Thistle Ridge Stables – home of happy horses

Sometimes getting in a little tight can get your horse to ‘snap’ up its knees. But sometimes a little deep can mean a chip and there goes your class. When is a little deep, too deep: when your horse loses its rhythm and causes a loss of flow to the round. Where Should a Horse Take Off 

photo credit: Alma Nac

A horse should take off from the sweet spot. This is located at the middle of the fence, the height of the fence away. Huh? If you are jumping a 3 foot fence the ‘sweet spot’ is located 3 feet away from its base. Similarly, a 2’6” fence has a ‘sweet spot’ 2’6” away from its base.

 Getting in a little close can cause some problems. A tight spot, or too close to the jump, can lead to the horse being unable to make the distance, or put the correct number of strides in between jumps. It also leads the horse, jumping over its shoulder, and poor form.

Leaving from a long spot, or too far away from the fence, also encourages bad form and rushing at the fences. Jumping from a long spot makes the horse jump flat and it will sometimes hang a leg and take down a rail. Consistently riding from a long spot can encourage poor from and bad jumping style.

photo credit: whiteafrican

What Makes Your Distance

There are five main factors that determine where your take off is for the jump:

• The height of the jump. The take off point should be approximately the height of the jump away from the fence.
•  The length of stride. The longer the stride, the longer your ‘spot’ will be. The shorter your stride the closer you will get to the base of the jump.
• The type or depth of footing. If there is deep footing, horses will be more likely to get closer and take off closer to the base of the fence.
• The type of jump. Verticals are usually jumped slightly farther out from the base than oxers. Horses will bascule over the middle of the oxer, so they will have to get closer to the base to satisfy the width of the obstacle.
• Location of the jump in the course. For example, riding a line from a vertical to an oxer is longer than riding from an oxer to a vertical. This is because of the arc the horse makes when jumping. The horse will physically land further into the line when jumping the oxer first so this will give him less usable space between fences.

 If you see a tight distance coming don’t abandon your horse. Sit up, keep your eyes up and keep the energy coming from behind with a closed leg. Sitting up will help the horse to use his hindquarters and be able to lift up its front end out of the way. Keeping him balance and able to use his hindquarters will allow him to jump from a deep distance.

photo credit: spakattacks

Hot and sweating horses go hand in hand and with it comes the loss of electrolytes. What are electrolytes and why are they so important? Read the following ‘primer’ to educate yourself on what exactly electrolytes do and why they are important to our horses.

As we exercise our horse it generates energy in the form of heat. To dissipate the heat from the body the horse sweats. The sweat evaporates from the horse’s body to help regulate the body temperature. If the horse didn’t sweat their body temperature would rise to dangerously high levels.

How Much to Horses Sweat

To determine how much sweat a horse produces horses were weighed before and after exercise and the following was determined:

Type of work/exercise                                          Range of weight loss (lbs)

Standardbred                                                            12 – 33

After a 1 mile race

Field Hunter (after 3 hour fox hunting)                24 – 100

Thoroughbred (after race training or breezing)  10 – 16

Endurance horses (after 54mile race)                 22 – 88

photo credit: Hey Paul

To think that a horse can loose 100 pounds of sweat is enormous. The water in sweat comes from within the horses body but also from individual cells. When cells are recruited for sweat the body takes water from the blood plasma. When this occurs and sweat losses are large, it may affect the delivery of blood to the muscles and inhibit the ability of the horse to continue working properly.

 What is Sweat

 Sweat is a concoction of sodium, chloride and potassium. There is also calcium, magnesium, trace minerals and protein present. It has been tested that Chloride is present in the highest concentration followed by sodium and potassium.

 How to tell if your horse is dehydrated

 
photo credit: sk8geekThe easiest test is the neck ‘pinch’ test. At the base of the neck graba fold of the horse’s skin. If the skin remains tented for more than a second, then the horse is showing signs of dehydration.

Check the horse’s gums. The gums should appear a pink colour and when pressed the colour should immediately return. If a white depression or thumbprint remains then the horse is dehydrated.

Getting a horse to drink is important and sometimes owners and trainers do some pretty inventive things to get them to drink.

• Some trainers flavour the drinking water with apple juice or drink crystals, like kool-aid, for several days before going to a show or event. This will help if horses are finicky and won’t drink the water at the event if it has a different smell or even taste a bit different.
•  Sometimes horses tend to drink if the bucket is held for them.
•  They also tend to drink more if they see other horses drinking.

 Getting Electrolytes into Your Horse

 Electrolyte supplementation is not usually necessary for horses in regular exercise that have a balanced ration, access to hay and grass, water and free choice salt block. If however, they are racing, performing endurance activities or worked hard several days in a row the expenditure of electrolytes may be excessive and the horse may require additional electrolytes.

 Purchasing an electrolyte mix is the easiest way to supplement the loss of electrolytes. Making a home mix can also be done. Using a mix of Sodium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Calcium (carbonate/acetate) and Magnesium (oxide) in the proportions of 60:30:5:5 (source:http://www.aera.asn.au/qera/veterinary/electrolytes.html).

 An average rule of thumb is to replace 1-3 grams of sodium for every litre of water the horse drinks. If the horse is sweating (and loosing sodium) a lot it is important to replace this only if the horse has drunk the equivalent amount of water. For example if the horse is sweating heavily and the horse may be sweating out as much as 6 grams of sodium in his sweat every hour “but you can only replace this if he has drunk around 6 litres of water each hour”.

1. Most horse diets are deficient in sodium. Adding common table salt to the diet or free choice salt lick is one way to make sure that horses get ample sodium.
2. Most horses need little in the way of supplemental sodium. In times of heavy work, excessive heat and humidity or extreme training conditions may require the addition of electrolytes into the diet.
3. Dehydration can be worsened if electrolytes are over supplemented. Excessive electrolytes are eliminated from the body in the urine, not stored for later use.

photo credit: Selective Focus Photography

Getting your horse ready and prepared for the showring is only half the battle. The other half is the rider. This is of particular importance when preparing for equitation classes.

What is Equitation
For those new to horse shows or wanting to learn more, equitation is judged on the rider. Rider position, turnout and effectiveness is judged. Where hack and undersaddle classes are judged on the horse, the horses movement, performance and possibly conformation, equitation is the riders seat, legs and basically their position.

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photo credit: Groume

Before heading into the ring make sure that you know the rules. Nothing is more irritating to the judge than having to explain rules to disappointed competitors.

Some of the more common rules are known -  like 2 cumulative refusals and your out. But what constitutes a refusal?

According to FEI Article 221 (Federation Equeste International) a refusal is considered “when a horse halts in front of an obstacle, which it must jump whether or not the horse knocks it down or displaces it.” That’s the easy description. But there are many interpretations of ‘stopping’ and other considerations that are judged. There are also, run outs, resistance and an uncorrected deviation from the course.

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