Monthly Archives: December 2009

FeedXL.com offers one day free trial to check your horse’s diet

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Commentary, equine nutrition, hoof care and tagged with ,

Curious to find out if your feeding regime is meeting your horse’s nutritional requirements? www.feedxl.com is offering a 24 hour free trial of their basic “lite” service. Plug in your data and see if your feeding your horse appropriately.

Feedxl.com makes recommendations based on your horse’s age, weight, body condition, workload and health. You enter in the amount and type of feed in his current diet (there are no “scoops” or “cans” so be prepared to list how much you feed by weight) and it provides a rudimentary analysis of whether the diet is sufficient in the areas of:

  • Digestible energy
  • Protein and Amino Acids
  • Minerals
  • Vitamins
  • Total feed intake
  • Forage intake

The “lite” version of the program doesn’t use enough parameters to really make a detailed recommendation but it does provide a good “back of the envelope” analysis. Certainly it would be a good starting point for people who are just starting to think about equine nutrition. I know plenty of folks who give their easy keepers a handful or two of grain but who never consider if that limited quantity of grain might provide an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals.

Would I use this instead of consulting a nutritionist? Probably not. Then again, I don’t have any problem working with the free nutritionists who work for the feed companies. Yes, they are likely to be biaised toward the feeds that they sell but then again, I’m already feeding those feeds. Twice I’ve had the nutritionists from Purina out to my barn and I thought they provided solid advice and they had the added benefit of looking at my horse and helping me evaluate him.

So, how did my horse’s feeding regime stack up to the Feedxl analysis? He’s getting just what he needs. Whew!

Sleigh bells are the sound of winter.

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in driving, equestrian and tagged with , , ,

Antique sleigh bells. (www.sawlady.com)

For most non-equestrians, the sound of sleigh bells is close to being synonymous with the romance of winter.

We’ve all sung songs like Jingle Bells and the Sleigh Ride since we were kids:

Jingle Bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way – oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh!

or

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too. Come on, it’s lovely weather
for a sleigh ride together with you.

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to capture the magic sound of sleigh bells myself. I wanted real antique sleigh bells, ones with a history. I imagined myself trotting through the woods spreading the happy sound of winter music.

Quickly I learned that antique sleigh bells are expensive. Not so much when you buy the odd bell or two, but if you want a string of bells still mounted on a harness strap, be prepared to fork over several hundreds of dollars.

Stands of antique sleigh bells photographed at the Brimfield Antique Show

Although decorative bells have been used on horse since the Roman times, in the U.S. sleigh bells became very popular in the 1800s — made even more popular by the song Jingle Bells, which was published in 1850.

In addition to their entertainment value, bells played a critical role in sleigh safety. Since it’s difficult to stop a sleigh quickly, the sound of the bells gave ample warning to oncoming traffic. Some stretches of roads required horses to wear bells.

The hub of U.S. bell making was East Hampton, Conn. In fact, in the mid-1800s it was known as “Bell Town” or “Jingle Town”.  The bell making trade was established by William Barton, who went on to teach others how to cast horse bells. Most older bells were cast from brass but there are also examples of bells made from silver and bronze. Eventually, the technique for stamping bells out of sheet metal was invented in East Hampton, allowing bells to be mass produced but changing the sound of their music forever.

The technicalities of sleigh bells.

Different size bells have different tones. Larger bells generally having deeper tones. On a single strand of bells you might have several different size crotals (the official name of the housing that encloses the pellet) or a uniform size.  Although old bells generally are marked with a number, there is no correlation with the timbre or pitch.

The sound is made when the pellet inside the crotal strikes the metal housing. This pellet, which is also called a jinglet or a pea, was typically made of iron or steel but in older bells could be a smooth pellet.

The pellet inside a crotal, also called a jinglet or pea, is usually a small ball of iron or mild steel, although the pellet is sometimes a smooth pebble of stone. In addition to the slits cut into the bell, most crotals also have holes that are cast into the lower half that are called sound holes.

Interestingly, if you choose to go the antique route, it’s the smaller bells that generally have the bright sound associated with sleigh bells. Larger older bells often have a less melodic, duller sound. This was my experience and it was corroborated by the research that I’ve done.

My bell experiment

In the end I bought several bells on eBay. A few were single large bells that were pretty to look at, but disappointing to listen to. I also had a few smaller, older bells that were still attached to a harness.

Full of Christmas cheer I hung the bells from Freedom’s neck and headed out into the woods on a beautiful snowy day. We jingled. And it was pleasant for about five minutes. After that, it was, unfortunately, just annoying. It ruined the peaceful quiet of the ride. It drowned out the satisfying crunch of hooves on snow. It was loud. I took the bells off and hung them on a tree to be picked up on the way back.

I still like my bells. They are beautiful. I like to think about them attached to sleighs a hundred years ago. But I prefer the quiet of the day when it comes to my ride.

Take a listen to the sound of the bells in these videos. They sound pretty good for five minutes or so, don’t they?

More about antique sleigh bells:

Classic Bells – this is a hugely informative site with great photos of bell designs.

Sleigh Bells

What does a 92.3% FEI dressage test look like? Watch Edward Gal and Moorland Totilas!

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Competition, dressage and tagged with , , , , , ,

Edward Gal and Moorland Totilas set a new world record with an amazing score of 92.3% in his Grand Prix Freestyle performance at the FEI World Cup FEI World Cup™ Dressage series at the Grand Hall at Olympia in London. Amazingly, it’s the third time this year that this partnership has broken records. Their first record breaking ride was at Hickstead in July, followed by the Alltech FEI European Championships at Windsor in August.

Scores like this are unheard of in upper level dressage and the impact has been reverberating across equine forums and magazines. People have strong opinions — both positive and negative about the accolades heaped on the pair.

Critics feel that the Dutch stallion is more about showmanship than performance. The say that his movement looks “manufactured” or “over the top”, that he’s behind the vertical, that he shows little longitudinal flexibility, and that his hind end does not match the elevation of his forelegs. They voice concern that his scores are inflated and do not accurately reflect his performance.

Others feel that his power, presence and elevation, particularly in the passage and piaffe, put him in a different class than his competition. His lateral flexibility is excellent. He is a horse that exudes power. But he also looks relaxed and happy, especially at the free walk and as he leaves the arena. Many upper level horses show a great deal of tension in their tests and I don’t see that here.

I’m still on the fence here. There are elements of his test that I think are fabulous. I think that his scores are too high, but that he does have fantastic talent.

Certainly, these scores show that the extravagant movement shown by Tortilas are what the judges are rewarding. So if Totilas is a “freak of nature”, what does this say about the future of dressage at the upper levels. And will it trickle down to the lower levels where most of us play?

Take a look at this Freestyle and let me know what you think.

Feeding for winter.

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in equine nutrition, Horse care, horse health and tagged with , ,

On Friday I wrote about the importance of hydration, especially in the winter. It got me thinking about the changes I’ve been making to my horse’s feeding regime.

This is the first winter when I haven’t had my horse in a bank barn. One of the real advantages to that barn was that it stayed cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. I never had problems with soaking beet pulp or hay cubes there because they didn’t freeze. That’s not the case where my horse is now. While there are advantages (more turnout space, for example), in bone chilling weather like we’ve had for the past week, everything liquid freezes.

Feeding Freedom has been an iterative process. He’s a bit of a hard keeper (last year he got a bit ribby) but also doesn’t do well on grain (which makes him too hot). The foundation of his feed is a ration balancer and alfalfa pellets. From there I add enough calories to keep him happy but sane. Over the summer that’s included soaked beet pulp, oil and sometimes soaked hay cubes. The oil has now become a semi-frozen sludge and leaving anything soaking is completely out of the question. So far this is what I’ve come up with:

Added some hay stretcher to his alfalfa pellets.
I’m feeding him rice bran as a fat source. It’s not ideal (it has a fairly high starch content and it is not as good a source of fat as oil, but it can be fed dry)
On the days that I feed I mix in some soaked beet pulp. Since it’s a forage I don’t worry about feeding it just a few days a week. In fact I make the beet pulp pretty soupy and add it into his regular meal. He seems to enjoy slurping up the mix and I think it’s a good way to add a bit of water.
I top dress his grain with salt to encourage him to drink more.
When it’s cold out I usually give the horses some extra hay, too, as it helps keep them warm.

What does everyone else do?

 

Snow, glorious snow!

Posted by Liz Goldsmith in Commentary, equestrian, hoof care, Horse care and tagged with , , ,

Cross country skiing is almost as much fun as riding.

Last week it was cold. The ground was hard and their was ice everywhere. It was too cold to ride and the footing was awful. I felt like hibernating.

Last night we had 8-9 inches of gorgeous, powdery snow!

Okay, it was still too cold to ride (my cutoff is 20-degrees and this morning it was 15 degrees but felt closer to zero given the wind chill . . . but it was perfect for cross country skiing. I like cross country skiing almost as much as riding. Not quite as much but there’s something magical about skimming along through the snow listening to the hiss of the skis as they slide through the snow.

I am lucky enough to be able to ski to the barn on snowy mornings. We live on the same trail system as the barn so I am the designated “feeder” on days when people don’t want to risk life and limb on the roads.

This morning was wonderful. It was almost too deep for Kirby and Woolly, my two dogs, but they gamely followed in my tracks. I was the first person on the trails this morning and the snow was storybook perfect and absolutely pristine.

There were icicles on the horses’ whiskers. When I arrived at the barn the horses were toasty and warm under their blankets but had icicles hanging off their whiskers and forelocks. Judging by the tracks in their pasture, the snow hadn’t slowed them down one bit. Freedom’s barefoot experiment continues to go well. I’m impressed by how little chipping appeared despite last week’s frozen tundra and now that there’s snow it’s great to see how well the bare hoof handles it. This is the first time I’ve had a horse barefoot in the winter and I guess I’m still surprised by how much traction he has and pleased by the fact that I haven’t had to deal with snow balling up in the shoe (let’s face it, even with rim pads or bubble pads that sometimes happens).

I’m hoping that it warms up enough to ride. I can’t wait to see how he does when I take him out into the fields for a gallop.