The Saddle Mag

INGREDIENTS: -3/4 cup oatmeal -1/3 cup molasses -1/2 cup water -3/4 cup flour -3/4 cup bran -1/2 cup brown sugar -1 apple -2 carrots 1- Preheat oven to 400 degrees 2- grease muffin tin 3- shred apple and carrots and mix them with molasses 4- add brown sugar, flour, oatmeal and water 5- insert in a muffin baking tray 6- bake for 30-45 minutes Credits to:  aboutyourhorse.com

Hey guys, in this article I'll be talking about a very common problem, which is horses that paw. So we're going to analyze why horses paw and I'm going to give you some strategies that will help stop the pawing. There are basically three main reasons that horses paw: the first one is in a way 'emotional' as bored or frustrated horses can show this behavior; for example this can happen while we are tiding up our horse, as he may paw highlighting us the fact that he is bored; the same can happen when a horse feels frustrated because of a hard training. The second reason is a learned behavior such as a horse that starts pawing when sees that we are carrying its food; if we feed him at the very moment he is pawing, he will learn that in this way he can achieve what he wants, and he will do it every time we feed him, as we will have reinforced a wrong behavior. Horses also paw when they are facing a new situation, such as a trailer, a new place or things like that. Th...

Here's another one of those useful exercises for improving our riding skills; this one in particular focuses on the lead changes, hope you enjoy!

As you probably know if you follow my Instagram page (if not, go check it out!), today I spent almost 6-7  hours at the stables as there arrived 27 new ponies for the show that will be going on from  Friday and we had to test them and see if they were calm and quiet enough for children between 11-14 years old. I rode this guy, and he was quite good tough I tried to work on directing him correctly as, like lots of ponies do, he was always trying to move to the centre of the field. Tough all of a sudden he laid down and unfortunately I wasn't able to keep him enough fastly, so I got my feet off the stirrups and moved away. Of course I should have reacted differently, but I didn't have the time for thinking, anyway next time this happens, I'll be much more ready. Anyway I just searched a bit on the internet in order to understand why they do this and I found out that there can be so many reasons: first of all it can be the consequence of health problems, so if the horse does t...

Some horses become lazy from too much time spent on the same kind of work, speed and routine. What they need is some interesting exercises that stimulate them and make the work we're doing much funny and brain working. An example is what is usually called the 'Hangbahn'; this consists basically in dressage schooling on sloped outdoor terrain. This is perfect for those horses who are uninterested to perform in the arena or tired doing the same things and need to be rev up. The ideal is to find a quite sloped area in which there are some trees you can circle around. This outdoor area can be used for ride transitions, figure-eight around trees, half-halts, and ride leg-yielding exercises. This kind of work will stimulate the horse who will have the need to be careful of the terrain, re-wiring his brain in a positive way, mentally and physically. The best is to alternate a soft ground and an hard ground. Another useful exercise is based on a change of speed: gallop or fast trot...

Here's the first exercise I'm sharing here. Don't forget to check out y instagram Page  abs.equestrian  for other exercises and tips! Anyway this is perfect for improving your turning ability and the capacity of doing clean lead changes, which is not something easy to do at all and any rider know this! This can be done in both leads (sx and dx) but I advice you to start with the lead your horse feels much comfortable in, as we all know that usually horses prefer cantering in one lead instead of another. The other advice is to put every jul 24 feet apart which will be: 6 feet for landing, 6 feet for the take off and 1 canter stride. You'd better start doing this course at trot as leading the horse will be much easier and later cantering. The fences have to be kept low as this is not a show, but a technique exercise. Please, write me for any advice, questions or exercises you may need! Saba.