Horse Inspiration? Maybe a Movie

Some of my greatest horsey inspiration comes directly from fiction. The great lines from my all-time favorite books and movies pop into my head all the time when I'm with my horses and I think have taught me to appreciate them on some new and different levels. Here is a list of my top eight in case anyone ever needs some inspiration of their own.

1. Black Beauty
I love, love, love the movie, though I get teary at parts, it's wonderful and every bit as good as the book, which is a quality I find rare in movies. I must have read the book 50 times growing up.

2. Seabiscuit
This is a fairly new movie with Tobey Maguire. I'm so glad they made one about this horse story. I found it very well done and I've watched it over and over.

3. Sylvester
This is an older and maybe lesser known movie starring Melissa Gilbert. It's about a girl who takes a throw-away ranch horse and turns him into an Olympic eventer. It's awsome! I wish I had it, I haven't seen a copy of it in years.

4. Misty
This is a wonderful tale, by Margurite Henry, about two kids who get to adopt a Chincoteague pony. I always dreamed that instead of Disneyland for summer vacation, my parents would take me to Virginia for the round up and I could get my own Misty.

5. Wild Hearts Can'tBe Broken
This is an older movie, too, but still plays occasionally on cable. It's about a Depression-era horse crazy girl turned diving girl. There's a lot of cheezy love story stuff in the plot but I find the whole movie sweet and touching.

6. National Velvet
This was another of my favorite books when I was growing up, but I was a little dis-enchanted with the Elizabeth Taylor version of the movie. This is mainly because the whole point is that the race horse was a paint and so got no respect. But the movie used a big chestnut that looked like a racehorse so it blew the whole point. If you can get past that, though, this movie is pretty good, too.

7. Ride a Wild Pony
Another old movie (they just don't make many good horse movies anymore, do they?). About two little kids who lay claim to the same unruly pony. Cute, cute movie, cheezy, but I like all the palomino ponies.

8.The Black Stallion
This is the classic tale of a shipwrecked boy and horse who befriend each other on an island, and when they make it back to civilization, prove themselves in a big race. The movie was just magical to me then, although with each sequel the magic faded quite a bit.

So those are my recomendations. I'm starting my daughters on these now so that hopefully, a new generation of horse-crazy girls can help them live on.

Manure Happens

For those of us that have a horse, we know, manure happens and lots of it. Every day, all year round, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Boxing Day, horses poop. The numbers John Lyons lists in his most recent issue of Perfect Horse are probably pretty accurate: 50 lbs per day or eight tons per year, about $150 in fertilizer value yearly and that's for one horse not counting used bedding materials. I don't know, some days when I'm cleaning stalls it seems like a lot more. And we have some really poopy horses that I'm sure produce twice that much.

The fact is that it's easy to overlook this aspect of horse-keeping when getting into horses.When you bring home a new puppy no one worries about what to do with all the poo once it's picked out of the yard. With a horse picking it up is only the first step. Over the years at the various places my horses have been kept we've done all sorts of things. Loaded it into a spreader and dispersed it over an unused pasture. Dumped it into a bin that was hauled away once a week( I think to a mushroom farm but I'm not sure). Dumped into ever growing piles in an unused corner corral. I've been known to shovel some into a trash bag and bring to my mother - not to set on fire on her doorstep, but for her to mulch her garden and add to her compost.

Compost, by the way, is my favorite manure disposal. When it's done right (which takes some work and a lot of time), you eventually wind up with no waste; instead good usable soil to improve lawns and pasture and gardens. If you don't keep up on it though, or have enough space, you could wind up with stinky mounds and more flys than you can imagine. Not to mention horses with worms and other parasite problems, especially if they graze in a pasture that isn't cleaned or at least harrowed regularly. (Harrowing is a way of spreading and breaking down manure piles.)

I often see adds in the paper or signs offering free or cheap compost or manure and I can sympathize. While I can think of lots of uses for the stuff, espescially if I were into gardening, I bet what my horses produce in a day would tide me over for a year. What about the rest of it? That's one for the ages. By the time Tuff is 30 years old I will have shoveled 216 TONS of his... er, stuff. Well, at least it's good exercise for me.

Anyway, I'm just saying that before you bring a new horse home, give a little thought to what's coming with it because I'll tell you right now, I'm not answering your 'Free Manure' sign, I've got my own crap to deal with.

Self Diagnosis...Don't Go There

So here’s something weird that I’m dealing with regarding my darling mare, Tickles. The lesson contained herein: Do not self-diagnose horse. Even with phone consultation with the vet, he can only go on what you tell him, which as I’ve learned can be correct and yet, oh so wrong.

Let me explain. I was positive that I was spotting all the signs of the dreaded disease Laminitis or Founder in my mare, and when I described her symptoms and condition over the phone to my vet, he agreed it sounded suspiciously like it and told me what to do. However, I had missed one important clue that I didn’t notice until after two days and one special delivery of low calorie grass hay.

I was fly spraying her before our daily walk (I’d been hand-walking her up and down the driveway so as to not inflame her sore feet) and as I went to spray under her belly I noticed her utter swollen and dripping milk. Of course I know from all the broodmares around here that despite spring being long gone, this had to mean the birth of a foal was imminent. I called my trusty vet again and based on this new tid bit he agreed it was likely and said that it would also explain the hefty weight, sore feet, and change of attitude she’s had… However, he recommended that we bring her in to palpitate her to be sure. A second vet I called concurred that she must be a late pregnancy.

So we hauled her in and guess what? No baby. In fact it took about ten minutes for our vet to diagnose what I had been fretting over and trying to research for days. She is having a false pregnancy, which is rare for horses, but leave it to Tickles. She’s six and her biological clock has gone into overdrive. Her instincts are telling her body that by her age she just has to reproduce, and so every function her body has to create a baby is doing its job. Of course, without the stallion’s contribution, it’s all for nothing. She just thinks and feels absolutely pregnant.

So I can do little but let it run its course, she’s still on a diet so that I’ll hopefully never have to go through the Founder scare again. I’m supposed to really ride and exercise her to get her out of the broodmare mindframe. But the main thing I’ve learned is that self-diagnoses is flawed at best, even with horse care books and the Internet. False pregnancy is so rare, my vet hadn’t seen a case other than in cows for years. I would never have thought of it, and would probably have started round-the-clock foal watch that may have lasted until Christmas.

Now I won’t be hauling to the vet every time my horse sneezes. My husband would likely divorce me when he saw those bills, but next time I relay symptoms to the vet, I will list the facts, I will not color those facts with my own diagnoses, I will not jump to worst-case scenario conclusions unless the vet -unpromted by me- jumps there first.

On the other hand, I really love my horses, so maybe I can overreact a little. You know, I thought just I saw Tuff swat at something with his tail. I bet he was stung by a bee, I better check my book…