Horse Talk

[abigalerose]

OH. I've heard of him but never seen a picture. I don't really know squat about race horses. Truthfully I don't know much about horses in general yet. Yes, I've had at least one horse at any given time since I was 5, but from probably 7-17 I lost interest in them. I'd go out to my grandpas barn and pet my mustang and the red roan qh, maybe lead them around or brush them, but that was about it. And that would happen maybe once a month. With my total lack of interest in riding, and school, I really didn't do much with them, I wasn't a very good horse mom. And my knowledge of horses was limited to what my grandpa knew, and don't get me wrong, he knows quite a bit and has had a few horses over the years but he's not a "horse person" he has cows, and mostly just sticks with farming, I think when he was younger he had a family member with Missouri fox trotters (but I'm not sure, I don know a lot about his family because he's my step grandpa), but mostly he has just kept horses around for me, since I'm the family animal person (clocking in now with a personal low of 14 chickens, 3 dogs, 1 cat, a cow, and two horses) and my grandpa can't really ride much any more since he has a bad back. Other than him, all the rest of my family members are "city slickers" aside from two uncles, 1 with cows and 1 with cows and crops. So, with that said. My grandpa is the only person I can talk to about horses in my family, and now that my interest has really taken off, I'm starting to know more than he does (in some aspects), just becuase he's a little outdated on some stuff and never had a real serious interest in them anyways. I'm 19 now, so my serious love of them started maybe two years ago. I wanted to spend more time with my mustang, but he was a lot to handle, having only been a pasture ornament pretty much his whole life, and he got BIG too, and it was just too much for me so I (regrettably) sold him. And I went out and bought what I thought was the perfect horse for me, but the horse was trained better than I was, and he didn't like me on top of that, so I sold him, but I didn't want to give up on horses yet (despite my parents protests) so I picked out June, based on personality only, and now here I am. Since the day I brought her home, well actually since the day I picked her out, I've spent every waking moment (and sometimes a lot of moments when I should be in bed already lol) researching stuff about horses. I've been talking to you guys, people on the horse forum, the girl I went to school with who trains horses (although I don't like the way she trains that much), been reading every thing I can find, blogs, websites, articles, etc., watching YouTube videos, and trying to spend as much time as I can with my horses (about 3 days a week but soon to be 4-5 days a week and then hopefully 7 days a week by the end of the summer), and I have learned SO much. In the past 2 and a half months I have crammed so much information into my head, if I would've thought a year ago that I'd know everything I do now I wouldn't have believed myself. And still there is just so much to learn! I'll keep researching, it's basically an addiction at this point, and I'm suppose to start riding lessons soon since I'm a bit rusty, I'm going to try western and English, and I'm starting to actually be interested in jumping, not that I'll ever be able to do it but it is fun to watch for sure. And I, like many other people, have realized I have a real passion for horses, and would like to make a career out of doing something with them. I'll probably start with boarding since I have a fairly decent place to do it. Wow.. Sorry for all the rambling

I get excited and I don't have many horse people to talk to.
I did just realize I have a cousin really into horses but she can be kind of flaky, which is why I forgot about her haha

 

[chicken19]

This website has some great information.
http://thinklikeahorse.org/index-3.html

 

[abigalerose]

Thanks!

 

[Bunnylady]

This website has some great information.
http://thinklikeahorse.org/index-3.html

I love Rick Gore, though when he gets ranting I often wind up saying, "Rick, I got it - shut up already!" and going to a different video. One thing I particularly like is his honesty. On one of his videos, he says, "if I get me on tape getting kicked by a horse, I will post it, and say, 'watch me be stupid and get kicked by a horse,' because it will be my stupidity that causes me to get kicked."

He's not for the thin-skinned, though.

I didn't know if you'd be a racing fan, but with the movie having come out a few years ago, I thought maybe you might know Secretariat from that.


This image, often called "The Look Back," is of jockey Ron Turcotte looking for the other horses as they finished the Belmont Stakes with a 31-length lead - pretty iconic.

 

[abigalerose]

I've watched a few Rick Gore videos. He obviously knows what he's talking about, but he sure is hard on the ears. And he always says women are the ones who do anything stupid/bad with a horse, which is a little out there. But he does have good advice.
And I've never seen that picture before today lol but like I said I haven't been indulged in the horse world very long

 

[Bunnylady]

When he does the wimpy falsetto voice I want to slap him. "Oh, Rick, you're always picking on women." Grrr.

Shut up about that, already!

But I like his dopey laugh, too.

As he points out (again and again and again and again)

most of the people involved with horses these days are women, and the vast majority of people in the videos are women and girls. That's why he's criticizing women - because they are the people he's interacting with and watching. When a guy gets out of line, he'll point it out, it's just harder to find videos of guys being stupid with horses because there are so few videos of guys with horses (guys being stupid with other things, now, that's a different story!) With so much estrogen in the industry, you'd think the macho attitude of force and aggression would have gone by the wayside, wouldn't you? But it's still there, even with the women (I'm thinking of a video of a girl that gets thrown from a horse, gets up, and goes stomping over to hit the horse and gets kicked in the helmet for her pains). But you can't coddle and cuddle a horse into good behavior, either. Projecting your own feelings onto the animal doesn't do either of you any good; you have to understand where they are coming from and speak to them in a way that makes sense to them. Cold, hard fact - everything we do with a horse is stress for the horse. Just approaching the horse puts pressure on it. We don't like to look at it that way, but there it is. But, life is stress of one sort or another; if an animal's existence is so blissful that it doesn't feel at least a little stress, it is too stupid to live. If we want to be safe when we interact with these big animals, we need to understand why they do what they do. Yes, Rick does a bit of "gender profiling" that I'd like to take him to task about, but as with a lot of folks, I filter and try to ignore the garbage, and try to pay attention to gems that are interspersed with the junk.

 

[chicken19]

Sorry, I'm ranting

Sometimes the word abuse is used too easily. I don't believe that anyone with short spurs that are not severe are abusing their horse. But I don't like it when someone overuses their spurs, has too long of spurs, or jerks on their mouth. And if the horse if slow, maybe re-think why he is slow. Does the saddle not fit? Does his feet hurt? Etc, etc, etc.
Also a something that a lot of people don't get is: RIDE A HORSE THAT FITS YOU! If your are too big for your horse the horse will start developing problems like thrashing their tail, bucking (or at least trying too), and dumping their riders. This is because the rider hurts the horse's back. No saddle or gizmos can fix this.
I've seen a 200 or so pound person ride a 14.3 hand horse because it's hard for them to get on a horse that fit them because of their weight. The horse is generally un-happy and developes many problems and starts dumping the rider. Ride a horse that fits you people!!!
I'm not against people who are on the heavy side, but please ride the right sized horse

Read this: http://www.horsesciencenews.com/horseback-riding/how-much-weight-can-a-horse-carry.php

 

[chicken19]

When he does the wimpy falsetto voice I want to slap him. "Oh, Rick, you're always picking on women." Grrr.

Shut up about that, already!

But I like his dopey laugh, too.

As he points out (again and again and again and again)

most of the people involved with horses these days are women, and the vast majority of people in the videos are women and girls. That's why he's criticizing women - because they are the people he's interacting with and watching. When a guy gets out of line, he'll point it out, it's just harder to find videos of guys being stupid with horses because there are so few videos of guys with horses (guys being stupid with other things, now, that's a different story!) With so much estrogen in the industry, you'd think the macho attitude of force and aggression would have gone by the wayside, wouldn't you? But it's still there, even with the women (I'm thinking of a video of a girl that gets thrown from a horse, gets up, and goes stomping over to hit the horse and gets kicked in the helmet for her pains). But you can't coddle and cuddle a horse into good behavior, either. Projecting your own feelings onto the animal doesn't do either of you any good; you have to understand where they are coming from and speak to them in a way that makes sense to them. Cold, hard fact - everything we do with a horse is stress for the horse. Just approaching the horse puts pressure on it. We don't like to look at it that way, but there it is. But, life is stress of one sort or another; if an animal's existence is so blissful that it doesn't feel at least a little stress, it is too stupid to live. If we want to be safe when we interact with these big animals, we need to understand why they do what they do. Yes, Rick does a bit of "gender profiling" that I'd like to take him to task about, but as with a lot of folks, I filter and try to ignore the garbage, and try to pay attention to gems that are interspersed with the junk.

I agree!

 

[ChickenLover200]

Anyone have a Horsechannel.com account? For doing stuff, you get points to spend on free horsey stuff!

 

[chicken19]

Anyone have a Horsechannel.com account? For doing stuff, you get points to spend on free horsey stuff!

No do you?