Equusの September 2016 の目次

Bobbing for apple bits “Get Your Horse to Drink Up” (Hands On, EQUUS 466) offered very helpful advice for keeping a horse hydrated in the summer months as well as when the weather goes from hot to cold very fast. One trick that I have learned over the last year is to chop up an apple into small chunks and to throw them in the water bucket. This way, when the horse goes to get the treat he also rehydrates himself. Kiley Moore Claremont, California Too hot to handle We had a wetter than normal spring, and our five-acre property in Texas was finally out of drought. However, the wet weather brought us swarms of biting bugs like we’d never seen before. My two mares were getting bloody spots on…

The timing couldn’t have been worse. In the middle of June 2014, Kitty Keen was ramping up preparations to show her mare Dolly Dumas in two national championship shows. The 12-year-old, flat-shod Tennessee Walking Horse mare had qualified for both The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association’s (TWHBEA) World Versatility Show and the Walking Horse Owners Association’s (WHOA) International Pleasure and Colt Grand Championship just a week later. But, in a grooming session a month before the first event, Kitty noticed a lump on the mare’s hindquarters. The pitch-black nodule was just to the right of her tail, about six inches below the dock. At first Keen thought it looked like a bug bite, but over several days the lump grew larger. And then it started to bleed. Keen…

Feeding can be one of the most satisfying of barn chores: From the gentle, anticipatory nickers of the horses as you open the feed room door to their eager attentiveness as you pour grain into tubs, to the sense of nurturing that swells within you as you listen to the sounds of a barnful of horses contentedly chewing. On the other hand, feeding time can be a nightmare, full of aggressive pinned-eared squealing, stall-door barging and incessant wall kicking. Whether it’s directed from one horse to another or toward the person with the feed scoop, this behavior is not only unsettling, it can be dangerous for everyone involved. If anything close to the nightmare scenario plays out at your barn, you need to do something about it. Not just for…

The first time I met Faax El Din, I hadn’t “gone to see him”---it was more like I’d gone to be introduced. There was a vibrant spirit and a strong intelligence behind his large, dark eyes, and the connection between us was almost instantaneous. He was a special horse on a large farm, and right away I saw that he needed someone who could be devoted entirely to him. Fate chose me---then an impressionable 16-yearold girl---to become his person. I have been told that special horses find you at special times in your life and, at least for the two of us, it was true. Ours was a lifetime filled with communication in our own language and the happiness of long bareback rides and leaping tall fences. He was my…

SURPRISING FINDINGS ABOUT RARE NAVICULAR CONDITION A new study suggests that a rare malformation of the navicular bone that often results in chronic lameness is congenital rather than related to wear or injury. Researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Ghent University in Belgium recently published a paper documenting three cases of navicular bone partitions---meaning the bone is composed of two (bipartite) or three (tripartite) sections instead of a normal, single structure. These sections are delineated by defects in the bone, covered by smooth cartilage, and range from shallow dents to full-depth separations connected only by fibrous tissue. In each case, the unusual formation was discovered through radiographs taken to investigate chronic lameness. These abnormalities are often mistaken for fractures or other injuries, but they would actually be present…

Your horse isn’t bad or aggressive. He’s just … well, he isn’t the placid guy who rolls sedately with every new request and stands like a rock for the veterinarian and farrier. No, your horse is the one who jumps first and asks questions later. “I’ve found that horses, for the most part, are trusting animals; they are pretty open to most things,” says Jenny Johnson, VMD, of Oakhill Shockwave and Veterinary Chiropractic in Calabasas, California. “But some are defensive right off the bat, and these are not necessarily horses that have been abused. They are just naturally suspicious or cautious because they are wired a little differently, like some people.” And that can be a problem when the horse needs to stand still. A horse who frets and starts…

Scholars have mapped two triangles composing the triangular trade. The earlier is the red-purple-green linkage, representing the predominant shipping routes during the earlier part of the Colonial era, from about 1600 to 1640. During this time, the New England and Virginia colonies struggled to take root and needed constant resupply of horses, cattle, manufactured goods and coin money (specie) from England. They also needed slaves, which they obtained via the green route. When the colonies became better established they became more productive, shipping rum (distilled from cane molasses made from sugar shipped northward via the blue route). Later, maize, tobacco and cotton became major exports. Toward the beginning of the 18th century, as the demand for sugar intensified, slaves began to be shipped directly to Surinam and the Caribbean via…

While free-breeding horses who roam at liberty and are allowed to live for generations under feral conditions often become hardier, they also frequently show a decrease in size and quality. Fretted by flies, this 12-hand island mare shakes her head. She sports a big scar on her right hip, perhaps the result of a kick or possibly an injury incurred while being covered by the stallion in whose band she runs. She also shows many conformation faults—notably an upright shoulder, very short and steep croup, rough coupling, long back and upright pasterns and hoofs. This view of Assateague Island shows what waterbound pasturage is like everywhere from Narragansett Bay to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.…

For years I was pretty much never late for anything---meetings, appointments, even parties. It’s a trait you pick up when you work in radio news, where everything is timed to the second. If you are even 10 seconds late with a newscast, you may as well have not bothered. It is a world where “better late than never” just doesn’t apply. Then I started riding lessons---and that’s when I discovered the world of “horse time,” where things happen when they happen. At first I was confused, even a bit put out. Trainers, farriers and veterinarians were always late for their appointments with me. Was it because I was a newbie and not one of the expert show riders they were used to working with? Before I figured out the answer…

The Narragansett Pacer, which originated in Rhode Island during the mid-17th century, was the first breed of horse developed in the English Colonies. We can’t analyze its DNA because it went extinct before the Civil War. Yet during the century and a half of its existence, the Narragansett Pacer not only served farmers and plantation owners very well but also contributed to the development of other important breeds of the Western Hemisphere, including the American Standardbred, the Morgan, and the various “caballo de paso” strains to be found in the islands and countries ringing the Caribbean Sea. In addition to looking at historical records, throughout my research into breed history I make use of wellrecognized principles of population biology. Such studies are usually applied to wild species to determine how…

Drawings and paintings of Colonial Era horses are not common—they were seldom rendered perhaps because the horses were everywhere and thus did not seem a remarkable or exciting subject for artistic effort. Where they did render them, artists generally tried to do it realistically—and this helps the student of history, because the pictures are obviously not those of Thoroughbreds, which are much taller and rangier than horses of Hobby extraction. Well-fed Hobbies and Pacers presented a round-bodied and rather muscular conformation. Typically, colonists neither docked their horse's tails nor roached or braided their thick manes. As they went at an easy ambling pace, ladies rode them sidesaddle; sometimes the artist specifically shows the ambling or pacing action of the legs. Detail from “The Residence of David Twining in 1787,” by…

This sketch made in 1730 by English artist James Seymour and the gouache of an English horse ambling painted by horsemaster Baron Reis d’Eisenberg in 1747 show horses so similar in conformation and way of going that they could have had the same sire. They exemplify a strain called the English Running Horse, which was produced by covering Hobby mares with Turkmene sires. This type of horse was not available for export to the Colonies in the early half of the 17th century; Francis Higginson’s importation to New England consisted of more or less purebred Hobbies. However, the Running Horse bears mention here because it exemplifies the strong English preference for ambling horses. As we have seen in previous articles in this series, crossbreeding created the foundation of the Thoroughbred,…

EZD’s Falcon Rowdy cuts his fastest lick under his owner, Johnny Demetris of Clintwood, Virginia. Demetris lost part of his right arm while working as a coal miner, but after quitting the mines he nonetheless cowboyed, raced and showed Rowdy all over the continent. Today, there is a Johnny Demetris memorial trail ride in Clintwood. One of my students, Robert Vazquez, knew Johnny Demetris and his champion speed racker EZD’s Falcon Rowdy, and he relates the following about this outstanding horse: “Rowdy’s sire was a Standardbred trotter named The Colonel (although that probably wasn’t his registered name). His dam was a 52-inch mare called Misty of a breed the locals call a ‘Mountain Pony.’ They say Misty had a dead square four-beat gait at any speed fast or slow or…