Treats for Angel

This is what Angel and the other two showing minis (Sonny and Toy) had for a treat last night. Can you tell I had spare time? :)

Avalanche!

Last Tuesday at the stables was awesome! Since I started working at the stables, I have always been trying to get an avalanche of shavings to land in the cart. This happened for the first time yesterday! The cart was empty, and conditions were perfect. So it was really easy to finish filling the remaining third of the cart, and only took about five minutes.

My hope of getting drenched also happened! It had ceased raining for a couple hours, and then started sprinkling. And then the heavens let loose and it RAINED. 'Twas so awesome! :D

That's all for now. Cheers.

Breeding Time

It's already that time of year again! Time to plan for next year's foals.

I fortunately am not (and won't ever be) *there* when...everything happens (:P), but I do get to know who's being bred to who. Which to me is quite exciting, for I can think about foal color possibilities!

To Buster we'll be breeding all four of the mares: Tess, Flicka, Stylish, and Royale.

Tess is a tiny gray mare that carries the dun allele. She's either a bay dun or a black dun - I'm not sure which yet. Flicka is a tobiano-splash black silver dapple. Stylish is the mare I worked today; a chestnut tobiano-sabino, and Royale (the new mare!) is a Welsh-type palomino.

From Tess we could get a variety of colors. She's had black-based foals before; it's possible that she could have a bay-based foal, as well as a chestnut-based foal since she's going to Buster. The dun and cream alleles are also present.

There are almost endless possibilities with Flicka. The silver, cream, tobiano, splash, extension, and black alleles are all there. It'd be awesome if the foal was bay-based, because that would tell us that Buster is Aa for Agouti.

Stylish with Buster is pretty basic. They are both chestnut-based (ee), so it will have to either be a chestnut, palomino, chestnut sabino, chestnut tobiano, chestnut tovero, palomino sabino, palomino tobiano, or palomino tovero (if we are lucky).

And then there's Royale, the solid palomino! Her to Buster means 50% chance palomino, 25% chance chestnut, and 25% chance of a cremello foal.

Next year will be very busy foal-wise (four foals compared to the one we had this year). I'm excited. ^_^

Breed Profile: Galician Pony

Image by HombreDHojalata on Wikipedia.

Height: ~12 to ~14hh
Common uses: Riding, meat production
Characteristics: Short stature, hardy, straight profile, thick mane/tail, light feathering
Colors: I've not heard anything on color restrictions, so no clue.

This lesser-known breed originated in Galicia, Spain, and has helped improve the Galiceno breed. Currently these ponies are only used for riding and meat-production, but their hair used to be used for making brushes. They also help attract tourists to Galicia for the yearly roundup, branding, and sale.

Adding More Time to Angel's Log

Actually, I don't really have a logbook of how long I work Angel, but I did work her for more than an hour today! It was really fun.

Haltering her was a girth (fine, cinch :P) as always, and she was really good today about not moving around while I'm cleaning her hooves. I start with her left hooves, and usually when I walk behind her to do the right hooves, she shifts her hind end away from me three steps or so. This time Angel didn't do it; yay!

Generally, I lunge Angel and walk her around a bit (maybe work on some basic trail concepts), but that's all. Today was a bit different in that respect as well! I hunt around for the lunge lines and lunge whip for a bit, but alas, no luck. For a bit I lunged Angel with the lead rope, but only at the walk and trot. However, for not having a lunge whip to cue her as well as usual, she did great! I am very pleased with her. :)

Well, I didn't lunge her for very long, what should we do now? I decided to work on turning, trotting, backing, sidepassing, and trotting figure-eight shapes around poles! It was so much fun. ^_^

Mostly I was leading her around at the trot, and just having fun with it (giving us both plenty of exercise). As we were trotting around, I would work on turning her to the right; something that can always be worked on. Anyway, it had been awhile since I had actually ran/run(?) with her, so it was great fun! A couple times she even broke into a canter. XD

We also worked on backing and sidepassing. Angel has never really had a problem with backing, and didn't today either. Sidepassing? She did a lot better than usual! /me is very happy with Angel's results for today

Anyway, there's a show the last weekend of this month, so that's exciting. I might see about dragging a photographer along with me too; if you're lucky then you'll have a 5% chance of seeing pictures. ;)

Time for bed now. Night, God bless. :)

Jumping Backwards?

There are some really cool stunts that people do with their horses that are both safe and interesting. Others are merely the latter and tend to make me very dubious as to their safety.

Last night I happened upon this article about a girl who rides her horse over jumps backwards. Perhaps this girl is not taking such a big risk, and I'm merely being over-critical. However, there is one thing that keeps pestering me:

Image by Polo the Weirdo.

Have you spotted it yet? Let's try that again.

Image by Polo the Weirdo.

Please tell me you have found the riding error that's driving me crazy. No? *sighs* The girl's heels are not down. They aren't near horizontal, and if one is gonna do crazy stunts, they really should incorporate the standard safety precautions.

I mean, I'm not great at keeping my heels down either. It's something I still must think about because it isn't a habit yet. I would like it to be one, but I haven't consistently ridden a horse for about two years, and I probably won't anytime soon.

Regardless, thanks for letting me rant about that. Next time you ride, keep in mind the position of your heels. If you find that you need to work on keeping your heels down, do it.

Let's not take the control God has over everything for granted and be reckless when we know how to not be. Have a safe day, cheers, and +1. Thanks!

Shotty Sketch of a Thoroughbred

Also, the word "shotty" just means low-quality, not great, and so on. It doesn't have anything to do with the swear word, although sometimes I wonder... *shrugs*

This morning I tried to draw a horse. It could still use more work, but here's what I've got so far.

See? Something with how the front and hind end are aligned is just messed up. Being critical here, I think the hind end could be lower or something, the neck could be a bit shorter, the legs could be a bit more refined for the size of the head, and the croup could be flatter (more like an Arabian's).

On the bright side of things, the legs actually turned out! Maybe not proportionately, but if you look at them individually they don't look near as bad as they usually turn out. Also, it seems I'm usually stuck in the rut of "all my horses must look alike", so it's nice to have a more leanly built one.

Is it actually an Old English-type TB? Probably not. I just called it that because in old paintings of Thorougbreds the neck and head are long and thin.

Regardless, if I could splice the drawing into a horse's hind end and then a horse's front end and neck/head, I think it wouldn't actually look that bad. It's just that the two did not align right in this drawing.

Actually, let me do that now and see if it looks any better.
...
Oh snap, now it looks like a hot-dog horse. :P Regardless, the front end looks better to me than the hind end. If you pick out anything else that I can fix on this horse, feel free to tell me.

Horse Slaughter Plants

Horse slaughter is a controversial issue around horse communities right now.

I keep hearing is how it's so inhumane, all the plants are abusive, and it's just plain wrong.

I'm going to say otherwise.

Not all horse slaughter plants are the same. Perhaps *some* may be abusive and even cruel to the horses before slaughtering, but that does not mean *all* slaughter plants are that way. I have sources which I trust, and the way some slaughter plants are run is not bad at all. The horses are not abused in transportation, do not see the other horses being killed, and are shot and killed before they know it. Yep, even quicker than having a vet give your horse anesthesia. The way at least some slaughterhouses are run is quick, efficient, and not abusive in any way whatsoever. I can't say they are all this great - I'll leave that for you to figure out.

Of course, society does not emphasize this. PETA groups, especially. All you hear about slaughterhouses is how all of them are evil and they are turning horses into meat. Well, hey. We do the same thing to cows, pigs, turkeys, and chickens, and especially the latter option has it way worse than horses do (just watch the film "Food, Inc").

I am not saying all horses that need to be put down should be sent to slaughterhouses, or that the government should make slaughterhouses the only option for dealing with an unwanted horse. But slaughterhouses should not be banned! Come on, people. There are a lot of horses out there that are unmanageable, not being cared for right, untrained, and unwanted. Not all that many people will love their problem horse enough to have him put down, or actually train him and give him the life a horse deserves.

Consider the pros of slaughterhouses being legal in the US. The economy would get a boost, there would be more jobs, the great excess of unwanted horses would decrease, the horses' mass would be put to use, the dog food companies would be happy, and there would be a good way to deal with an unwanted/crazy/uncared-for horse without having to pay a lot of money to have the vet put him down and then have the body buried.

As far as human consumption of horse meat, I personally wouldn't eat it, but it's fine if other people want to. From what I've heard, horse meat (due to the chemical wormers and other medications horses receive) is not always safe for human consumption, but I still don't consider a sin. And if a horse's meat can be used for dog food? Great! At least put the horse to some use for something else if not for yourself or the horse.

Stop believing all those lies that are so plentiful in our society today, and before you start judging all of the slaughterhouses the same, GO TO THEM AND LOOK FOR YOURSELF. Seriously.

What it really goes back to is if we view animals as humans (or vice-versa), or if we believe that God created both us and them, and gave us humans dominion over animals (Genesis 1:26), which He did. We should be good caretakers of horses, and if there are too many horses, it's up to us to figure something out, one way or another.

My overall opinion on this? If you have the money to pay a vet to give your horse anesthesia, great. If not, or if you have a horse that no one will care for or take the time to train, send him to the slaughterhouse where he'll be used.

Sample Trail Course

Again, nothing truly inspirational about horses has struck me as an idea for a blog post. So this is what you get, a free sample trail course! Feel free to take a look.

Directions:
1) Wait at start (lower cones) to be acknowledged by judge.
2) Walk into box, stop, turn 360º.
3) Trot over poles and into chute.
4) Back out of chute, and turn a 90º turn, walk towards and over bridge.
5) Trot around barrels in figure-eight shape.
6) Walk to gate, do a right-hand push, go through.
7) Walk to cones, wait to be acknowledged by judge.
8) Exit designated showing premises of the arena.

Also, sometimes there are slightly more complex obstacles such as opening mailboxes, sidepassing both directions, and ground-tying.

That's all for now. Night folks.

Some Pictures of the Mini Girls

Here are some pictures of Toy Toy and Angel the day before (or was it the day of?) Pawnee's birth. They're both pretty cute, and I didn't realize till looking at these pictures that Toy does have facial markings, and possibly carries some splash (note her star, stripe, and snip). Or, maybe she just has markings and doesn't carry any pinto alleles. Ah well, time may tell. :)

Pretty tails.

Nom nom. 

"Oh hi!" says Toy Toy.

Hi, do you have any treats for me this morning?

Now it's Angel's turn to say hi!

"Darn," Angel thinks, "she didn't give me any treats."

I like Angel's thin muzzle. It's cute. (:

Pangare: The Phenotype

Pangare (or the more informal "mealy") is a dilution allele that lightens hair around the muzzle, eyes, and underpart of a horse's body (these areas can also extend outward or upward). Do take note that using ill-fitting tack on a horse can also leave whiter areas (see first picture), but this doesn't have any to do with genetics. The Fjord, Belgian, and Haflinger breeds very commonly have pangare horses if you take a look.

It's generally easier to notice pangare on a long-haired rather than a short-haired horse. This allele on a chestnut base may also be called a "Belgian sorrel". Another term involved with pangare is "foal pangare"; this is the color some foals (which are not carrying the mealy allele) look previous to shedding their foal coat.

Here is a picture of Ben, a chestnut pangare Belgian, and below that is a picture of Cayenne, a chestnut-based foal pangare.

Ben the Belgian. And no, the whiter areas on the topside of his body are not due to the Pangare allele.

Foal pangare on Cayenne. Some of the lightest areas are caused by the sabino allele he carries (you can see the outline of his hind stocking, for example), but he still has pale areas that resemble pangare.