Riding Helmets

8:41 pm
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Do you wear a riding helmet?

There’s a growing faction of pro-helmet activists in the equestrian community. One of the most visible, Riders4Helmets, includes some alarming statistics on their website. Horse riding, the organization states, is a dangerous sport on level with motorcycle riding, and head injuries are the leading cause of equestrian-related hospital admissions and deaths. http://www.riders4helmets.com/2011/02/equestrian-sport-statistics-facts-what-you-should-know/

And in a Canadian study of patients admitted with equestrian industries, 60% of related deaths were caused by head injuries to riders who were […]

Equine Coronavirus

Equine Coronavirus – A Black Swan Event

When I first heard of the concept of a Black Swan event, I was more than intrigued.  Curious enough in fact, that I read the New York Times bestseller: The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007, Random House, 300 pages and notes, etc).  This very complicated treatise was based upon the story of the black swan: basically people were convinced that all swans were white.  When a black swan was first discovered, it literally, in today’s vernacular, rocked their world.

This shock […]

Glue On Shoes

6:36 pm
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No Nails Required: The New Era of Horseshoeing

For about five hundred years, give or take, humans have been protecting horses’ hooves and giving their animals traction by nailing on shoes. And for just as long (presumably) horses have had their hooves damaged by those nails, whether simply because slowly-growing horn racked up too many holes from back-to-back shoeings, or because a “hot nail” hit sensitive laminae within the hoof.

Horseshoes are often seen as a necessary evil. Sure, we’d all love to have our horses barefoot — it would hurt less when they step […]

Poisonous Plants

5:52 pm
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Three Common Plants That Might Hurt Your Horse

Is there poison in your pasture?

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Sadly there are plenty of growing things that your horse might think are nice to eat, but are in fact poisonous. Over the twenty years of designing facilities we have developed a twenty two page document listing as many of these as we can. It might be a native growth or an ornamental planting brought in by ambitious gardeners. Either way, it’s time to check your outdoor areas and make sure there’s nothing dangerous lurking out there […]