Merry Christmas

Hello and Merry Christmas to all you bloggers out there I am looking forward to catching up with all your blogs soon.

But for now I hope you are all having a great Christmas Eve and I wish you all a very merry Christmas.

The Horses Line of Sight

Today I’ll be writing more about the horse’s eyes, more specifically there line of sight, see rough diagram above of the horses line of sight. As you can see the horse can see nearly all the way around it’s self but has a blind spot behind and just in front of the face. Because of the blind spot in front of the face when you walk straight up to a horse you will disappear from the horses sight, most horses will move there head to keep you in there sight or perhaps step backwards to bring you back into sight.

If you approach a horse from an angle it will keep you in their view, this is also the way to approach a horse to show you are a friend. If you are far away from a horse some may turn their head to catch you with both eyes, you should be able to see where both eyes meet, on my diagram, when a horse uses two eyed vision it is binocular view.

Now if we return to the blind spot in front of the horses face. The blind spot is about six feet in front of the horse, but of course you have to take into consideration where the horse eyes are set on the horse. The blind spot can affect the horse when jumping as most horses must jump from the memory of the jump, so if they lose focus or become distracted in some way you may find your horse runs straight into the jump because they forgot when to jump. But with all that said the position of the horses head and the setting of the eyes can all play a part in it.

Anyway that’s it on the horses line of sight for now, I hope you found this interesting if so you can click the link to read one of my older posts with more about the horses eye.

December So Far

It’s my first December post, bad I know, I have been a very poor blogger of late. I hope you are all having a great December so far, my December has been very good but the weather is dreadful. It’s been very windy and we’ve had quite a bit of rain, today there has been a break in the wind and rain but sadly it did rain last night so no riding for today.

All the horses are well if a little muddy, well to be honest very muddy but they don’t seem bothered by it. But this does bring me on to the subject of Pip, sad as it may be, I fear he will have to lose those feathers of his as they have become caked with mud.

In other news Tipper is doing really well. I haven’t see him this good since I met him, he has been trotting about, kicking, and bucking so that’s good, I think he’s quite a happy chap now we’ve had him for a while. Also I’ve started putting his neck cover on at night and sometimes leave it on during the day if it’s very cold.

Anyways that’s about all from me and just before I go, hello and thanks for following to my new followers, and thanks for sticking around to all my other followers.

A HayNet Pick of the Week

Some of you other horsey bloggers out there will probably know of HayNet, but for those of you that don’t it is, in it’s own words, an equine social blogging network. You can put links up to your blog posts or even run another blog from it.

Anyways now that you’ve got a rough idea of what Hay-Net is I was simply going to say that my Mud and Mishaps post has been chosen as a HayNet pick of the week blog post, so I am quite happy with that.

If you aren’t already a member of a HayNet and would like to become one here is a link to the HayNet website.

Sorry about all old photos I haven’t been taking any lately, so I thought I’d just take a look though what I did have.

Mud and Mishaps

Ah just look at all that mud. Obviously I haven’t been able to ride when it’s this bad, it has dried up a lot since this photo was taken thankfully, but sadly I did have to cancel a lesson. So I’ve got awhile until my next lesson, I guess it’ll give me time to practice what I have learnt.

I’ve also started to try and do more work with Madeline now that I have more of an idea of riding in general as when I re-backed Madeline I was hesitant to start her training because I didn’t want to teach her incorrectly. I am now a lot more confidant and would like to get her going nicely.

I was riding Madeline the other day when she saw the other equines were having some food. She immediately decided that she would go and have some as well. But of course I wouldn’t let her so she tried to canter off with me sending mud and dirt flying. I asked her to walk for me which she did, but I noticed she had her left ear back in a rather odd way and I found myself wondering if maybe she had hurt herself. So I stopped her, lent forward onto her neck, reached over and took hold of her ear checking to see if she had hurt it somehow and next I knew Madeline saw a bit of haylage and lent down to get it, sending me slipping off over her neck with the grace of a drunken baboon. I swung my right leg over as if I were dismounting but my left leg was stuck in the stirrup, Madeline looked up from her haylage with a bemused look as I wiggled free. I was so very relieved that she hadn’t ran off, so with everything but my pride intact I got back on and finished the ride.

Now steering away from my little bit of foolishness here is a photo of Niko after rolling. Niko and I had just finished working and I’d un-tacked him, given him a quick brush down and off he went to get muddy. I hadn’t the heart to stop him because he hasn’t had a really good roll like this in some time. I have to say I think it probably wasn’t a good idea, I am still trying to get the chap clean. He loves to rub the mud on his face.

Anyway that’s about all from me, oh and if you were wondering why I thought Madeline might have hurt her ear I am ashamed to admit it, but seriously, I thought she might have flicked mud up into it, turns out she was just a bit put out because I wouldn’t let her go eat.

I know, I know, how have I survived this long?