Best Horse Practices Podcast

In this episode, Jec interviews Larry Whitesell of Baxter, Tennessee, east of Nashville. Larry is renowned in the gaited horse world. What distinguishes him is his interest and pursuit of classical methods. He's well-traveled down the dressage road and a well rounded, well educated horseman.

Over and over, Larry reminds us that gaited horses are horses, first and foremost. So relaxation is pretty much the key to making progress with them and their gaiting. Force and pressure are not answers. Nor is speed.

I had to laugh (again) because I really think my dear colleague, Jec, is nudging me - perhaps not so subtly - to make some changes. As you might have heard in our last episode on cross training, she and Amy Skinner reminded us trail riders, of the merits of arena work.

Here, she and Larry talk about slowing down and paying attention to the fine points of gaited movement and how to help gaited horses find relaxation. In past phone calls, I've talked with Jec about my nervous, rescued Tennessee Walker, Barry and how I was challenged by his pacing.

There are great insights in this show and I'd love to refer you to Jec's book, 55 Corrective Exercises. If you, like me, have a horse who's tight in the shoulder, neck, and poll, try exercises 3, 13, 16, 18, 35, 37, 40, and 45. Have fun!

And hey! We want to know what you've been up to this summer. What have you learned? What have you been working on? Send us a note and you'll qualify for not just a Patagonia WorkWear item, but a knife from Kershaw and a pair of merino socks from Grip6. We'll be talking about summer adventures and learning in an upcoming show, so let us hear from you!

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. More and more folks are realizing that forage is an ideal option for their horses. Superior to grain and often handier and more nutritious than hay

We also thank Kershaw knives, Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food, and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support.

Thanks for listening y'all!

Season 2, Episode Six is a Coaches' Corner with Amy Skinner in North Carolina.

Here, Jec and Amy visit about cross training. It ties into our last episode in which we discussed what horses and riders need to know. It comes down to the need to always expand our comfort zones. As Randy Rieman told me, if you're not expanding your comfort zone, you are shrinking it. Dearest listener and reader, think about it. I really think this idea has merit. And not just for horse work, but for life. Expanding our comfort zones, facing fears, having confidence or building confidence in yourself and your horse surely has a lot to do with cross training.

There are ways to tackle various impediments or hurdles to better horse work. Here are a few:

Ask for help

Avoid foreseeable pitfalls (as mentioned and for example, riding in big groups or riding with people who cannot support you if you need help is avoidable)

Or, if you're a trail rider, maybe check out Jec's books for some exercises to make arena work more engaging. Katrin Silva's Dressage for All of Us has ideas, too.

If, in contrast, you're hitting the trail and you find that worrisome or boring, there are tons of ways to get busy and give your horses tasks that will challenge both of you and keep you partnered up rather than checked out.

If you're new to the trail, connect with riders who have some understanding of trail riding and the etiquette around it – for instance, ya don't ride off when someone is stepping up into the saddle. If you are riding through gates, trade off opening and closing them.

We would like to thank Pharm Aloe Equine, Lucerne Farms, Kershaw knives, Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. Buy some rocks from Redmond, check out the new flavor at Kate's and check out the WorkWear sales. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing.

This episode is episode 5 (sorry about the error on the audio, in which we identified it as episode 4) and an On the Fence segment – a show in which Jec and I discuss something that's been on our collective and virtual desk, asking to be checked off.

Here we visit about what horses and humans need to know. By that we mean the skills and the knowledge that horse and rider need to have in order to, as we say as part of our podcast mission, feel safe and have fun.

I hope you all bear in mind that this ain't dogma coming down from above. We could be wrong. Our work with horses is constantly evolving and we build on experience, on successes as well as mistakes. As we acknowledge, this is tip of the iceberg stuff. We hope you'll write in to give us your tip of the iceberg stuff. Some lean towards principles while other ideas are more technical. In the best mix, they meet at a place which emphasizes SAFETY and GOOD RELATIONS with the horse.

Some things horses should know:

• To load easily into a trailer
• To remain tied for decently long periods of time without getting overly stressed
• To pick up feet easily
• To stand when mounted and not walk off
• To yield to pressure
• To accept new stimuli without 'losing it'

Some things riders should know:

• To take vital signs (respiration and heart rate, temperatures, and to know signs of dehydration) and to be able to do basic doctoring
• To mount from the ground
• To be fit enough to ride confidently (and to call yourself an athlete!)
• To recognize how our energy and actions impact our horses

There are many videos and pages to consider around these topics. Check out Amy Skinner's YouTube channel.

Read about Ownership here.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their fantabulous support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes. They have profiles of the quality of their products on their website.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Are you traveling – maybe going horse camping or heading to a competition, Lucerne bales, wrapped in plastic, are pretty much perfect for traveling. Check out their blends and distribution at lucernefarms.com Or find Lucerne Farms at your feedstore and ask for it by name.

I sure hope this got ya thinking. Let us hear from you.

We would like to thank Kershaw Knives, Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. Buy some rocks from Redmond, check out the new flavor at Kate's and check out the WorkWear sales. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out here. besthorsepractices.com/podcast.

Thanks for listening y'all!

Read about the Care Continuum here.

Dr. King writes: Horses Want Fewer gifts, Better care

In this episode, Jec talks with Dr. Rebecca Husted, president of Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue, and a past Best Horse Practices Summit presenter. I'm a big fan.

As you'll discover, Rebecca is a straight talker and someone who is passionate about doing right by the horse in the most critical situations.I first met Rebecca over a decade ago, when I took her days-long TLAER course in Maine. We had academic presentations and worked on several great simulations of emergencies.

I cop to being a stickler when it comes to preparedness. It's something Jec and I are going to talk about in our next On the Fence episode – as a responsible horse owner, what do you have to know and be good at? What does your horse have to know Rebecca touches on it here: Can you trailer load quickly? Will your horses self-load? Do you own a trailer? Can you drive a trailer? Can your horse stay unbothered tied to the side of a trailer for a llloonnngg time? In pitch dark, can you do everything you need to do with your horse?

Just stuff that's on the tip of my personal iceberg.

Don't stress. Just practice. It's like the little saying I used to repeat to my kids when they were trying to blame me for their stuff: "Your lack of preparation is not my emergency."

I love this episode and hope you do to – have fun checking boxes and don't be bummed if you identify any shortcomings. Just shore them up.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. . Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research based, but of course, your horses will tell you, too.

Jec talks with Dr. Martin Nielsen, a parasitologist at the University of Kentucky and one of our super-fantastic presenters at the Best Horse Practices Summit in Lexington, Kentucky, Nielsen's backyard, in October.

Martin has a host of popular YouTube videos that debunk deworming. Deworming is the traditional, not-best-practices method that many of us are familiar with.

Perhaps you, too, have ordered that value pack from some website with four different dewormers for four times a year deworming. Yeah, that's not the best thing to do for your horse, turns out.

There might be more misinformation about deworming than there is about the 2020 election. I kid you not.

Anyway, Nielsen has great insight here. Apologies for some less than ideal audio.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes. When you are looking for aloe products, the high quality and effectiveness of active ingredients are really important. Pharm Aloe's got that.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research based, but of course, your horses will tell you, too.

We would like to thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continued support. Buy some rock salt from Redmond, some trail bars from Kate's and check out the WorkWear sales. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out here.

In this episode, Jec talks with Robin Foster, a certified applied animal behaviorist and a professor at the University of Puget Sound in Washington State.

Foster cites an interesting study on grooming by Lea Lansade, a researcher in France.

There is a broad range of grooming concerns among us. Myself, I put almost no effort into grooming. I might brush where the saddle goes. Or instead, I might run my hand over that area. I check their feet and pick out any pebble that might have wedged into the frog area. Sometimes I might spray them with bug spray. But mostly I saddle up and go.

I have seen that grooming, especially when it's done after trailering somewhere and before a ride, has the effect of getting a horse pretty antsy.

There are a lot of things we humans do, from even before we collect them in the paddock to when we ultimately ride that amounts to what Warwick Schiller would call 13 Rabbits. Check out his Best Horse Practices Summit presentation on that here.

Fellow BHPS presenter, Amy Skinner, calls it trigger stacking. It's the piling on of stressors that sometimes results in a bit of a cluster.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research-supported.

A little interview review:

Yay for ground tying. And yes, don't trim those whiskers (which by the way are known as vibrissae and as Jec mentioned, are individual nerve conductors which send information to the brain about things like the texture and condition of what they come in contact with). Read more here.

And yes, if the haltering or taking out of the paddock or tying are things that stress the horse, then perhaps do something that will help your horse relax instead of forging ahead. Remember, the forging ahead is itself a human construct that horses don't necessarily relate to.

There are a lot of things to consider when we interact with equines. The balance between being mindful of our impact on them and then actually getting stuff done – riding and what not, is something we waver over all the time. It's good to hear folks articulate the variables and maybe this'll spur some conversations.

We would like to thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continuing support. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out here.

Thanks for listening y'all!

Even though we haven't really taken a break, we're calling this Season 2. That makes this episode, episode 1 of Season 2. Thanks for carrying us through to another season.

Okay, so I wanted to share with you a heat and drought scenario that unfolded with me, my horse and dogs recently. It definitely pushed against the 'what is safe whilst riding in the heat' protocols.

Even though it was forecast for hot and dry, for a moment it got overcast and windy and it seemed like it'd be like that for several hours. I saddled up and headed out with my horse, Barry, and two dogs. I took two liters of water, snacks, and a book. We were headed to the river where I'd hobble Barry to graze and the dogs and I could chill for a few hours before heading back. It'd be a 12-mile round trip.

Listen to learn more.

Okay, so for Episode 1 of our new season, we welcome Ben Longwell of True West Horsemanship.

Ben and his wife, Natalie, live in New Zealand where they run lessons and clinics and produce an online video library. They also come to the States most years to do guided ranch tours – it's pretty neat, a trip for New Zealanders to ride on working ranches, learn horsemanship and apply some stockmanship, and even to shop at stores like IFA and Big R – where you can get gear and clothes that you just can't get in New Zealand.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes. When you are looking for aloe products, the high quality and effectiveness of active ingredients are really important. Pharm Aloe's got that in spaces. Check out the research and the compelling back story at Pharm Aloe Equine.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research based, but of course, your horses will tell you, too.

Find Lucerne Farms at your feedstore and ask for it by name.

You can also find links to all our sponsors here.

We also thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food, and Patagonia WorkWear for their continuing support. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out here.

Thanks for listening y'all!

I'm feeling pretty pleased that here we are at Episode 30. Thirty! It was about a year ago when Jec and I first started bouncing around the idea of a podcast. We were decidedly not interested in just throwing one out there for the heck of it or having it be a gab session or a chance to share just our own deal and our own little opinions. Nope, we wanted to be careful with it.

What followed was many phone sessions and emails to map out how it would look and to basically shape a mission. I'm a big fan of missions or mission statements. They allow an initial vision to become concrete without being too rigid. Think rubber concrete.

A goal without a plan is just a wish, so we planned and mapped and bounced around ideas.

This podcast is still, as ever, a work in progress and we always always welcome your suggestions and comments.

So thank you listeners. You rock. Like we've said before, contact us with suggestions, comments, questions -- We are looking forward to tackling one suggestion from Marika in Washington State on paddock design and horse health. Great tip, Marika!

This milestone episode is a Coaches' Corner with Jec, Amy Skinner, and Katrin Silva. They have a lot to say about the state of horse shows.

Are they good for you?

Are they good for your horse?

Are they good for the horse industry?

Yes. No. Maybe. It depends. If you compete regularly, this conversation will interest you. If you don't compete, it'll interest you, too.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes. When you are looking for aloe products, the high quality and effectiveness of active ingredients are really important. Pharm Aloe's got that in spades.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research based, but of course, your horses will tell you, too. Also, check out Koop Clean for your chickens.

Find Lucerne Farms at your feedstore and ask for it by name.

We would also like to thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continuing support. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out at besthorsepractices.com/podcast.

Today, Jec loans the mic to me for an interview with Whit Hibbard, a fourth generation Montana rancher and low stress stockmanship professional. I met Whit many years ago when he was passing through Colorado, giving presentations on low stress stockmanship and livestock handling.

There's a strong parallel I see with the shift in handling cows and the shift of handling horses as we move away from physical and domineering ways to the mental, partnership type of work. But it's interesting because when you go to a horsemanship clinic nowadays, it's populated mostly by women. When you go to a stockmanship clinic, it's mostly men. Which is the tougher audience, I wonder?

Whit is doing impressive work with National Parks, big private ranches like those owned by Ted Turner. Turner Enterprises consists of 18 ranches and two million acres. Most recently, Whit has focused on bison and has helped livestock handlers design structures that incorporate low stress handling into their overall system.

Pretty cool. Even if you don't work cows or have an interest in working cows, there are helpful, insightful reflections here around how we operation. By the way, Whit also publishes the Stockmanship Journal and you can find links to a free download on besthorsepractices.com.

Many thanks to our Title Sponsors, Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms forage. Learn more about them here.

Also, we thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continuing support. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing. This month, we're giving away a Patagonia WorkWear item to two lucky listeners. Check it out here.

Today, Jec interviews Jane Myers. Jane runs the educational website Equiculture with her husband, Stuart. The couple, based in England but also having spent many years in Australia, offer advice on everything from riding to getting along with your horse to horse keeping practices. As for the latter, we're happy to report that Jane aligns quite well with Alayne Blickle, the Best Horse Practices Summit presenter and owner of Horses for Clean Water. At the last Summit, Alayne presented on horse keeping and climate change.

In this interview, Jane talks about how change in horse keeping can have an enormously beneficial impact on horse welfare and behavior. So, here in Colorado, most of us keep horses on acreage and with buddies. There aren't a lot of isolated or stalled horses. In much of the world, though, that's not the case. Whether it's a cultural thing or an urban or suburban space limitation thing, it's a problem that has behavioral, physical, digestive, physiological and other fallouts. What's to be done? Well, if you didn't know already, you're gonna learn.

We thank Pharm Aloe Equine and Lucerne Farms for their continued support. . Pharm Aloe offers aloe pellets and gel and other products to support horses' GI health, immune system, and other processes.

Lucerne Farms is a forage company based in Northern Maine. Lucerne has an array of products, with timothy or alfalfa or timothy and alfalfa, with a touch of molasses, or not, for feeding your horses. Feeding forage is wwaayy better than feeding grain. That's research based. But, of course, your horses will tell you, too. Also, check out Koop Clean for your chickens.

Also, we thank Redmond Equine, Kate's Real Food and Patagonia WorkWear for their continuing support. Please follow these brands and buy their stuff as they support us and what we're doing.

Don't forget to check out details on the Yeti/Nomadix giveaways.

Thanks for listening y'all!