Oh the Night Time Is the Right Time

I used to despise the fall and winter because it meant no riding after work. After all, no one could ride in the woods in pitch darkness,... or could they? Now the early sunsets mean that it is time to begin my favorite rides.

I have found no sensation equal to gaiting through the woods on a Spanish mustang, whether he be SMR, Shackleford, or Corolla. Last night at the conclusion of a great night ride with three other riders, I allowed Tradewind to take us home directly through the woods. The trail twisted and wound through holly trees, pines, and around fallen oaks. He never missed a step. We never bumped a tree. He never spooked and neither did I.

Monday night we start our first scheduled night rides of the fall and it looks like we will have a big turnout.

Daytime riding in a community where my family has lived since the 1600's gets me in touch with my horse. Night riding in the same woods, as my ancestors did for more than two hundred years, keeps me in touch with myself.

Dust Bunnies

In much of Tidewater the drought is bad but it is worse at my horse lots than anywhere else that I know of. The water table has plummeted. My well at home and the well at the little house go dry each time they are used for watering. For many square miles around my horse lot there is not even a mud hole with water in it. Deer can go where they want to to get water and have access to several farm ponds in the area. Rabbits are more limited in there ability to seek out water. The protective cover of vegetation that allowed them to slipped by unseen by hawks is gone. They risk their lives each time they go to find water. This spring we had an enormous rabbit population. That is not so now. They are as rare as a rain cloud.

Last week sand and dust filled the air as it used to when wind swept across peanut fields as the ground was broken to harvest what was once our cash crop. This time it was different. Instead of lifting dust from plowed, bare fields, it lifted dust from what would normally be grass covered pastures. The grass is not only brown. It is not only dead. It is gone, leaving a deep bed of sand, so soft that walking through it is tiring.

Watering the horses now takes my father and I about six hours each day. With all of the natural water holes dry, water must be driven to the pastures in barrels with water drawn from nearly dry wells.

My riders are city kids. They do not understand the concept of a well going dry and having to give it 24 hours to re charge. They do not under stand that a running toilet or a dripping hose dries out the well and makes it possible for the pump to burn up unless someone discovers the mistake in time.

It makes for other complications also. I am at home waiting for my well to recharge and we are going to be without water this morning. My wife, an otherwise sane and reasonable person, was a city person. When we loose water, even for just a few hours, she looses her mind--calls me "uncivilized."

It also creates certain ironies. I am about to go to court to prosecute criminals whose level of personal hygiene will exceed mine.

But, as difficult as things can be I know how to keep them in proper perspective.

At least I am not a rabbit.

The Core, The Kettle, and The Canter

I am fifty years old, fifty pounds overweight, and can ride a horse fifty miles in a day. Quite obviously, my weight makes me far from a perfect role model, but on the other hand it shows what is possible, even for an older rider who is no longer mistaken for Tarzan.

The first step is not emphasized enough in the equine press. Step one is to stay in the saddle. At my age if I hit the ground at 20 MPH bones will break. Broken bones result in either a recovery period that keeps one out of the saddle or, at best, a less pleasurable experience while riding and healing.

The safest riding style that I have found is also one of the simplest--heels lower than toes, toes in front of knees, sitting on one's pockets, hands in front of one's belt buckle, spine slouched into a relaxed "C" shape.

The body needs to be trained to take advantage of the security that this riding position affords. The key muscles that need to be strengthened are the core muscles of the back, abdomen, and the upper legs. Bulging biceps are of little value when it comes to riding, but a strong back is essential.

Of course, training the body takes time and every moment spent in the gym is a moment not spent in the horse lot. That is why I try to make all exercise sessions as efficient as possible.

Nothing helps a riders legs more than barefoot running. Unlike running with shoes on, barefoot running engages the quadriceps and calves with less stress to the joints. Once a week I do dead lifts with heavy weight and very few reps. (Only to be done after a solid warm up session and using perfect form to avoid back injury.) Daily use of the kettle bell (google the term if you have never seen one, strengthens every muscle that I use in the saddle and has increased both strength and flexibility.

With all of that said, nothing trains one better for riding than riding, especially cantering. It is a great way to not only improve strength but to get a solid cardio vascular work out. During the summer of 2009 I cantered five miles each morning. Not only did it get my horses in great shape, I lost 17 pounds over that summer with no change in my diet. In the last 7 weeks I have lost 7 pounds simply by returning to the five mile canter (or gaiting if on a Corolla or Shackleford)in the morning.

This routine does not give me a beach body, (though some of my riders have suggested that I look like I have been beached)but it does give me a body that can stay where I need to be--in the saddle.

As with all exercise routines, please consult your physician before trying this.

Survival of the Chillest

Why are wild Corollas so gentle and easy to train? Without thinking, the instant answer that comes to mind is that they have been exposed to people all of their lives. That cannot be the answer. A modern domestic horse that has seen people every day of its life but has lived in an open pasture until it is 10 years old, without any training, is likely to be much more difficult to train than a wild ten year old Corolla stallion.

The Corollas are not just the easiest wild horses to train that I have encountered, they are easiest horses of any kind to train that I have encountered. On the other hand, western mustangs tend to have a much more reactive, nervous personalities. Those traits served them well. The horses with the greatest flight instinct were the ones that survived in a world filled with predators of various ilk.

The Spanish mustangs of the the Outer Banks of North Carolina have lived for several hundred years in a world devoid of predators. However, they evolved in an ecosystem that has little if any thing in it that we would consider normal horse forage. A horse's body is as strong as steel, but his digestive system is as fragile as crystal.

In the modern world high strung, high performance horses constantly battle digestive problems, from ulcers to colic. Colic remains the leading cause of death of adult horses. Could it be that the high strung, nervous members of the early Spanish mustang herds on the Outer Banks were more susceptible to digestive threats? If so, could that mean that the calm, relaxed Spanish horses that would have been cougar feed in the west would have been the survivors had they lived on the Outer Banks?

Croatoan was a mature, wild stallion when he was captured outside of Corolla. Yet he was as calm as a Basset Hound. If you find a horse more relaxed than Croatoan check that horse's vital signs right away. (It may already be too late to save him!)

As your doctor will tell you, stress kills. Perhaps the Corollas survived because they became genetically programmed to avoid over reacting to stress.

Breaking More Rocks Than a Chain Gang

Here is a view of Comet's hoof from several years ago as I prepared it for a trim. At that time, like nearly every one else, I thought that I was preparing for a trim when, in reality, I was only preparing it for a shoe to be nailed on. That was the fundamental error that farriers made for several hundred years.

Fortunately, in the last thirty years serious horseman have begun looking to the horse's natural hoof in its natural environment to determine how a horse's hoof should be trimmed. Jaime Brown, Pete Ramey, and a host of other serious students of a healthy hoof have made it possible for a domestic horse to have a life without the periodic lameness that accompanies a lifestyle marred by stable confinement, lack of movement, and obesity.

A proper trim leads to a concave hoof. Heels are widened, and the bars are kept well in check. The outer portion of the hoof should not be weight bearing but should instead be rolled upward with the rasp. The portion of the hoof outside of the white line was the portion that bore nearly all of the horse's weight under the traditional style of hoof trimming. As a result, that portion constantly chipped and cracked. The horse owner then was advised to spend a fortune on hoof supplements, more misguided hoof trimming, oils and salves to 'restore the hoof," and worst of all, to keep the horse stall confined until the hoof "healed."

Unfortunately that was the state of the art for hundreds of years. My father had professional training as a farrier and a blacksmith in the 1960's and the techniques that he was taught as absolutely essential, we now realize, are absolutely destructive.

So how is it that we can say that natural hoof care is essential to a healthy horse? Well, the proof is in the pasture. Comet's hooves are trimmed to mimic that of a wild horse. He lives in a herd on hard ground and has the constant opportunity for movement. As long as I have had him he has never stood in a stable and been exposed to the corrosive power of horse urine or hoof deforming soft bedding. Tradewind, who foundered in the wild to the degree that he walked on the side of his hoof, does 50 miles in a day without the slightest hint of discomfort.

Comet trots through gravel and road rock. He does not limp or give way to tender feet. He treats gravel like sand. Just the way he was naturally designed to do.