How long after feeding do you ride?

Feeding forage before riding helps buffer stomach acids.

Okay, I admit it. I don’t wait to ride my horse after I feed him. I figure that after I’ve groomed him, tacked him up and walked him for 10 minutes or so (part of my regular warm up routine), he’ll be fine. And I’ve never had a problem. In fact, with my ulcer-prone TB I never ride him on an empty stomach. If I come in between meals I always give him at least some hay before I work him.

Now, I didn’t always feel this way. There were times when I’d show up at the barn, find out the horses had been fed early and turned around and driven home because I didn’t have time to wait for the hour that I thought was necessary. I know some people who even wait two hours after feeding so that their horses can digest their meals.

The big concern voiced by people is that riding their horses too soon after eating may cause colic. It’s a similar theory that you should wait an hour after eating before going swimming. As a masters swimmer I can tell you that while I wouldn’t eat a huge meal before practice (because I’d feel lethargic), I’ve never gotten a cramp from eating and swimming and I feel a whole lot worse if I don‘t eat before I swim. I often don’t finish my snack until I’ve pulled up to the pool in my car which might be cutting it a little close.

I suspect that with horses you see a similar effect: If your horse doesn’t eat a large meal of grain or pellets (several pounds) and you don’t take off at a dead run when you first get on, you probably are not harming him. After all, endurance riders feed their horses during their rides with no ill effects and this is a discipline where proper nutrition is integral to competition success.  Small meals that are forage-based provide the fuel needed without spiking blood sugar or diverting too much blood flow to the digestive system and help buffer the stomach acids that horses produce almost continuously.

If I fed my horse several pounds of grain or if he were still a race horse, a large meal before running would be a bad idea. For one thing, it fills the hind gut, adding enough weight to impact a horse’s performance.  For another, horses that begin exercise with elevated insulin may fatigue quicker, because insulin prevents muscles from making the best use of nutrients needed to fuel muscle contraction. For performance horses it’s probably a good idea to wait the recommended four hours before competition as it will allow the horse to perform at its best.

As for my TB, since he eats mostly forage and his “job” no longer requires great speeds or endurance, I’ll keep on riding him after breakfast.

Rachel Alexandra Gallops Home in the Mother Goose

Okay, so after the late scratches of Don’t Forget Gil and Hopeful Image, it left a field of three for the $300,000 Mother Goose Stakes, but Rachel Alexandra’s 19 1/4 length win today was still impressive. She blew past Malibu Prayer (second) and Flashing (third) on a hand ride from Calvin Borel and still broke the track record (set in 1994). In addition Rachel Alexandra set a new record with her margin of victory. The previous record, for a 13 1/2 length lead was set by Ruffian in 1975).

In honor of the great filly Belmont Park had free admission for women and gave away free “Rachel Alexandra” pink bracelets to the first 10,000 people through the turnstiles.

Rachel Alexandra’s record now stands at 9-2-0 in 12 career starts and has rattled off seven straight victories, all stakes races. Her career earnings now stand at $1,798,354.

Just under the skin

How much do you know about your horses muscular skeletal system?

It’s one thing to look at diagrams, but this illustration shows you in living color how your horse is put together. Understanding the underlying structure of your horse and seeing how the muscles work (especially when the horse is in motion) provides much greater understanding of motion, and the areas of strength and weakness.

What I find particularly interesting about the horse below is how clearly you can see where his back is the strongest — if the saddle extends beyond the last rib, it will but the rider’s weight on the loins, which is one of the weakest areas.

These walking textbooks are mostly used to help teach classes in equine massage. But we can all learn from them.

The muscular skeletal system is illustrated in living color at .

The illustrated horse from www.ironhorsemassage.com.

Another way to make life look brighter.

Glasses with orange lenses can help make the day look sunny even when it's not.

It’s still gloomy here in New England. Maybe this will help! Light enhancing glasses as opposed to sun glasses.

I was reading a friend’s blog today and she posted this triathlon training secret: Looking at Life Through Orange Colored Glasses.

She claims that it makes even the gloomiest day look sunny. I’m ready to be tricked. I’m tired of thinking, “great weather”, just because it’s merely misting. I want to see some sun and I want the ground to dry out. Is it really too much to ask at the end of June?

I think I need to invest in a pair!

In search of the last cowboy

Wyoming-based photographer Adam Jahiel has been taking photographs of cowboys in the American west for 20 years. His black and white photographs are timeless. Looking at them, it’s difficult to tell whether they were taken yesterday or half a century ago. They capture the reality of the cowboy, not the myth.

Below are a few photographs from his series, “In search of the last cowboy, that caught my eye. It’s worth visiting his site to see the rest of his photographs.

Building a Loop. Photograph by Adam Jahiel.

Fish Creek. Photograph by Adam Jahiel.

First light. Photograph by Adam Jahiel.

Kudos to the racetrack trainers who rehome their horses.

War Storm is a horse listed for sale on the CANTER New England site. I love his look.

Back in November I wrote a post about an inspirational trainer at Suffolk Downs, Lorita Lindemann, known as the Angel of Suffolk Downs. One of the things that struck me was how hard Ms. Lindemann had to campaign with her fellow trainers to encourage them to rehome their horses.

As buyers, let’s not discourage these trainers from working with us, the general public. They may decide it’s easier not to try. In fact some trainers will only sell to dealers; others, sadly ship straight to slaughter.

On the CANTER New England Website there is an excellent page that talks about what NOT to do when you want to buy from a trainer at the track. I’m going paraphrase here, but it’s worth reading in its entirety:

• Don’t call and make an appointment and then not show up. Anyone who has sold a horse has probably had this happen at least once and it’s incredibly annoying to have someone waste your time like that.
• Don’t try to tell trainers what their horse is worth or ask them to give you a horse for free. The horses on the CANTER site are being sold because the trainer needs the stall or doesn’t want to feed a non-competitive horse. But that doesn’t mean it’s a giveaway.
• Don’t ask trainers to ship the horse for free. Or ask if you can trade another horse, tack, hay or anything else for the horse. They don’t need stuff, they need cash for the horse.
• If you buy a horse, offer to pay the trainer a day rate to feed and care for the horse until you can have it shipped.
• Don’t ask if you can make payments or take the horse on trial. Be prepared to pay the full purchase price in cash, via wire transfer or with a cashier’s check.
• If you make an offer, be reasonable. Don’t offer $500 for a horse listed at $2500. Even at the killer market TBs are bringing $650.
• And finally, don’t assume that because you buy a retiring racehorse that it’s a “rescue”. Most of these horses have been well cared for and loved by their trainers. The effort to find them a new home is another example of how these trainers are committed to finding their horses new jobs.

If  an OTTB does capture your heart. Please do a pre-purchase exam before you finalize the sale. Vets are available at the track or you can bring a vet or an experienced friend or colleague with you to examine the horse. Getting an informed opinion up front can save a lot of heartbreak and hard feelings.

Race horses experience wear and tear that is different from horses of the same age in less strenuous disciplines. Many are sound, others have injuries that may or may not impact their long term use. Often horses coming off the track are body sore and do best if they are turned out to “let down” for several weeks or even months. Know what you’re getting into before you hand over the cash!

Oh yes, and you should know that many OTTBs exhibit some behaviors that don’t always fit into commercial boarding facilities such as cribbing or weaving. Much cribbing behavior can be controlled with a cribbing strap, but if you strongly object to owning a horse that cribs, make sure you are certain that the one you bring home does not! My OTTB cribs AND weaves. He does very well in a barn where he can live out 24/7 but probably wouldn’t thrive in an environment where he was confined to a stall.

One white foot, buy him!

There’s an old proverb about horse trading that goes:

Three white hooves look well about him.

One white foot—buy him.
Two white feet—try him.
Three white feet—look well about him.
Four white feet—go without him.

For some, this saying reinforces the idea that horses with white (versus black) hooves are more prone to hoof troubles. White hooves are supposedly “softer” or more likely to crack or chip.

However, this is one of those old wives tales that is apocryphal.

There is no evidence that the color of the hoof has any bearing on the integrity of the horn. In fact, the hoof color is influenced primarily by the pigmentation above the hoof.

According to an article called 8 Horse Hoof Care Myths, written by Amber Heintzberger,

Master Farrier John Burt owns and operates the JDC School of Basic Farrier Science near Texarkana, Ark. He is a member of and tester for the Brotherhood of Working Farriers Association (BWFA) and a 2001 inductee to the BWFA Hall of Fame. John says, “There is no quality difference on the same horse, no scientific data to sustain any difference. The white and the black hoof are both designed the same structurally; the texture and quality of the hoof is the same.”

One of the foremost experts in his field, Doug Butler, Ph.D., of LaPorte, Colo., is the author of The Principles of Horseshoeing, one of the most widely used texts on horseshoeing in the world. He also has 30 years of teaching experience and acts as a consultant and lecturer on horseshoeing. In 1976 while doing research at Cornell University, he conducted a study on white versus black hooves by taking squares of hoof material and crushing them in a compressor.

“There was no difference between black and white,” he agrees. “The main difference was in moisture content: The softer hooves fell apart easier.” He notes that genetics also play a role in hoof strength. “Some Paint Horses have extremely brittle white hooves and others don’t. Appaloosas seem to have extremely strong feet, no matter what color; genetic propensity seems to be more important than the color of the hoof.”

So, if you still want to believe the myth, send your horse with its four white stockings to me!

When you go to the race track to buy a horse . . .

The shedrow at the track is where many people go horse shopping.

It’s very tempting to go to the racetrack for your next project horse. Off-the-track-Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) are often inexpensive, beautiful and definitely in need of a new career once their success on the racetrack has diminished. I’ve owned three OTTBs and have looked at several more during my horse purchasing adventures.

Over the past week I’ve been reading a thread on the COTH forum about a woman who bought a horse from a trainer at Penn National. The horse was advertised as sound, no vices, currently used as a pony horse. The woman looked at the horse, watched it being ridden and chose to leave a deposit on the horse. It appears the trainer told her that PPEs were not allowed at the track (which is not true). The woman, who has ridden for 20 odd years, flexed the horse herself, gave it a once over and left a deposit.

The horse was paid for and delivered two days later. Upon arriving at its new barn, the horse started to crib. Cribbing is considered a vice and is something that the buyer had asked about explicitly and been assured the horse did not crib (sellers are required by law to answer direct questions accurately). Within a few days the horse was diagnosed as lame. A vet exam by the new owner rated the horse as 3/5 lame on one hind leg, found a bony lump on its other hock, and identified muscle atrophy on one side.

The woman is now attempting to return the horse and obtain at least a partial refund.

Legal and ethical issues aside, this story sounds all too familiar to me. Unfortunately I know several people who have purchased horses that have not been exactly as presented. I came across situations like this when I was horse shopping and in two cases discovered significant discrepancies between advertised and actual. With one, I found issues at the PPE and with the other, I found out simply because I knew someone who had known the horse and let me know about a few things the seller had forgotten.

Here are some thoughts based on my own experiences.

1. It’s hard to go to the track on your own to find a horse. Buying an OTTB off the track is especially tricky because you are very limited in what you can and cannot do. For example, you cannot ride a horse at the track. Not at all. You can arrange to watch a horse be exercised but most likely all you will get to see is the horse jog down the shed row. That’s why organizations like CANTER are so helpful. The volunteers often have seen the horses over a period of time and also know the trainers. They are very good at helping buyers find horses that will suit their needs. I went to the track before CANTER was in my area and I left without a horse. There was too much pressure to buy now, too little information and not enough chance to truly evaluate the horses. I have bought OTTBs off the farm. In that situation I was able to ride them and vet them out.
2. Don’t buy a horse without a PPE unless you are willing to take the loss. Of course a PPE isn’t a guarantee of future soundness, but they will help you identify existing problems and give you a baseline of soundness. My vet has told me that he accompanies his clients to the track to evaluate horses. Okay, he doesn’t bring his digital x-ray equipment with him, but he’s looked at so many horses that he can give a pretty thorough assessment. All racetracks have vets that are authorized to do exams at the track. Trainers might push you to take a horse “as is” but it is not because you cannot get a vet to do an exam. Do you need to x-ray each prospective purchase until it glows? Probably not. But having a vet evaluate the overall condition of the horse and do flexion tests will help you determine if it’s necessary to delve deeper. Twice when I have purchased OTTBs the owner/trainer has offered to put me in touch with their own vet and they have shared medical records and films. This type of up front honesty went a long way to increasing my comfort level.
3. Never shop for a horse alone. I always bring a knowledgeable friend to give me a second set of eyes. It’s easy to get swept up in the moment and fall in love with a horse. I used to shop for horses with a friend of mine who was a vet. He never mentioned that he was a vet which was maybe a good way to go.
4. There are always more horses. Always. Okay, if you want to buy an equitation horse or a Grand Prix dressage horse, that may not be the case. But if you’re looking for an OTTB there are plenty. I never worry too much about the one that “got away”. If the situation is such that I can’t evaluate the horse in the way I want to, then I don’t buy it. As someone who must board their horse I know that a lame horse costs more to keep than a sound one and is far less fun.
5. Racetrack sound and show horse sound can be different. A vet explained to me once that a very successful racehorse can have an uneven gait that never affected it’s racing performance but which would make it unsuitable for the show ring. A race horse trainer may or may not be aware of what is truly suitable for the job you want your horse to do. Your vet is a much better judge of suitability.
6. Be very specific in your questions. Rather than asking if a horse has vices, it’s better to ask if the horse cribs or weaves, for example. It’s also a good idea to ask about injuries, medications, or whether the horse has had joint injections and if so, what and how often.

As for the case that sparked this thoughts, I believe the seller should take the horse back. And I hope that the horse finds a soft landing where he can hopefully recover his soundness and go on to a new career.

More resources:

Buying or Selling a Horse: Creating a Contract