Archive for the "horse care" Category

Is Your Horse Really Broke?

Does your horse stand quietly in the cross ties, does he wait patiently at the mounting block, does he step off only when you ask him, is he on your aids when you ask him to go, whoa, move laterally?  If not, come to a clinic this Spring and learn how to teach your horse to be so obedient, even a monkey  could ride him.  Check the web site for dates and availability.

Teaching Horses to Drive

Ryan Peterson Training Doc

Peadar-a Horse to Build Confidence

Teaching Kids to Ride with Confidence

diegopeadarFionaridingpeadarsimonshadowlauren

Diego has no fear of horses because he is growing up around them and loves to sit on the biggest horses in the barn.  Fiona is riding Peadar who is a kind gentle horse and Simon is on Shadow, with Lauren giving him some pointers.

Breaking News from the BBC

Horse genome unlocked by science

Horse (Science)

The genome of a domestic horse has been successfully sequenced by an international team of researchers.

The work, published in the journal Science, may shed light on how horses were domesticated.

It also reveals similarities between the horse and other placental mammals, such as bovids – the hoofed group including goats, bison and cattle.

The authors also found horses share much of their DNA with humans, which could have implications for medicine.

Horses suffer from more than 90 hereditary diseases that show similarities to those in humans.

“Horses and humans suffer from similar illnesses, so identifying the genetic culprits in horses promises to deepen our knowledge of disease in both organisms,” said co-author Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, from the Broad Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US.

“The horse genome sequence is a key enabling resource toward this goal.”

To generate a high-quality genome sequence, the researchers analysed DNA from an adult female thoroughbred named Twilight.

The horse’s DNA was sequenced using capillary DNA sequencing technology (known as Sanger sequencing) to reveal a genome that is roughly 2.7 billion “letters”, or nucleotides, in size.

In addition to sequencing the genome of a thoroughbred horse, the researchers also examined DNA from a variety of other horse breeds.

These included the American quarter horse, Andalusian, Arabian, Belgian draft horse, Hanoverian, Hakkaido, Icelandic horse, Norwegian fjord horse, and Standardbred breeds.

The team surveyed the extent of genetic variation both within and across breeds to create a catalogue of more than one million single-letter genetic differences in these breeds.

This is slightly larger than the genome of the domestic dog, and smaller than both the human and cow genomes.

So far, scientists have also sequenced the genomes of the platypus, mouse, rat, chimpanzee, rhesus macaque and, of course, human.

Horses were first domesticated 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Over time, as machines have become the chief sources of agricultural and industrial muscle, those roles have shifted to sport and recreational activities.

Teaching Kids to Ride Safely with Confidence

As a result of working in film for nearly 4 decades, Rex Peterson has designed several products to make horse training more efficient and safe. The Neck Rope designed and made by Rex Peterson can be used for many purposes, including ponying kids on their first few trail rides across country. It is important to get out of the arena as soon as possible for the rider as well as the horse. You can see in this video how easy it is to control the pony when he speeds up or wants to turn the wrong direction. This method allows the kid to feel the independence of riding while having a safety line for any errors.

Treating Scratches on Your Horse

rjscratchesWash and dry the area and apply. You can bandage over this as well. The main thing is keeping the area soft and dry.

These amounts are approximate ratios-they do not need to be exact.

1 tube Lotramin (athlete’s foot cream)
1 tube hydrocortisone cream
1 tube triple antibiotic ointment
aloe vera gel ( equal to 1 tube amount above)
contents of 4-5 vitamin A capsules, vitamin D capsules, and Vitamin E capsules

Mix well and store in any type empty jar or plastic container.

Congratulations to Joa and Kestrel

Kestrel Joa smile

Last weekend Joa was third in the open Training Level division at Town Hill Horse Trials, after placing 6th in dressage, Joa went on to jump a flawless show jumping round and a clean cross country round on Kestrel. Although Kestrel looked at a few fences on the cross country course– the log over the ditch and the water, Joa rode him beautifully around the course. All of the training and hard work has paid off with this team finishing the season in top form.

American Quarter Horse Tuff, from the film “Appaloosa”

Appaloosa

This is Tuff, owned and trained by Rex Peterson.  Tuff is one of Justin’s sons (Justin played Black Beauty), who was featured as Jeremy Irons horse in Ed Harris’ film Appaloosa.   Come meet Tuff at the AQHA Quarterfest in May, where you can help celebrate the American Quarter Horse.

May 1-3, 2009
Tennessee Miller Coliseum
Murfreesboro, Tennessee