#keepcalmandletitride

yeah, but that’s unkind. just because they don’t like them, doesn’t mean they should be reblogging personal photos and...

name: Gabrielle

nickname(s): Gabs, Gabby, Scabs, and Javon (yeah idk long story)

star sign: Taurus

gender: Female

height: 5′ 9″

favourite colour(s): Purple, Brown, Gray

time right now: 7:50 AM 

avg hours of sleep: Usually around 7 hours depending on how many times I have to get up with Silas

lucky numbers: 115

last thing i googled:  Hormone Free Birth Control 

# of blankets i sleep with: 3

favourite fictional character: Mr. Darcy 

favourite books: Anything by Ellen Hopkins favourite bands: I honestly dont even know right now my taste in music is so messed up I’ve been listening to old school JoJo and The Used

dream job: A part time administrative support position

when did i create my blog: 2012 I believe?

current amount of followers: 1.4k

what do you post about: Mostly AQHA and reining horses and also other random shit that I find funny or important

do you have any other blogs: Nope you get all of my weird glory right here in one place

who is your most active follower: @sabreeeebreeee probably and @abigail-marie10 ily guys

what made you decide to get a tumblr: umm not even sure just sounded like a good idea at the time

do you get asks on a daily basis: no i wish i did sEND ME ASKS

why did you choose your url: one of my favorite maneuvers

Today’s post is inspired by two things. One, I’ve been seeing a lot of people critiquing weight of horses and seemingly not understanding what that means. Two, my best friend just adopted a rescue horse and she’s incredibly underweight. As such, I’ve been refusing to post photos of her because I don’t really want to deal with people criticizing the fact that she looks like hell. We know she looks like hell, that’s why we rescued her. So I’m beginning to realize that some health issues are super common with rescue horses and I’m gonna talk about them a little bit at a time. People with more experience or other things to say, please go ahead and comment or add!

The biggest issue that we’ve had so far with rescue mare is food. On a body condition score scale, she’s anywhere between a 2 and a 3, depending on what areas on her body you look at. Her ribs are very visible, her hip bones are incredibly prominent, as are other areas of her pelvis. Despite all of that, she’s in great health. The problem is that she needs to put on some serious weight before we can do anything with her, and that’s a major issue.

Much like with humans after they’ve been starved, horses - and all other animals - have to be brought back into eating in a slow manner. Rescue animals that have been starved will gladly gorge themselves on whatever is provided to them, because they have no concept of the fact that the food is going to keep being given to them. They’re acting on instinct to try and protect themselves from continuing to starve. That means that these guys CANNOT be free fed. The chances of them overeating are incredibly high and since horses do not have the means to regurgitate, this can quickly lead to colic. In horses that are emaciated and possibly suffering from other health conditions related to this, the chances of them recovering from colic are much smaller than healthy animals with minor intestinal blockages.

Additionally, even if you’re limiting the food they eat, colic can still happen. Using high calorie or protein foods in an attempt to fatten them up is a quick way to make this happen. Though you may be concerned about the fact that your horses is still skinny, making sure that they get used to eating in a healthy way is far more important than putting a lot of weight on quickly. If they do this, it’s not only bad for their gastrointestinal health, but can also stress their joints. Horses that have been used to carrying a certain weight may start to have joint issues if suddenly they’re expected to carry 100+ extra pounds, without being given the time to become accustomed to the body weight.

Personally, one of my favorite things to use for underweight horses is soaked beet pulp. It has several great things about it from my experience. First of all, it’s low in sugar but high in fiber, which makes it great as an addition to the fiber consumed from legumes in the form of hay. I prefer to soak it, as it reduces the potential choking hazard and keeps it from swelling in the gut, as it has already retained water and swelled before consumption. The water logging is beneficial for animals that may not be the best at remembering to drink water and can sometimes slow down the excessive eating of animals that want to eat until they feel full. However, this is something that I would only use as a supplement to whatever you’re feeding as the main source of fiber - usually alfalfa, oat or grass hay. It provides the additional source of food that the horse can then use to put on weight, rather than just consuming enough to keep their main body functions from shutting down.

Putting weight on a rescue horse is a long and hard process, but should never be rushed. Some animals take longer to put on weight - older animals, hard keepers - and some will put it on quickly. Either way, I commend you on taking on the process of rehabilitating an animal and helping them lead a much better life! Look out for more posts about rescue horse health, coming soon.

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!

I was tagged by hit-the-dirt-and-get-back-on (I’m just seeing this now! Sorry it took me so long!!)

Nickname: Gabs Star sign: Taurus Gender: Female Height: 5′8″ Time & date: June 9, 9:40 AM Average amount of sleep: 8 hours Lucky #: 115 Last thing i googled: Third trimester headaches

How many blankets do you sleep with: 1

Favorite fictional character(s): Tommy Shelby, Johnny Drama, Mr. Darcy

Favorite famous people: Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Anne Hathaway

Favorite book(s): Crank, Redwall, Riding Lessons/Flying Changes

Favorite musician(s): Chris Thile, Dessa, Mayday

Last movie I saw in the cinema: Entourage

Dream holiday/Dream job: Dream holiday - anywhere on a beach in the sun doing nothing and answering to nobody and wasting time with my husband/dream job - something part time that requires no actual stress/commitment and allows me to ride 4 days a week and show every other weekend. 

Wearing right now: jeans and a v-neck, pumas

Also, my insta is: _mrseck

keepcalmandletitride