Feature
Buying A Three-Year Old Ex-Race Horse. What On Earth Was I Thinking?
I wasn’t really looking to buy a horse, particularly a three-year-old ex-racehorse who had shown a quite remarkable lack of pace on his way to winning a stunning $370 in a six-race career – but there I was, having just brought him to the farm at which I was instructing, watching him roll in a very large puddle in the ring on a chilly late February afternoon. What on earth was I thinking?
Jenny and I had just picked up him up from a residential neighborhood in Shady Side, a small town on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. He was a few months off the track and had been living in a shed in his owner’s backyard. They loved him, but there were no other horses to keep him company, and I think, that in the end, was what pushed me to buy him. He needed to be in a healthier environment with other horses – among his own kind.
Driving him to his new home, we struggled to come up with a good name. Jenny eventually asked me what his birth date was and I looked at his papers. March 25 – he was an Aries – and the name stuck. Everyone around the barn calls him Ears. I like to think it is because of his elegant profile, but Kris assures me that it is because I neglected to trim his ears for the first month that I had him.
It has been three and half years since I bought him. There have been many training challenges – and a few unexpected expenses – but they pale in comparison to the joy Aries has brought to myself and the people who have come to know him and the lessons he has taught me as trainer and instructor.
News
Relaxing in Namibia
It was 30 hours since I had boarded the South African Airways flight at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. I had arrived in Otjiwarongo, a small town in Northern Namibia – it was the final stop on my trip before arriving at Uitsig, a cattle ranch just North of the famous Waterberg Plateau.
I had come for a holiday – and to work with some of the horses that call Uitsig home. They are a cross between Hanoverian and Arabs – small and rugged animals, they live their life in the bush, foraging for their own food and only coming in for water or to be ridden. The tails on all the horses are short. This is not a fashion statement, but a testament to the harsh environment that they call home. Acacia trees cover the land the horses live on and the thorns from the trees pull the hairs out of the tails as they search for grass.
Featured Lesson
The Disconnected Horse
by Tim Lewthwaite
Do you have a horse that hangs on the bit and feels like he is pulling you around the ring?
Does he get strong when you canter? And do your shoulders or arms end up aching during and after a ride? You may even have considered getting a harsher bit to get the horse out of your hands.