I have a vivid memory of posting this video, but my link in the camel dressage video goes to something different and when I searched my archives, I couldn’t find this one.
So, this isn’t quite as dramatic as a camel and a horse; it’s two horses but from seemingly very different disciplines, dressage and reining. Their performance is very elegant and there’s a funny moment at the end where the two riders switch horses. The Western rider does an excellent job on that dressage horse! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find out who the riders were. If anyone knows, please tell me so I can update this post.
For years I’ve thought how helpful it would be to have a review site for equestrian products that allowed you to see how equine products were rated by multiple users. Sure, I like reading reviews by experts or an individual, but since everyone’s mileage may vary, I wanted a site where it was easy to see many people’s perspectives.
These sites exist for other products. I’m a devoted user of makeupalley as a way to research perfumes, cosmetics and personal care products. I’m also a devoted user of epicurious.com, which offers a great selections of recipes. What truly impressed me is that some of these products or recipes have been reviewed by more than 100 people!
After thinking about the process for several years, I finally decided to build the site myself. This proved to be more complicated than I originally expected, but finally, the “Beta” or test version of my site is ready to roll. Equine Products Review has just gone live. It still needs work, but mostly right now it needs equestrians to try the site, tell me what works and what doesn’t work, and it needs reviews!
To make it easy to leave comments, there is a built in “Feedback” button in yellow on the site. This will send your comments directly to me. Don’t hold back the criticism; at this point I know how it should work because I’ve spent so much time working with my team of developers. Now I need to know whether it works for you and what I could do to make it a more valuable tool.
Last week I posted a Pas de Deux dressage performance that included an English and Western horse whose riders switched mid-way. Thanks to a reader who contacted me, the link now goes to the right video!
Here’s another Pas de Deux . . . with a whole new twist! It puts the Schweppes bull to shame! The camel is just incredible. I have to find out whether the canter is a natural gait and if anyone has taught a camel how to do flying changes before!
I spent Thursday at the Equine Affaire exhibition in West Springfield, Mass. It’s the third year I’ve gone and the third year that I haven’t had the chance to see any of the demonstrations!
I spent most of my time at the CANTER New England booth and was pleased by the amount of interest people had in the horses. Although Suffolk Downs has now closed for the season, there are still horses available, although luckily, the number is dwindling: in the past two weeks 73 horses listed with CANTER have sold!
I did have the chance to walk around the booths in the exhibit area and there was no sign of a recession. I saw people pulling wagons full of stuff down the aisles and there were crowds at almost every booth. I stopped to buy at only one place: Back on Track.
I’ve been coveting a pair of their no bow wraps (needed because Freedom has had some swelling in his left front) and a neck/shoulder wrap for me as I’ve had a lot pain lately in my upper back. Back on Track products use a special fabric which contains polyester thread embedded with a fine ceramic powder. Designed to reflect the horse’s own body-warmth, it creates a soothing far infrared thermal heat, which can help alleviate pain associated with inflamed muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints. Used for both injury prevention as well as injury recovery.
Back on Track Back Pad
I bought one of the back pads last year for Kroni because he seemed to be stiff when I took him out. I was impressed by how much heat was reflected by the blanket and he seemed to start out with a looser back right from the get go.
I am tempted by the blanket and have bid on a few on eBay but they are popular items and go for top dollar even used!
One exhibit that really stopped me in my tracks was the booth with driftwood horses made by sculptor Rita Dee.
I’ve seen photos of horses like these in the past, and posted here about an English sculptor, Heather Jansch, who also makes driftwood horses.
Rita Dee makes her horses out of driftwood collected from the Hudson River.
Seeing the sculptures is a completely different experience since some of them are larger than life. Dee’s sculptures differ from Jansch’s, both in style and in the type of driftwood. Dee’s wood is harvested from the Hudson River, where she lives. Her sculptures are assembled from many smaller pieces of wood. The balance between art and structural integrity is amazing.
Another booth that I visited was the one for Ansur Saddles. While I’ve ridden treeless — at least some of the time — for the past three or four years, I’ve never had the opportunity to sit in an Ansur. Partially, it’s been a cost issue: I was able to buy several different treeless saddles used for less than $800, making it easier to try them and the resell if I didn’t like them. Ansur saddles generally are more than $1500 used. Plus, I knew several people who said their horses developed back problems after using the early models.
Ansur Konklusion treeless jumping saddle.
Still, Ansur is just about the only company that makes a treeless jumping saddle (the Konklusion and the Elite) and they still tempt me. I like the fact that the newer models have built in gullets. I think that they not only add stability to the saddles, but also make them kinder to the horse’s back. I just don’t know if I believe that they will do a sufficient job of distributing weight when you think about how much pressure is applied when a rider is in two-point or landing over a fence. I’m not a light weight rider and I don’t want to cause my horse to develop back problems.
My friend Beth and I had a lively discussion about this with the folks staffing the Ansur booth. They obviously love riding in these saddles and talked about how effectively the Ansur distributes the rider’s weight over a larger surface area. None of them, however, jumped and I still believe that there is a significant difference between how weight is distributed when you ride on the flat and when you are jumping.
To illustrate the difference between the Ansur and conventional treed saddles they had an old wooden tree and talked about how it was impossible for a wooden tree to truly fit a horse that’s in motion. You know, I like treeless saddles, but even I found the comparison lacking in substance because the tree in a $3,500 treed saddle (roughly what an Ansur would cost given the custom options I would need) no longer looks like the one they had on display. I would have loved to walk over to one of the other saddle manufacturers and have them bring over one of their newer style trees and have a “bake off.”
I agree completely with their assertion that many horses are uncomfortable in treed saddles, but a lot of that discomfort has to do with the fact that many of those saddles don’t fit properly. I think that someone has to do a well-designed study that compares the treeless saddles to treed saddles that have been fitted by a competent saddle fitter before those conclusions can be taken seriously.
What I’d really like to see is the results of pressure testing. I know it’s possible and the fact that Ansur doesn’t offer the results of this type of test makes me wonder if they’ve either done it and don’t like the results, or don’t want to know. At the very least I’d like to have the chance to sit in one of their saddles on a horse. However, since I’m very long from my hip to my knee, I’d need a custom flap. Sorry, I can’t see committing the money to have one built for me so that I could try it for a week and return it if I didn’t like it. Maybe one will come up on eBay some day and I’ll get the chance to try one. In the meantime, you would have to pry my County Extreme from my hands!
I’ve been working a lot with my TB, Freedom, to help him get over the death of his best friend. Every morning I spend some extra time with him. I’ve been giving him massages and I’ve also been using acupressure points known for their calming effect.
So far, I’ve found several acupressure points that help. One is the release that Gary Severson showed me, which is the G20 point on a horse’s poll.
Applying pressure to the center of the chestnut has a calming effect.
My vet, Jessie Sprenger, showed me another area that can help calm your horse.Pericardium 6 (PC6) is located either in the center of the chestnuts on your horse’s legs or right in front of the chestnut.
Horse trainer and journalist Diana Thompson addresses PC6 on her very helpful Web site. She says:
In addition to calming the horse very quickly, acupressure on Pericardium 6 has other important influences. Pericardium 6 is the master point for the chest and the upper abdomen. As such, the point can be used to relieve muscular tension in the chest and open the lungs for deep, relaxed breathing (this helps the cinchy horse and those with tight shoulders.) The point also improves digestion. You can use it to prevent colic and, in conjunction with veterinary medical help, help relieve colic.
The acupressure point technique used for Pericardium 6 is simple. Just smooth your fingers down the inside of the horse’s front leg until the flat pads of your middle three fingers rest just in front of the chestnut on the point location. Hold steady light pressure on the area for one to two minutes (or longer if the horse becomes deeply quiet).
The upper circle shows the location G24; the lower one is Yin Tang. (www.dianathompson.com)
Diana Thompson also shows the location of Governing Vessel 24 and Yin Tang. They are both used to help relax horses.
GV 24 is located in the middle of the head at the bottom of the forelock; Yin Tang is midway between the horse’s eyes. The good news is that acupressure points can be activated over a relatively large area so you do not need to be exact to get a result.
Performing acupressure is pretty simple. You start by placing your fingers or palm on the acupressure points and press down slowly for a minute to a minute and a half. If your horse accepts the pressure, you can make small circles, moving the skin (do not slide over the hair).
If you start at GV 24 and gently stroke down you can also activate Yin Tang.
You can tell when your horse starts to relax because they begin to lick, chew and maybe even yawn. It’s a great way to form a bond with your horse and to learn to calm your horse through your own energy.
Hoof picks are ubiquitous at a barn. Often costing less than 50 cents, they are not usually something that I’ve thought much about. I bought them in bulk and lost them almost as fast as I purchased them.
By chance I came across a few that changed my mind. These are hoof picks that are both functional and attractive. I can imagine how well some of them would fit in my hand and that they might give me more pleasure than my old plastic hoof pick.
With the holidays right around the corner, these look like a great gift for any equestrian. And there’s a style for everyone! Hoof care never looked this good.
These picks below are forged by hand, many of them made from old horse shoes which appeals to the idea of form following function.
www.yardleyforge.com
www.mullerslanefarm.com
www.dancingfrogforge.com
www.ironinthefire.net
www.silverlakeforge.net
The pick below is cast from solid brass. Epona offers several models, but I like the art-deco version. Not only is it functional, but a portion of the proceeds are donated to breast cancer research.
A couple of days ago I installed Sitemeter, a website analytics program, onto my blog. While WordPress offers some tracking capabilities as part of their package, I have been curious to know more about who has been reading my blog, and more specifically, where they are from.
When I started this blog, back in March, I really had no idea what to expect. Would anyone read it? I enjoy writing articles for Equine Ink as it’s one of the only opportunities I have to write about a topic that interests me personally. I was spending way too much time posting on equine forums and wanted a space where I could write on the topics that I chose.
After just a few days of tracking, I’m already amazed by how the global span of readers. There are people from the next town over, and others from different continents. I think it’s amazingly cool that people from other countries are finding their way to my blog. I just hope they find the journey worthwhile.
