Differences between basic Dressage movements

Leg Yield
Your horse moves slightly sideways away from your leg while flexed in the opposite direction from which he’s moving. His body remains straight with a slight flexion at his poll. Both front and back legs should cross as he moves. For example, you are on the rail going to the left. You ask for [...]

Worlds Tallest Horse?

Poe the Clydesdale may be the world’s tallest horse – and owner Shereen Thompson wants the Guinness Book of World Records to confirm it.
Miss Thompson, who owns a farm in Ontario, USA measured 10-year-old Poe at 20.2 hands – or 80.8 inches.
The current world record holder, Remington, from Princeton in Texas, measures a mere 80 [...]

Sheath Cleaning

What is a Sheath?
The sheath is a tube of skin that protects the horses penis. Cleaning a male horse’s sheath is an unpleasant, but necessary job for a horse owner. It should be done at least once every 6 months
Most breeding stallions are probably washed often enough during breeding season, but they might not get [...]

Windgalls

What are Windgalls?
Windgalls or Windpuffs (more commonly used in the USA), are commonly used to describe puffiness in the area of the horse’s ankle. Windgalls usually occur when a horse is young, especially after he begins work and are a chronic problem often lasting the rest of the animal’s life. Windgalls are fluid-filled sacs that [...]

BHS backs campaign to rethink horse tax

Horse owners are not impressed by Government plans to introduce a ’stealth tax’ on every horse and pony in the UK.
Under the proposals, millions of families, trainers and breeders would be forced to pay £10.50 per year for every horse they own.
Labour claimed the levy, which would generate more than £6.8million per year, would help [...]

Loading a difficult Horse

It can happen to the best of us. You’re late for a horse show, you try to hurry your horse into the trailer, he refuses to load, and you end up missing the event. Or perhaps it’s more than just an occasional occurrence. Maybe your horse has made a habit of battling when you try [...]

Trot Diagonals

Trot is a two-time, diagonal gait with a moment of suspension after each step. The legs move in diagonal pairs like this, left hind and right fore together, then right hind and left fore together with the moment of suspension between each pair.
To ride on the correct diagonal, a rider must rise when the horses [...]

Obesity in Horses

Horses are inheritably couch potatoes. An overeating, slothful horse leads to an obese horse. Unlike humans, however, horse owners often don’t see the dangers of an obese horse. Caretakers may see no harm in giving their horses rich foods, but obesity in horses is just as unhealthy as obesity in humans and can lead to [...]

Buying Hay

When you buy hay you will probably be buying it in bulk so its a good idea to look around and make sure that you inspect all of the hay that you are buying to make sure it is good quality. Here are some tips that will help you figure out if the hay you [...]

Types of Showjumps

Show jumping fences are often colorful, sometimes very elaborate and artistic in design, particularly at the highest levels of competition. Types of jumps used include the following:

Vertical or upright – a jump that consists of poles or planks placed one directly above another with no spread, or width, to jump.

Oxer - two verticals close together, to [...]