Details on Conditioning

Before I go onto regionals, I got questions about the conditioning process including the diet. I thought I'd answer those right now so they don't get lost in the shuffle because I can sure do a lot of shuffling here sometimes. Seems like I'm always trying to catch up on something.

We started off working the youngsters in a small round pen. As they got used to the process of lunging we gradually increased the size of that round pen. Currently I'm working them in a sixty foot in diameter round pen.

We work five minutes at the trot and the canter, both ways of the pen. That's a total of twenty minutes a day. I like to start out one direction on one day and then the opposite direction the next. Since the horse tires and works less hard the last part of the workout, this change back and forth helps build a balanced horse.

It had been my intention to pony the horse up and down hills the last six weeks before the show. This would really help build up over the topline and puts a nice finish on things.

The last time I did this with a yearling, I ended up with a beautifully conditioned horse. The only problem was I had no foot I could trim. Ponying wore the hoof down and I had the blood vessels right at the surface of the sole. I wanted to do a bit of shaping for the show and didn't have the foot to do it. Shoes or protective boots would protect against this.

My farrier didn't really want to nail shoes onto either of my yearlings........not to mention that I doubt at this time we could have nailed shoes onto Rhet. The other option was to glue them on but there was no guarantee we could get the horse to stand still long enough for the glue to dry. Putting protective boots on this colt didn't sound like a project I wanted to start each morning with either, so I passed on ponying this time around.

However, the whole thought of ponying Rhet behind Dandy must bring up some wild pictures in your mine. I know it does mine! I'm sure Dandy breathed a sigh of relief when I made the decision to skip the ponying. If there is a next time, I think I'll get a muzzle for Rhet first.

Normally I feed my horses grass hay. There are studies that suggest that alfalfa feed in conjunction with well water is what causes enteroliths Since we're on well water, I try to avoid alfalfa all together. Studies also suggest that alfalfa is not an ideal feed for horses. Since most of my herd are youngsters, I try to stay away from any feed with protein content as high as alfalfa since high protein consumption is linked to many of the growth deformities seen in young horses.

Now having said that along comes Rhet who was raised on alfalfa. Getting this horse to eat enough grass to get his weight up was a joke. I tried half alfalfa and half grass but that didn't work either. Currently he is on free choice alfalfa. I would guess he's consuming three flakes a day.

In addition to that he get a half a five gallon bucket of a chopped oat grass/alfalfa mix with molasses. I'm afraid I don't know the weight of my feed scoops but I use the standard feed scoop. Rhet gets a scoop of crimped oats, a scoop of Omelene 200 and a scoop of stabilized rice bran........all mixed in together, twice a day. AND I watch his legs like a hawk for any signs of growth deformities and changes in his growth pattern.

The things Rhet wouldn't eat were grass hay, crimped oats by themselves and beet pulp. I ruled out products like Grow Colt by Farnam because I couldn't use the Omelene and the Grow Colt together because of problems with over feeding some things. Since I couldn't get Rhet to eat any feed without mixing in the Omelene I needed to stick with what worked. Also I didn't want to feed straight Omelene because I was worried about that pushing his growth. I didn't want to push it, I just wanted to keep his weight up during the growth process.

So far so good. Rhet's weight is good and his growth seems to be the same. While he's a big boy, he hasn't taken any abnormal huge spurts. He's actually growing quite evenly.

I also played around some with trying to get him off the Omelene and the chopped oat grass/alfalfa product to see if cutting out the molasses would cool him out some. The result was I had the same hot horse only he dropped weight so I went back to using both products.






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I've Got a Secret...............Halter......We Hope!

To many doing halter is considered to be easier than showing performance. I've even heard comments about trainers doing halter because they can make the same money for far less work. But I'm here to tell you that getting a horse ready to show halter can be just as intensive as any performance horse can be when it comes to dealing with young horses.

Trying to condition a yearling that is growing like some noxious weed can give me fits. I've put many months of work into getting a horse ready that never hit the ring. Because they are changing so rapidly it's hard to second guess Mother Nature to get the "right" combination that turns out that fit star.

The more you feed youngsters, the bigger their bellies want to grow.......or so it seems. That is if you can even get them to consume the amount of feed it takes to put weight on them. I guess part of the reason for that is foals and even yearlings and sometimes two-year olds are more susceptible to round worms. The preferred rotation for worming may not be adequate in young stock.

I know here on my farm we worm the youngsters once a month. The foals get half a tube of the yearlings a whole tube. (The exception to this would be the wormer Quest which should absolutely always be given strictly according to weight AND NEVER NEVER to a thin horse!) But even religious worming doesn't guarantee that "hay belly" will not happen. Sometimes it really is caused by HAY!..........a lot of hay!

Rhet and Scarlet both started off with hay bellies as did the other yearling we conditioned this year. The bellies on Scarlet and Rhet responded well to the conditioning program. Within a couple of months they had nice trim tummies......but both had ribs showing. The third yearling required extra worming to finally get his tummy tucked up where it belonged.

Rhet just happens to be one of those horses that burns calories just thinking. I swear he doesn't have to do a thing to drop weight. Trying to get the horse to consume enough calories to keep up with his work and his growth was an utter nightmare. I tried every trick I could think of and more to no avail. His diet has had so many changes no one here can keep up.

Finally I resorted to stabilized rice bran. I started off slowly and built up. Rhet was getting as much rice bran a day as an endurance horse would get...........but his weight finally began to improve.

I wanted to go to the Region 4 All Arabian Championships with extra weight on him. I figured that way when he got stressed out about being in a strange, new place and dropped weight he would still be carrying enough weight to show. I didn't get to that goal but by the week before we left for the show, his weight was looking "acceptable" for the halter arena.

By the time we got the weight fixed, I figured the hard part was done. But then that last week before the horse show had it's own set of trials all connected with Rhet. I posted right before I left for the show about the situations with Rhet here. First there was My Injury http://risingrainbow.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-injury.html followed by The Horse's Injury..........mmmm, Injuries! http://risingrainbow.blogspot.com/2009/06/horses-injurymmmm-injuries.html I figured by the time I got the horse onto the trailer and we were headed for the show the worst was behind me.

To be continued....................




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Wordless Wednesday

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I've Got a Secret...............Halter

From the beginning of my time showing Arabian horses I've managed to see past accusations that politics plays a role in how classes are placed. I've found other reasons for classes turning out the way they have in the performance arena. However, when it comes to halter that's just not been the case. When all is said and done I find myself, like so many others, believing showing halter seems to be a very political proposition.

To me that meant if I was to have a high powered horse and wanted it to do well, I would need a high powered handler. So way back in November when I first got this colt I set about finding a handler who would be political enough to win with my colt, yet one I could trust.

I had no doubt that a tough handler would cause problems with this colt. There just is no way this colt could tolerate being abused without turning mean. Not that I would stand by and let someone abuse my horse but stuff happens..............and once it does you can't take it back. I needed someone I could trust to be kind and still get the job done and I needed it now.

Because so many people do believe that halter is political and takes a big name handler to win, it means those handlers get committed very early in the season. I knew if I hadn't found a handler before the Scottsdale Show in February, the odds were I would have trouble finding one at all.

The other difficult side of this coin would be I just couldn't afford, nor did I want to, send my colt out to be trained. The plan was to train and condition the horse myself and find one of the "big guns" of halter to catch lead the horse for me.

My first pick to lead my colt would have been my friend, Eric Kriechten. However, since Eric has gone to work for Cedar Ridge Arabians his contract does not allow him to catch lead horses. However, I did talk to Eric to see who he might recommend.

The first name on my list was Jesse Saldana. I have watched Jesse over the years at the Region 4 All Arabian Horse Championships show many a halter horse. His horses have always looked comfortable out there in the ring. Also in the past few years, Jesse has climbed up the ladder and begun receiving top tens at the national level. A colt like mine could bring Jesse that first national championship title in halter, or so I thought.

Since Angie and Richard are good friends with Jesse I asked Richard to approach the man about leading my colt. Right from the start he seemed very excited about the prospect of leading Rhet. We sent off pictures and pedigree and Jesse agreed he would show the horse for me at Region 4 UNLESS.............the owner of the colt he already had in his barn wanted to show at Region 4.

So we had Jesse double check with the client. Her plans were to take her colt to the World Cup held in Las Vegas. She had no plans to show at Region 4 so Jesse was free to show Rhet at the Region 4 Championships in June.

Well, the Arabian Breeders World Cup was held in Las Vegas in April. As it turns out Jesse Saldana's colt didn't do well at that show. Not long after it, Jesse's wife called Richard to say that Jesse couldn't lead Rhet after all. The client had changed her mind and wanted to show her colt at the Region 4 Championships.

Finding another "big name" handler at this late date was going to be tough. Region 4 had not been "the place to be" in the last few years. Meaning it had been years since the show was flooded with big gun halter handlers. I wasn't even sure where to start so again I called Eric.

Eric's advise was to call Terry Holmes. Eric thought even if Terry wasn't coming to Salem he'd know who was and be able to help me get in contact with them. It sounded like a good plan so I called Terry.

I didn't reach Terry but left a message. He got back to me not long afterwards and I told him what I needed. Terry said he was going to Region 4 and he didn't have a colt. He said having been to my farm and seen my horses he knew I was a good judge of horses so if I thought this colt could win he'd be glad to lead him. We were set...................I breathed a sigh or relief and we went on preparing for the show.

To be continued..............




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MizScarlet and Her Rhet

So now that you know the flashy MizScarlet does indeed have her tall, dark, handsome Rhett, it might be fun to share with you a bit of their history together. Right from the start when Rhet came to Rising Rainbow Arabians, Scarlet was his companion whenever the colt was turned out and also when we first began conditioning. They also were stalled right near each other.

At this time the then weanling filly, Scarlet, was going through her own issues. Mad over being weaned, she wasn't co-operating either acting more like the untrained colt than the responsible filly she'd previously been. Regressing back to the willful days right after her birth, Scarlet wasn't wanting to be caught nor wear a halter. That meant turnout was tricky....getting either one of these weanlings caught could be a real trick.

For leverage to get them caught, I was turning these two weanlings out together in the small paddock in front of my house. The small area gave them less area to escape being captured when it was time to come in. I also knew I could use their attachment to each other as a tool to catch them.

Sure in the beginning I had to have help. The first few times they were out it took three of us to get them into a corner. Once there, with halters already on, it was fairly simple to catch Scarlet. The colt only allowed himself to be caught thinking if he didn't he was losing her. But, hey, it worked. That's what mattered.

After a week or two, it only took two of us to catch the weanlings. One for each horse but Scarlet was always caught first. The colt would position himself on the opposite side of the filly thinking he could avoid us. Without a halter there was no way I could have caught the little bugger.

For conditioning I hauled both Scarlet and Rhet over to Richard's in the same load. Rhet always had to be worked first because I couldn't trust tying him to the horse trailer while I moved horses around if he wasn't tired first. Scarlet always rode right next to him.

Scarlet and Rhet were definitely an item, it seemed like they were inseparable. When the two horses were out together, you never saw one without the other. They moved around the paddock like they were joined in by some hidden force. When one got into or out of the horse trailer Rhet always acknowledged Scarlet. It was hard to imagine they'd ever be separated.

Then suddenly in late spring Rhet got hormonal. The two now yearlings were turned out together in the usual small paddock while the farrier was here resetting some shoes. When we finished a horse, I always checked Scarlet and Rhet to be sure things were OK.

It was when I was bringing the last horse into the farrier that I heard the commotion. The previously quiet yearlings were now racing around the paddock. Rhet was trying to mount Scarlet and the poor filly was frantic trying to escape. Both horses were dripping in sweat.

I dropped Dandy off for the farrier then headed to the house to get help. I knew in the heightened state there was no way I could capture these horses on my own. Rhet's days turned out with Scarlet were definitely over.

It was another couple of weeks before I had to change his stall location as well. He'd been living in the midst of mares without much notice. Then just as suddenly as he'd decided to jump Scarlet, he turned into a little horn-dog in the barn. He couldn't walk down the aisle without talking and blowing up into this big snorty stud colt. That particular barn aisle is very narrow and really not conducive to dealing with naughty colts so Rhet had to be moved.

Rhet's new stall was in the first barn which houses two stallions and a mare. Rhet could have cared less there was a girl right next to him, all he could think was that his beloved Scarlet was gone. He cried for days............and dropped a ton of weight. He was obsessed with Scarlet.

Scarlet, on the other hand, couldn't care less. I think she was glad to be rid of the little monster.........just like her namesake, Scarlett O'Hara, the filly had put Rhet totally out of her mind.

To this day, he still looks for her. If Scarlet walks by the barn, Rhet always speaks to her. It a soft rumble of recognition, "That's Scarlet, she's my love!" I'm pretty sure the day will come when Scarlet appreciates that sweet talking.............but for now, it's a one sided relationship. Rhet is left worshipping Scarlet from afar............

To be continued............



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