Monthly Archives: November 2019

Longtime readers of The Cooperative Horse and before that, of the HenBlog, well know why I’m not too communicative the week before Thanksgiving. I have the Pie Party to prepare for. Every year, for the last 16 years, instead of cooking a classic Thanksgiving meal of turkey, stuffing, etc. etc, […]

Pie Party 2019

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A horse’s teeth continue to erupt from the gum line and elongate during most of their lives. This is a smart adaptation for an animal that consumes coarse forage. If their teeth remained static like ours, they’d soon be worn down to useless nubs. The surface of your horse’s teeth […]

The Horse Dentist Visits

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We’ve had a stretch of truly miserable weather. It rained on and on. Sometimes there was a fine mist enveloping the world. Sometimes a cold driving downpour soaked everything it pelted. In the morning there was a dusting of snow, until that turned into more rain. It seemed like it […]

Rain, Shelter, Horses

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Note: This is one article in a series about horse vision. I’ve compiled all of them, including more information and references, in this blogpost: Horse Vision. Most horse people are aware that horses have blind spots. It’s something that I learned about as a kid. Which is why this advice is common […]

Your Horse’s Blind Spot

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On Sunday, after riding the jumper course (which for us was a series of poles on the ground) in the indoor arena at Coyote Spring Farm, Tonka and I went for a hack around the property. We were approached by a woman on her nice young grey mare. She said […]

Making It Look Easy

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One of my mantras is: The more you do, the more you do. It’s all too easy to stay in your safety zone and ride only at your home barn. What with bad weather and bug season, it’s also too easy to narrow that world even more and stay indoors. […]

Our First “Jumper” Show

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When riding, our view is between the horse’s ears, which makes us quite aware of their sense of hearing.   I’d always assumed that horses have far superior hearing to humans. Certainly, horses have better hearing than me! For most of my riding life, I’ve had a hearing loss (I […]

Your Horse’s Hearing

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Note: This is one article in a series about horse vision. I’ve compiled all of them, including more information and references, in this blogpost: Horse Vision. Horses evolved to live in wide-open, mostly monotone landscapes. Unlike humans, they didn’t need color to determine what was ripe and edible. Their food was at […]

Horse Color Vision

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I’ve got a busy week coming up. I’m putting the finishing touches on my presentations for Equine Affaire and getting ready to travel down to Springfield, MA for that, so I’ve no time for a thoughtful and carefully crafted blog. But I don’t want to leave this site blank for […]

What I’ve Been Up To

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