Emergency Instructions for My Horses

In just under 3 weeks we are planning on heading south to our condo in Puerto Vallarta for a few weeks of vacation in the sun. I’ve been busy lining things up and planning what to pack. A very important part of my planning is the care of my animals. It isn’t just a case of who will feed them, but what should the people in charge do in case of an emergency.

My neighbor will be in charge of the horses I have here at the house; he knows how to run the tractor to put out the round hay bales, he’ll check on the horses daily and make sure the automatic waterer keeps working. He’s familiar with horses and knows how to handle them, knows who to call if the waterer quits working and has the name and phone number of our veterinarian.

Two more of my horses are boarded at a barn not far away. I don’t worry about their care as they are wonderfully looked after, but my vet’s number is also handy for them to have.

But I will be out of the country and won't be easy to get hold of in case of an emergency. What then? I need to leave a list of instructions so that it is totally clear as to what I would like done in case of an emergency. I have left my friend, Max, in charge of all decisions, but I have given her a list of my preferences for each horse. I’ve had to make some hard choices about what I would like done, and how much money should be spent for each horse. I have an old, retired horse with arthritis, one with a life-limiting health problem, one who is a great riding horse but needs an expensive drug each riding season, and 2 more horses that are wonderful riding horses and have many years left in them.

So with each person who has the care of my horses I have left a list of the following: vet’s name and number; Max’s name and number; and each horse’s information (name, age, sex and health conditions). With my vet, with Max, and with the owner of the barn where I have two of my horses, I have left instructions as to what I would like done and how much money should be spent in the case of an emergency. It is also important that I line up with everyone how the bills should be paid until I arrive home.

And last, but not least, what if the unthinkable happens – we have an accident and don’t ever arrive home? I would like to know that all of my animals, including the dog and barn cat, are taken care of, that they go to good homes. In that case, I have a letter describing what I would like done with each of them, signed and put in with our wills. It isn’t a pleasant thought, but I wouldn’t want them just hauled off to an auction.

Hackamore

I came across an old picture the other day of something that made me cringe. The picture was taken almost 30 years ago at the start of my “horse career,” and at the time I thought nothing of it. I have learned a lot in the ensuing years and now as I look at the picture I realize how the fit of the hackamore is all wrong. Do you see?

There are a few different types of hackamores – bosal, sidepull, jumping cavesson and the mechanical hackamore. All of these are designed to act on the nose and jaw of the horse, rather than the tongue and bars of the mouth as with a bit.

The bosal comes in varying sizes and weights and is used many times to start a young horse. It consists of a noseband with a large knot to which is attached a mecate – a long, braided rope that when tied on correctly has a closed loop rein and a leadrope. Some bosals may also have a throatlatch piece, called a fiador.







The sidepull has a noseband that fits tighter and has rings to attach reins. As the name suggests, this type of hackamore is used for lateral movements of the head.
















A jumping cavesson is similar to a sidepull but is usually attached to an English bridle and the noseband is an even tighter fit than the sidepull, giving it more subtle control.








A mechanical hackamore is not really a true “hackamore” as it has shanks and a curb chain, giving it quite a bit of leverage and can be very harsh in a rider with rough hands. It doesn’t have a lot of ease in turning a horse, unless the horse is trained to neck rein, but it does have considerable stopping power.

With all of the above hackamores - as with any bridle - the fit is all-important. The nose band should ride on the bone of the nose, not on the soft tissue below the nose bone as pressure there can cut off the wind of the horse, or can break the tip of the nose bone if it is sitting just on the edge of that bone.

So do you see why I cringed at the picture? With a strong pull, how would this horse be able to breath?

Scrapbook of Memories

I have a very good friend and horse riding buddy, Jan, whose 76th birthday will be in the spring. She is no longer riding so her daughter, who is also a very good friend and riding buddy of mine, has an idea for her mother.

We have been going through our photo albums, gathering pictures of Jan, her horses and all the good times we’ve had on horseback. We’ve also been writing down stories and memories that we’ve laughed about all these years with the idea of making a scrapbook – a memory book of Jan’s riding days. What a wonderful idea!

Not only will this give Jan something to go back to and laugh over for a long time, it also gives us the opportunity to reminisce and enjoy again all those times. We plan on getting together at Jan’s house sometime this month – it’s too cold to ride anyway! – to compile the scrapbook. Among the three of us we will come up with many, many stories and pictures and I have a feeling that this book will be very large.

I plan on riding for many years to come, but maybe it would be a good idea to start my scrapbook now.

Portable Mounting Blocks

After an October of cold and rain, we had a great November – after deer hunting season was over – and the horseback riding was wonderful. My friends and I managed to get out riding many times each week. Generally speaking, by the end of Minnesota's hunting season (which is 10 days covering the first 2 weekends in November), trail riding season is over since it's too cold and lots of times icy and snowy, but not this year.

I spent a lot of time riding Ole, my daughter’s 16-hand Quarter horse, and in doing so I realized how much more athletic my daughter is than I am! Admittedly she is taller, but there’s no way I can get up onto him as easily as she does...to ride him, using a mounting block is a must for me.

There are quite a few mounting aids available, one of which was given to me for Christmas last year. What I received is a portable mounting block – a small, folding stool with a cord attached. The idea is to unfold the stool, use it as a small boost to reach the stirrup, and then pull the stool up after you are in the saddle. It folds up into a nice bundle that can be either tied to the saddle or put into a saddle bag. This portable mounting stool is great for trail riding, when you might have to get down off your horse on the trail.

Two other mounting aids I’ve seen which you can bring along on the trail are drop-down mounting stirrups. One is attached to the regular stirrup and one is on a long strap attached to the saddle horn that you would then pull up after mounting so it's not hanging as you ride. I think I would be more inclined to use the EZ Up Stirrup Extender since it seems to be more stable. I could see the mounting aid swinging a little as you tried to get on, especially if your horse has trouble standing still when you are mounting.

I also had bought – actually for my granddaughter to use in the bathroom to reach the sink – a lightweight, folding stepstool that could conceivably be used for mounting a horse. If a cord were attached to it, it could be pulled up, folded and then either tied to the saddle, or if one had large pocketed saddle bags, it could be stored in there.

To tell the truth, my favorite way of getting back on my horse while on the trail is to find a large rock, log, or slope of land before getting off to use as my “mounting block.” Sometimes that isn’t always the case as I found while riding in Italy a year ago last September – then it was a good hard push on the rear from a fellow rider!

Cavessons / Nosebands

I was going through my tack locker at the barn trying to find something and figured it was time to reorganize. What a mess in there! Somewhere, somehow, I have misplaced a piece to my English bridle, the cavesson. I know I should assemble my bridle so that the cavesson is always attached, but it seems like my favorite one is always getting shunted from one bridle to another. It must be time to hit up the tack catalog and see if I can find another cavesson similar to the one I like so that I can keep everything together.

I guess I had never realized how many different kinds of cavessons – or nosebands, as they are also called – there are. All I wanted was a plain one, but was surprised to see besides the plain, or French cavesson, that there are others called drop, flash, crank, figure-8, and Hanoverian cavessons, to name just a few.


Why use a cavesson?
Other than a parade bridle on a western horse, which is just for looks, cavessons are mainly used with English bridles. The primary purpose is to keep the horse’s mouth closed so that he cannot evade the bit and/or put his tongue over the bit, and the plain and flash cavessons can also be used for the attachment of a standing martingale. Fitting any type of cavesson to a horse – just like fitting a bridle – is important. One should not pull the noseband so tight the horse cannot open his mouth slightly, therefore being able to relax his jaw. When you have finished bridling up, you should be able to put a finger underneath the strap of the cavesson.

What are the different types of cavessons?

Plain, or French: this cavesson is the one most commonly used for most of the English divisions. It sits about halfway between the prominent cheekbone and the horse’s lips.








Drop: This one fits on the nasal bone and runs below the bit and around the chin groove. Care must be taken to be sure that the band is not below the nasal bone. If it is lower, on the soft tissue of the nose, it can restrict breathing. Besides keeping the mouth closed, this cavesson also holds the bit up in the horse’s mouth.

Flash: A flash cavesson combines the plain and the drop, being connected in the middle of the plain as it crosses over the nose. It has the flexibility of keeping the bit up in the mouth plus being able to attach the standing martingale.






Figure-8: This one is attached at the cheekpiece of the bridle, making a figure-8 from one cheekpiece, across the nose, under the chin groove, then back up across the nose to the opposite cheekpiece. This noseband is, in effect, very similar to the flash cavesson.





Crank: The crank cavesson is a plain noseband but with the ability to be pulled very tight versus just a plain buckle. It is very commonly used with a double bridle in upper levels of dressage as drop and flash cavessons cannot be used with this type of bridle.






Hanoverian: This is the combination of a crank and a flash noseband and is found on a lot of dressage bridles.

Horse Eye Inflammation

Horse's Eye Inflammation Resembles Cherry Eye
In checking the horses over at the pasture I noticed that our Quarter horse mare, Lacey, had an inflamed eye with a small lump in the corner. I waited a day to see if it would clear on its own and when it didn’t I gave my veterinarian a call. Wouldn’t you know, it was Friday of Labor Day Weekend and he was already on his way out of town.

I described what I was seeing and he asked if I had any eye ointment on hand – I did, but it was old. He told me to go ahead and use it as long as it did not have any cortisone in it and to give him a call after the weekend if it hadn’t gotten any better. I told him that it looked similar to “cherry eye” in a dog, but Dr. Harms explained that horses don’t get “cherry eye," which is an inflammation of a gland in the corner of a dog’s eye and horses don’t have that gland. I then asked him why I wasn’t to use an ointment with cortisone in it. He explained that if there is a scratch, abrasion or ulcer on the cornea, corticosteroids (cortisone) can exacerbate the problem by preventing the defect from healing, but it is helpful in reducing inflammation and preventing scarring.

By Tuesday after Labor Day I was still concerned and so I had the vet come out to take a look. His diagnosis was that it was most likely one of three things:

• conjunctivitis, which is essentially inflammation of the whites of the eye;
  
• a foreign body, which would most likely be a small piece of debris in the corner of the eye causing irritation; or
  
• squamous cell carcinoma, which is a tumor of a cell type that is found at the margins of the eye.

I was to put a triple antibiotic ointment with hydro cortisone in the corner of Lacey’s eye 3 to 4 times daily for 7-10 days and he wanted to recheck if the eye wasn’t any better in 5 days.

On the 5th day I called Dr. Harms again and told him that although it wasn’t any worse, it wasn’t any better either, so he changed to a different ointment with cyclosporine, which is to be put in the inflamed eye once every 12 hours.

I am very concerned as the lump in the corner of Lacey’s eye has grown and it is still red and sore looking. When I talked to Dr. Harms this morning he said to give the new ointment one more day and then tomorrow I am to take Lacey to his clinic. He plans to sedate her and then check the tear duct for a foreign body and will also take a sample to send to the lab to see if it is a squamous cell carcinoma. How I’m hoping it is a bug or a small seed that got in there, instead of a tumor!

Hunt Caps

I was watching an old movie not too long ago in which a couple of actors were riding horses in traditional hunt attire. They were wearing hunt caps, which today are just items of apparel for English riding classes that are not over fences, and had the ribbons on the back of the cap down.

Have you ever noticed those ribbons on the back of the velvet hunt caps? Have you ever wondered why they are there, and the correct way to wear them? The ribbons are the tails of the bow and have a special meaning for those who “follow the hounds” in a fox hunt.

The most common color for the bow is black, used for fox hunting, but there is also a red ribbon which is used for stag hunting. In some countries, their cavalry riders have silver ribbons and their national riders have gold ribbons. It is general usage to have the ribbons sewn up – the tails pointing up – as that is the traditional usage for most riders, any rider is entitled to wearing the cap in this way. Having the ribbons down is reserved for the Hunt Master and hunt staff. Ribbons are also down for cavalry officers and riders representing their countries at the Olympics or the World Equestrian Games.

Not many general riders wear the hunt caps any longer as they are not an ASTM/SEI certified helmet for safety purposes.