. Sure, Equine Senior is for older horses, but finding the right feed for a particular horse is more than just matching categories.

I’ll admit that when I first moved my horse to a co-op barn, what to feed him was a mystery to me. For all the years I’d owned horses, they had been at full care facilities and the barn manager made the hard call of what to feed and how much. Some of them discussed it with me, but several just put my horse into their program. When my horse left his last “full care” facility, he was being fed 8 quarts of a 16% pellet and 1 quart of oats per day.

Six years later, my horse gets a 1.5 lbs of ration balancer per day, hay and some hay stretcher. He looks better, has more endurance and is holding his weight (he’s built like a tank at about 1350 pounds) just fine. I find it hard to believe that I used to feed him so much concentrate.

Getting my current feeding regime required a lot of research and good advice from an equine nutritionist.

I came to understand that forage should be the cornerstone of any feeding program. I realize now that the full care barn fed such a high volume of pelleted feed because they didn’t feed very much hay and the hay they did feed was not very high quality. Today I aim to feed my horse 1.5% – 2% of his body weight in forage and I buy the best hay I can afford. If your horse weighs 1300 pounds, that’s 19-26 pounds of hay (or equivalent) per day, which is a far cry from the 2 flakes a.m./p.m. that my horse got at many boarding facilities. Horses evolved to eat more or less continuously (granted, the food wasn’t put in front of them), and their digestive systems work better when they nibble throughout the day. When hay supplies are scarce (as they are now), I bolster their hay ration with some hay stretcher and/or hay cubes.

I learned that had to weigh everything, rather than feed by volume, because it is the only way to accurately determine whether a horse is getting the nutrients it needs given its weight and its workload. I tried weighing different feeds and was surprised to find that a quart of one feed might weigh 1.25 pounds while the same volume of another feed might weigh only 14 oz! I also weigh the flakes of hay that I feed so that I know they are getting an appropriate amount of hay.

I researched the right amount to feed each horse and I adjust what I feed depending on the horse’s activity levels. I feed more during foxhunting season than off season, for example, and I make sure they have a bit more forage during the depths of the winter to help them stay warm.

I know lots of folks who swear their horse can survive on a handful of grain each day, but when you look at the nutritional content, it’s akin to saying that you can meet all your dietary needs by eating a salad and a handful of nuts. Yes, it’s nutritious, but it’s not enough. If you don’t feed a minimum amount of a particular feed, then your horse cannot get the nutrients it needs. Especially when different regions of the country tend to have mineral imbalances in the soil that leave forages without a balanced profile. Horses that are easy keepers, and which grow fat on the minimum amount of grain prescribed, do best on a ration balancer or multi-vitamin which helps round out the nutritional profile of the forage.

It turns out that my Trakehner gelding didn’t need 8 quarts of pellets and a quart of oats every day. Once he started getting enough hay, his caloric needs were pretty much met. He’d get fat if he ate that much concentrate. However, feeding him just two quarts of Purina Strategy each day wasn’t meeting his nutritional needs. Switching him to “Born to Win”, a ration balancer, increased his endurance and gave him more energy. It packs a lot of nutrition into a small package.

Even my OTTB gelding, who came to me needing groceries, has thrived on this diet. With adequate hay available, his cribbing has almost disappeared and he is holding his weight just fine with hay and a ration balancer.

Does that ration balancer look appetizing to me? Not particularly. Not even with a glass of Chardonnay, or even a Merlot. However, I’ve noticed that there is rarely any left in their feed dishes, so I’m going to guess that they like it just fine.

All the things I never knew I needed — but the price was right!

The trouble with eBay is that it’s too darn easy to buy things.

I know better than to visit tack stores because it’s hard not to resist impulse purchases, but eBay has brought that temptation to my computer screen. Now I can peruse an endless parade of saddles (my greatest weakness) and any number of other accessories. The problem is, while there are many bargains (is it still a bargain if you don’t need it?) there are also some misfires.

Like that Schleese monoflap jumping saddle selling for a mere $710. What a bargain! Okay, so I already had well, two other jumping saddles for that horse, I didn’t have a Schleese! That one turned out okay. I rode in it for a year or so and then resold it for a bit more than twice what I paid for it.

But what about the three hunt coats that I bought that didn’t quite fit before I found the one that did? None of them were that expensive, but if even though the “price” for the one that did fit was only $30 (New, with Tags!), if you add in what I paid for the others (still sitting in my closet, some now with moth holes, making them worthless), the total picture isn’t so attractive.

I didn’t really need a treeless saddle, either. But after doing so much online research, I really wanted a Torsion Extra Light. So when one came up on eBay in my size, in buffalo leather and for such a good price, how could I resist? After all, with a treeless saddle, you don’t have to worry about whether the tree is sound — that was the problem with the Berney Brothers saddle that I bought for such an excellent price. Lucky for me I can now use that broken saddle as an example of what NOT to buy in a video that I’m producing that shows how to test whether a tree is sound (or not!). I’ve never had a saddle with a broken tree and now I have a prime example.

I guess the only good thing about eBay is that not only is it easy to buy things, it’s also easy to sell. Most of the things I just had to have, ultimately have found their way back on the site, and sometimes I’ve even made a profit.

Lasik Surgery and Riding

I’m so near sighted that my ophthalmologist has told me to always carry at least one spare pair of glasses in my car. If anything happened to the pair I’m wearing, I’d have no chance of driving home unaided. For many years I wore contact lenses, but as I’ve gotten older, my eyes rebelled and spit them out. The choice was bloodshot eyes or glasses, and I chose glasses.

Most of the time, wearing glasses doesn’t bother me. I have enough different looks to suit my moods and my eyes are happy.

Except for when I’m riding.

It’s always been annoying to have my glasses slip down my nose. Or get covered in rain drops. Or, worst of all scenarios — go flying off if I take a tumble. That worse case happened the year before last when I was foxhunting. My horse and I had a slight, er, miscommunication about how many strides were supposed to fit in between two stone walls. I thought two, he thought one and the two of us parted company. My glasses also disappeared. Luckily, I found them before either my horse or I stepped on them. Luckily they were metal frames and I was able to bend them back into shape (more or less) and finish the hunt. That spare pair in my glove compartment came in handy that day.

It’s times like these when Lasik surgery sounds very appealing. I have several friends who’ve had the surgery. They rave about waking up in the morning to a world that no longer resembles an impressionist painting. But having read this article in the New York Times (and, even more so, the comments written by readers), I wonder if they’ve been telling the whole truth. Many people complain about on-going problems ranging from painfully dry eyes, to permanent halos, to loss of night vision or worse. I can’t imagine the distress that would occur from having elective surgery go wrong and suffer with the consequences for months or years. The definition of “success” from the surgeon’s point of view, is that the patient’s unaided vision improves. The surgery does not guarantee perfect vision, and even with side effects, many surgeries are chalked up as successful by the surgeons.

So, I guess I’d better just stick to my glasses. I still have the ones that are slightly bent. They are the preferred pair out hunting. No one has commented on their slightly askew appearance and when I get a branch in the face or the horse in front of me kicks up some mud, I’m glad to have the eye protection.

A Woman’s Best Friend

My daughter wrote this poem for my blog. At nearly 10 she hasn’t yet been bitten by the horse bug, but I think it’s inevitable.

A Woman’s Best Friend

A soft fuzzy nose
Big brown eyes
That capture life and all its lies
A slick furry body moving under you
A horse doesn’t care what you wear or what you do
All that matters to them is what you are in your heart
And if you show it and play your part.

When you have to give up your horse

For several years I’ve worked with CANTER New England, an organization that helps retiring racehorses find new jobs away from the track. In that environment, there’s always the worry that a horse will go to auction (and potentially to slaughter) if it is no longer competitive at the track. For many trainers it is a purely economic decision: some of them don’t have money for dinner, let alone the money to carry a horse that doesn’t perform.

I always thought that most of the show horses and “pets” owned by people I knew were fairly safe. I learned how really wrong I was last December.

Two days before Christmas I got a phone call from a woman I know who co-owned a pony with two other ladies. The other owners had decided that the pony was a liability and they were going to sell her to a “rescue” for a dollar. And, by the way, the pony was leaving the next morning. The kicker for me was that the man who owned the rescue, “John”, wouldn’t provide his full name, the name of his organization or its location. To me, that sounded like a one-way ticket to Canada, maybe with a quick side trip to Crowley’s or New Holland auctions. In short, they panicked.

Let’s be honest, the pony had problems. She had foundered the previous year, which resulted in significant rotation in both front coffin bones. While she was sound, she required corrective shoeing and constant vigilance. But the more immediate issue was one of aggression. She had recently knocked over a woman who had gone into her stall to adjust her blanket, leaving the caregiver with a bloody nose. She had also started to charge people who came into her paddock when she was eating hay. At first, the owners banded together and brought in a friend to provide some round penning work. They talked about sending the pony off site for training. But in the end, two of them had decided the pony was too dangerous to keep. Plus, “John” had promised that he would find the pony a great home, as either a riding pony or a companion. They thought he might even be able to sell her and help them recoup some of the money they had spent on her vet bills.

In the end, “John” didn’t take the pony. I helped the woman who called me find the pony a home with an experienced horse person who came with references, an address, and a commitment to keep the pony forever. She has extensive experience with older horses and ponies and when I toured her facility, her herd looked happy, healthy and looked well cared for. She had a good farrier, a nutritionist and a vet. Finding that home took time and effort. I even included a bitless bridle with the pony as an incentive. I called every person who had owned her, and contacted all of the rescue organizations in my area. I was amazed by how extensive the network of the horse rescues reaches, and I got excellent advice from the people who ran them.

In short, what I learned was that you must plan ahead, as much as is possible. There are a lot of people willing to help but you must give them enough time to get the wheels turning. A few of my take aways include:

• Address behavioral issues as soon as possible. It is much easier to nip a problem in the bud then deal with a horse or pony that becomes dangerous. Bring in a trainer who has experience, don’t rely on your friends.
• Always call the people who owned the horse or pony before. I had hoped that one of the previous owners would be able to retire this pony to a farm, or would be able to take her back. While that didn’t happen, the previous owners helped as best they could, both with outreach and to help cover expenses.
• If a situation sounds too good to be true, it usually is. According to the staff at the rescue organizations I spoke to, many owners are dismayed to find out that the kind woman who bought their pony for her daughter/granddaughter for a song (because of the good home), actually took the horse to the nearest auction. Hey, if you only pay $1, then even if you sell for $150 that’s a reasonable profit. If it’s at all possible, charge more for your horse or pony than the kill buyer will pay at auction. Yes, it’s hard to think of a price per pound, but you want to eliminate the profit motive.
• Tell everyone you know that you need to find a home for your horse or pony. Yes, it might be embarrassing to admit you can’t keep your pet, but think about it, isn’t it worse if people find out you let your pet go to a questionable end? The best way to find a good home is through word of mouth. Ads for free horses in Craig’s list or bulletin boards do not bring out the kind of people who want to give your pony a soft landing.
• Always, always check references. If possible, inspect the place where your horse will go and make sure that the other animals there are healthy and that they facility is safe.

I came across an excellent article evaluating rescues on Behind the Bit. It contains detailed advice on how to find a legitimate rescue along with links to other resources.
Above all, don’t panic. I know that the people who owned this pony loved her. I’m sure they thought they were making a good decision and that she really would have gone to pony Nirvana. Luckily, she’s gotten pretty close. When I last checked, the pony had settled in nicely to her new home and was not demonstrating aggressive behavior.

Wrinkle creams and joint supplements

Last week I was standing in the Smartpak store comparing joint supplements. I always visit the clearance section there and at Dover Saddlery, because you can buy products with damaged packaging for a good price. I can even convince myself that a mere $50 is a bargain for a container of juju powder that promises to make your horse feel years younger and nimble as a foal.

It struck me then that equine joint supplement are a lot like the products a lot women buy to combat wrinkles. Think about it: these are all products which have no scientific proof of efficacy, sell for obscene dollars per ounce, and have large and vocal followings by people who swear that they work. Because you want them to work!

After many years of feeding oral joint supplements, I finally started with injectables . . . and had my big horse’s hocks injected. That’s what really made a difference. For months I’d known he was not quite right. He felt heavy on his forehand and stumbled more frequently. 10 days after the hock injections, he really did feel years younger and I found that I could really enjoy riding cross country — not having to worry if he was going to trip. In truth, injecting him monthly (or even twice a month) is less expensive than buying miracle powders and I don’t have to worry about him leaving it in his feed dish.

I’m sure that many horses do show some response to the oral joint supplements. Certainly there are enough testimonials out there from satisfied customers and I was pretty sure that, at least when I started feeding them, my horse did feel less stiff. I spoke to the owner of one of the well-known supplement manufacturers at Equine Affaire in 2007. He told me that before he worked in the equine industry, he’d worked with hogs. With them, it was far easier to test the efficacy of a drug. You had a large population of genetically identical animals and after testing a drug on a population, you killed them and were able to study the results. Not a regime possible with horses! His theory is that people wouldn’t still keep buying the products if they didn’t work.

But I’m not so sure. There are still plenty of people (mostly women) who are dropping $125/ounce for Creme de la Mer Moisturizing cream and who believe wholeheartedly that it works better than Oil of Olay. Believe me, if I read any scientific proof that there was a cream out there that would make my 47-year old skin look like I was 20 again, I would pay $125 in a heart beat. Until then, I will stick with drug store varieties and save the “hope in a jar” for my horses.