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Equine Aid is here, and ready, for anybody looking on an opinion on the conformation on an horse or pony they want!

Colic is an abdominal pain, or disorder in the digestive system. It is usually characterized by pawing, rolling, and inability to ‘dung’. 

There are many different types of colic, which range in severity. For this reason, it should always be treated as an emergency. A mild case can often be cured with a single dose of veterinary prescribed medication, while severe cases may require surgery. 

Some Symptoms of Colic:

Anxiety or depression

Pawing at the ground

Looking at the flank 

Rolling or wanting to lie down

Playing in the water bucket but Not drinking

Lack of defecation

Lack of appetite

Excessive sweating

Abnormally high pulse rate (over 50 beats per minute)

Lack of normal gut noises

Frequent attempts to urinate

Restlessness

If your horse shows signs of colic, you should seek veterinary assistance immediately, as it may be severe. There are difference treatment options, which vary to the type of colic your horse may have, such as medication such as Analgesics. Hoses that are dehydrated or stressed may be put under IV fluids. If there is a loop in the horses bowel, surgery is required.

Prevention:

Often, horses may colic for no reason. However, it can often be prevented by:

Always supplying clean, fresh water.

Make sure water doesn’t freeze over or get too cold in the winter

Ensure horses have high fiber food in its diet, such as pasture or hay

Have regular dental checks to ensure nothing is preventing a horse from grinding down its food.

Introduce horse to lush spring grass slowly

back-to-bays

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Ideal Back

An ideal topline can vary between different breeds of horse. This here is an ideal back in a warmblood. An ideal back is when the whither and the highest point of their hip are level, and the horse is neither roached or swaybacked. --- The length a horse or ponies back may affect smoothness of gait, their ability to collect and agility. It also limits how much weight the horse can carry, and can impact if a horse capable of being gaited. The height of the withers also varies and affects freedom of shoulder movement and length of stride.  

Short Back

If a horses back measures less than 1/3 of its overall length from whither to tail, it would be considered short backed. It is common in  American Quarter Horses, Arabians, and some Warmbloods, but can be seen in any breed. If their spine is short, they may have a difficulty with bending, have less flexibility, or even develop arthritis. Overreaching is more common in short backed horses. However, these horses can be very agile, and are good for polo, roping, cutting, and reining as they can change direction with ease.

Long Back

If a horses measures greated than 1/3 of its overall length from its whither to tail, it would be considered long backed. It can be seen in  Saddlebreds, Thoroughbreds, Pase Finos and some Warmbloods. It is also common in gaited horses.  Usually associated with long, weak loins. The horses ability to engage its back depends on its ability to elevate its back, which requires a strong back and abdominal muscles. Long backed horses often have more difficulty collecting engaging their hindquarters, which affect upper level dressage, cutting, reining, barrel racing, and polo. However, their long back gives a quieter and smoother ride. Because long backed hoses have more difficulty building strength in their backs, they can become swayed more easily

Roach Back

This is when the area where the back and loins join the croup has an upward convex arch in the spine.  Often a result of a short back, or injury or displacement of the lumbar vertebrae. Horses are unable to collect or elevate the back. They have a reduced step in their hind legs because of the arch in the spine. The horse is stiffer and less flexible, and being roach back often causes back pain. Agile sports (polo, cutting, reining, barrel racing, gymkhana) are difficult because the horse is stiff and rigid. They may also have difficulty with dressage and jumping.

Sway Back

A swayed back is where the back dips noticeably in the centre, between the whiter and the hindquarter.  It often causes the horse to carry their head higher, and their neck stiffer. It is often associated with weak ligaments in the back, and occurs easier in long backs than short. It can also happen in old age, as the ligaments weaken overtime. Broodmares who have had multiple foals can also become swayed with age. It can also be caused by overuse or misuse of a under conditioned or young horse. A sway back positions a  rider behind the centre of gravity and is unable to elevate to collection correctly, or collect speed, and are therefore unsuited to majority of disciplines. Riding can cause pain to sway backed horses.

Downhill

Downhill is when a horses hindquarter is higher set than its whither. It is common in many young horses when in a growing stage, but their front catches up in many cases. It is common in draft-type horses. In adult horses, downhill is a conformation fault that can lead to front lameness and back problems. Collection from behind can be more difficult.

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Photo credit to horseandhound.co.uk.

Splay Footed: Toes turned outwards. Creates a longer stride, which is less efficient in forward motion. Can often cause hard or soft tissue damage, if one leg is hitting off the other. This is not uncommon in foals, as they are not finished growing. Often corrects itself with growth. Splay foot puts more pressure on the knee, causing stress or strain to ligaments, tendons and joints, as well as splints.

Pegeon Toed: Toes turned inwards. Causes horse to make a paddling motion in front steps, causing strain to tendons, joints and ligaments. Can cause a horse to develop a side bone.

Knock Kneed: Arched in at the knees. Often called crook-kneed, or in-at-the-knee. Occurs with uneven growth of legs in foals. Causes deformity in splint bones. May cause lameness problems.

Base Narrow: Close set legs, noticeable at the cannon bones. This also causes a paddling motion in the front knees. It gives the horse a narrow base and causes stress on the outside of the knee. Horses with this fault have less support of its upper body. 

Equine Aid is here to help you with your every equine need! So if you have any questions, or need an opinion or some advice, we’ll go to the extent of our knowledge to help!

This is quite easily the most important question you need to ask yourself when considering buying a horse. You need to seriously think about this before looking around for a horse. Because the cost of ownership can vary greatly in each area I would recommend doing research on your own area. You could ask around for quotes/prices on boarding, food, bedding, lessons, etc. Here is a handy tool for calculating the cost in your area after you’ve done your research.

Below I’ve included sections from and links to three articles I’ve read that highlight important costs and the likes. Though the currency and prices could change drastically with different regions the basic needs and expenses remain the same throughout the world.

For those living in the UK, here are two great articles covering the basics of the cost of buying a horse and the cost of actually keeping that horse. There is a good chart at the end of the cost of keeping article that takes into account most of the yearly expenses and looks at the three main types of livery to choose from. 

This Australian article covers basically everything you need to consider and I would recommend anyone seriously considering purchasing a horse to give this a read. Like the article above, there is a detailed chart showing weekly and annual costs, including lessons and equipment. 

(x) “The American Association of Equine Practitioners estimates that the minimum yearly cost to care for a horse, not including veterinary and farrier expenses, is $1,825. Add in veterinary and farrier costs, as well as boarding expenses in some cases, and the yearly cost for keeping one horse can reach $5,000.” This article outlines the varying prices for the basics. 

An important thing to keep in mind when buying a horse is accidents happen. Unexpected costs are likely to occur more often than you think, for example: your horse could lose a shoe which means an extra farrier visit that month or something more serious could happen that may require veterinary attention. It would be wise to factor in an extra couple of hundred to a thousand to the annual cost of a horse when figuring out how much it will cost you personally to keep a horse. 

Peanut Rolling: A Thing of the Past

I love western pleasure. I’ve competed in it for years and been pretty successful. but whenever I talk about my experiences, most of the time, people cringe. I’ve had complete strangers on social media accuse me of abusing my horse by forcing him to peanut roll, without ever having seen him move. So I wanted to talk about how I believe western pleasure should really be done; a discipline that does not involve peanut rolling.

In every discipline, we talk about hind end engagement and impulsion as being the necessary components of a healthy and forward moving horse. It’s my personal decision to use the word collection, despite there being some debate as to whether we can use this when talking about WP. For my purposes, I view collection as defined as, “when a horse carries more weight on the hind legs than the front legs. the horse draws its body together so it becomes a giant spring whose energy can be stored for later.” In a true western pleasure gate, this kind of collection is achieved, though it does not involve the same kind that we see in disciplines such as dressage or english pleasure.

Though peanut rolling might have been the ideal several years ago in AQHA, this is certainly not the case these days. The most successful WP horses on the circuit are properly engaged, with a level headset and proper forward motion from the hind end. That’s exactly what I’d like to see, but I realize that this is a vague description and I’m gonna break down exactly what I like to see.

With respect to the headset, I love to see a level topline. I’d like the neck to be level with the back, with the nose tipped in slightly so the plane of their face forms a perpendicular line with the ground. I’d much rather see a nose tipped slightly farther forward than too far back, because then we start to see issues with getting behind the vertical. This kind of headset isn’t easy for horses and it takes a lot of practice, because they have to engage themselves all the way through their neck and subsequently through their spine. It forces them to lift all the way through their back, which relieves the weight on their front end and puts their impulsion from the back end. A horse with a proper headset like this will be able to extend their stride because it won’t interfere. A peanut roller is forced to chop up their stride because a) their head is in the way of their front legs and b) they don’t have the lift in their spine to shift the weight distribution and to allow them to extend their steps from the hind end.

A western pleasure horse should be able to move slowly, but never at the expense of their strides. Chopping up their strides makes them move in a rather unnatural pattern and should not be asked for. A horse that engages properly from the back end and holds itself through its spine and neck will be able to slow the pace and shorten their strides, without chopping them up into an unnatural pace. The reason that WP paces often look strange is because of this chopping up of strides. I would much rather see a horse with a proper gait, going slightly faster, than one that achieves a crawling pace, but doesn’t hold themselves properly. My experience with current AQHA rules and judges makes me confident that this is what they’re looking for these days.

Western pleasure is a beautiful discipline and I love to see horses doing it correctly. I want to try and eliminate the misconceptions surrounding what WP entails, so that people can appreciate the wonder in doing it right.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the ask box!