horse care

Last week Tonka was feeling wonderful. He was going sound and letting me know that he felt good. I blogged about it. Jinx! I had that fun jumping lesson, and then two great rides over the weekend. Tonka was forward, balanced, doing enthusiastic canter work, and was supple across his […]

Calm Hoof Soaking

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Back in August, Tonka went lame in the left front. Monika, Tonka’s veterinarian, deduced that it was coming from the coffin joint. Radiographs didn’t show anything dramatic, but she thought that there was a slight tip to the angle of the coffin bone that might be the cause of Tonka’s […]

Coffin Joint Progress

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I wrote about this last winter, but I’m doing it again. I have a fix for static shocks at the barn. It has truly changed my relationship with Tonka. Tonka is a smart horse who makes connections. He hates static shocks. He knows they don’t just happen out of the […]

Static Shock Fix For Horses

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I live in southern Maine. We have WEATHER. Rain, nor’easters, hail, the occasional hurricane, snow, blizzards. Fog, sun, clouds, high winds, withering humidity. I welcome (or at least tolerate) all of it except in winter when the temperature hovers at freezing and instead of snow we get rain that freezes […]

Colic Weather

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There’s been a lot of frustration and disgruntlement (to put it mildly) about our horse sports’ governing bodies, but the FEI (Federation Equestre Internationale) has done something right. As of July of 2021 the FEI has ruled that it will be illegal for horses to compete at FEI events with […]

Yay for Horse Whiskers!

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Back in August Tonka went lame on his left front. Monika, our veterinarian, took a look and determined that the likely culprit was a sore coffin joint. (Read about that here.) We decided to try injecting it with a cocktail of drugs. It worked! Tonka moved happily once again. (This […]

Shoes for Coffin Joints

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Some lamenesses have obvious causes and clear resolutions. Your horse is injured by a known trauma. The wound heals. Perhaps a ligament swells, causes pain, and eventually returns to some semblance of its former self. X-rays and ultrasounds can give definitive diagnoses. Sometimes. Unfortunately for the health of the horse […]

Horse Back Health Is Complicated

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Helena Harris has a podcast at the Horse Radio Network called Stall and Stable. Her main focus is giving advice to people who keep their horses home. She covers other topics, too, and it’s well worth subscribing to, even if, like me, you board your horse. Helena follows my blog […]

Why I Board Podcast

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Horses are herd animals, which means they prefer to be in a group of their own kind. Feral horses living on open rangeland organize themselves into a family subset of mares, foals, a few youngsters, and a stallion who keeps them together. There are roving bands of bachelors, angling to […]

Friends Over the Fence

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