Horse Care

This photo seems like it was taken so long ago, but it was probably around 2003? It was October, I think, and a spectacular day. Harv and I went on one of our rare trail rides. The years are flying by, that’s for sure. Here is what my resolutions are this year.

I will…

• Keep my car clean–no transporting hay bales in the front seat!
• Correct Harvey’s bad manners about treats
• Be confident in handling Riley.
• Help Bob more around the house.
• Run and lift weights more regularly.
• Keep on bloggin’.

Horses in Wyoming are nothing new. In fact, the ancestors of the horses we know today were roaming what are now the plains 50 million years ago. Called Hyracotherium, this mammal was small, the size of a small dog or fox. But fossils of these tiny pre-equines are rare. One of the most recent finds [...]

Long time patrol horse, Jupiter, died Friday. He served 14 years with Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Mounted Unit and was featured in the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”.

I’ve often thought how much fun it would be to be able to drive a sulkey and partake in harness racing as a driver.

A friend I met while studying in Ireland used to work on a Standardbred farm and said that they bred and trained the horses on the farm. Consequently she got to learn to drive and focused on breeding and this form of racing. Being Standardbreds, they also used AI for breeding their horses and so she also learnt about and carried out the practice of Artificial Insemination.

Not legal on a Thoroughbred stud, I’m still toying with the idea of spending a season on a Standardbred stud just to be able to learn about these two different areas when it comes to horses.

Some facts I’ve found with regards to drivers in Australia:
- they are paid a fee for driving and generally 5% of the stakes money that is earnt
- you’ll want to look at working in a harness stable for at least six months to become a driver
- at this stage you’re able to drive pacing horses in track work and then apply for a C grade license which permits you to drive in trials
- a B grade license allows driving in country races and you’re assessed by stewards for this once you’ve built up enough skill/practice

Some drivers are self employed and this is all that they do but the majority train and drive or do so on a part time basis and have a second job to keep the income coming in.

If you’re interest lies in this area, try to seek out possible employment at a stable or training complex so you can get to know the industry and possibly get yourself in a position of being able to have a go in a sulkey.

Take a look at the Racing and Wagering Western Australia .pdf file on Careers in the Racing Industry:
http://www.rwwa.com.au/home/RITBrochure.pdf

“It excites me that no matter how much machinery replaces the horse, the work it can do is still measured in horsepower…..even in this space age. And although a riding horse often weighs half a ton, and a big drafter a full ton, either can be led about by a piece of string if he has been wisely trained. This to me is a constant source of wonder, and challenge.” - Marguerite Henry

Tag: harness driving, horse racing, sulkey, harness racing, trotters

Last night Bob told me he had a dream about Harvey. My first thought was, this is a good New Year’s dream to have. I have an New Year’s resolution that I have never articulated — to continue Bob’s immersion into the horse world.

The dream as Bob describes it…
“We were at a big, long open air building, kind of like a mall and kind of like a stable,” Bob said. He went on to describe a bustling, noisy, energy-filled atmosphere.

“A festival marketplace?” I offered. “A horse fair?”

“YES!” he said. “You were getting all exercised about measuring Harvey and some other horses. I had a ruler and you wanted me to measure the horses’ height and from nose to tail.”

“Well, measuring horses can be an important thing at horse shows, especially ponies,” I said.

“I had devised a new means of measuring horses using Euclidian geometric principles,” Bob continued. Now I know this is Bob’s dream. “You know, like knowing the angle and one side of a triangle, let’s you determine the rest of the triangle. We can take a picture of each horse at a specified distance to know the ratio of picture height to horse height. We could also bypass this by introducing a ruler into the picture — then we just determine the scale.”

I’m paraphrasing here, since I’m not terribly mathy.

Bob took Harvey out into the evening air, walked around a carnival area past some slot machines and ferris wheels. They came upon an open-air stall bedded with yellow straw. Bob led him into the stall and fed him treats while they watched the bright lights of the big fair together.