smellshorsey

To Breed or Not to Breed

Lucy's a smart girl. Here she is hoping for something. Food. An adventure. Maybe a boyfriend?

True, she's got Buddy to boss around. But perhaps she'd like somebody more studly. Like a real stud.

Lily has been dying to breed Lucy for several years. And now I wish we'd done it last year. At some point, Lily is going to want something fancier than Buddy. That could be Lucy, since Lucy is a lovely mover (though not fancy fancy). And she is as athletic as a cat, and way too smart. Lucy is 9, I think, and Buddy is 10. Or maybe they're both a year older. Lily is 13.

I don't know if I can or should convince Paul, but I'm looking into some of the studs in our area. Right now the leading contender is a lovely Hanoverian. Lucy is a nicely bred TB mare. I think this would make me a backyard breeder and on Fugly's bad list. Though breeding a registered, nice TB to an approved Hanoverian probably would keep me out of that category, though it still wouldn't mean I know what I'm doing. (I need to quit reading MiKael's blog or looking at all my neighbor's foals.)

My father, who would legitimately be on Fugly's bad side for all the mixed up horses he bred (and took care of and thought they were beautiful and useful, to his credit), said that having foals was one of the most fun things he remembers doing and what's wrong with us for not already having done it?

Paul ain't into extra horses. Vet bills. Random events, like taking a gamble on the gene pool and the birth process. He's also not into paying $$$ for a nice horse after Buddy has taken Lily as far as Buddy can go. So maybe there's hope for talking him into it.

It would be fun to raise a baby. I used to help my father. One of them was a cross between a Tennessee Walking Horse and a five-gaited mare. That horse was like a ten-speed. He could do any gait, though sometimes he got his feet tangled up. I made him walk, trot and canter (only) and taught him to jump. To my eyes he was a handsome thing. Here is one of the only photos I've got. Click to enlarge, if you wish. His name was Snuffy and he was a good sport. Because he was a mixed breed and wasn't at all delicate, he once stepped on a giant nail that went all the way up through his frog and the point stuck out above his pastern. He wasn't even lame. But back to the issue of breeding Lucy.

Lily has been forced to save money in a savings account since third grade that she can one day spend on something she really wants. She says this is what she really wants. I'm afraid the foal won't mature fast enough for her ambitions for it. And what if it's born with three legs? Fugly? Etc.?

I guess that would be a good life lesson.

And if we don't talk Paul into it? Well, there's always trickery. We simply don't know HOW Lucy got pregnant. Somebody must have hopped over the fence.

I would never do that. I don't think.

A Little More on Marsh Tackies

The local paper came out with  a little more on the story about Marsh Tacky horses today and had some more photos in  the print version of the newspaper. Unfortunately, they didn't do much more online, but here's one photo where you can see them a little better. Click to enlarge.

S.C.'s Endangered Horse Breed, the Marsh Tacky

UPDATE 10:12 a.m. Really good story about the horse's history and efforts to save them at American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. Click on the link to the right ALBC Works with Owners & Others               to Conserve the Critically Endangered Marsh Tacky Horse

This photo is of a Marsh Tacky stallion, an endangered breed of horses descended from Spanish horses. There are only 150 of these tough little horses left. Though I live in S.C., I've only encountered one of these horses in my life. After reading about them, I think I need to get several. What's good about them? They're said to be sensible, athletic, extremely hardy horses who can handle anything. And with the price of hay, I'm very interested in horses that can survive on marsh grass. What's bad about them? Not so pretty and kind of small, though we all know that pretty is as pretty does.

Here's an excerpt from the story:

YONGES ISLAND, S.C. — During centuries of isolation on the Carolina sea islands, the short-legged, sway-backed marsh tacky horses became perfectly suited for toiling long hours in the swamps and oppressive humidity.

But their wild looks and workhorse reputation — their name comes from the old English word meaning "common" — didn't exactly make them prized among horse lovers. Today, only about 150 of them remain.

Now, breeders are coming together to save the tacky, whose ancestors were left by colonial Spanish explorers......

"You can work'em, you can ride'em. When you put them in swamps and mud like we have around here in the Deep South ... instead of panicking and floundering around, they can just plow right on through it."

Intelligent and superbly adapted to the Southern humidity and coastal marshes, tackies can be broken quickly and prove docile for even the youngest riders. They can survive on marsh grass and forage other horses won't eat — farmers and owners simply kept them tied up in their yards over the years.

"We haven't found anything they are not good at," said Jeanette Beranger, a program manager with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. "They jump like rabbits, have a lot of endurance and can thrive on nothing.".....

"I don't think they are ever going to overtake the quarterhorse in popularity," she said. But they are ideal "if somebody is looking for an easy keeper that is safe with children."

The tackies' colonial Spanish strain comes from the same ancestors as cracker horses in Florida and bankers from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But DNA testing has found that the tackies are a separate breed, with unique characteristics thanks to their relative isolation. (go to this link for the complete story)

Is Eventing Becoming too Dangerous?

I just got an e-mail from Pony Club about the high number of eventing deaths in the last year. Pony Club was calling for all leaders and participants to make sure that members are competing at the appropriate level.

They cited the following story, which I will excerpt here, from the New York Times:

A failed jump by one of the world’s finest riders and a spate of deaths have unnerved the equestrian community.

Darren Chiacchia, 43, who helped the United States Olympic team win a bronze medal at the Athens Games and was considered a favorite for this year’s team, was training a horse on an intermediate course in Tallahassee, Fla., last month when the stallion crashed over a fence, crushing — and nearly killing — its celebrated rider.

Mr. Chiacchia spent a week in a coma and is now recovering at a rehabilitation facility near his home in Buffalo. Meanwhile, the sport he devoted his life to faces an identity crisis. Considered alongside the deaths of 12 riders worldwide over the past year and a half, his crash has reignited a fierce debate over whether the risks involved with the equestrian discipline known as eventing — an arduous three-phase competition — have become too great......

An Olympic sport since 1912, eventing originated as a way to test the ability and endurance of military horses. It is often called a horse triathlon because participants compete in three events over one-, two- or three-day competitions: the delicate footwork of dressage, the beauty and control of show jumping, and the endurance and daring of cross-country racing. The winding courses of up to two and a half miles are designed to mimic the natural obstacles of rural landscapes.

“It’s considered by many to be the ultimate test of horse and rider,” Mr. Baumgardner said.

The cross-country phase is the most dangerous, as horse and rider are required to clear 20 to 40 jumps in an established time period. Penalties are assessed if the horse balks at a jump, if the horse or rider falls, or if their time is too slow. Riders look for courage and well-roundedness in eventing horses, which can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $1 million each.

All 12 of the recent deaths occurred during the cross-country phase as riders attempted to clear obstacles, including some that were startlingly simple. Most of the deaths resulted from what are called rotational falls, somersaulting flips similar to Mr. Chiacchia’s.....

.....amateur riders say that lower-level courses have also become more difficult in order to prepare aspiring riders for the next level. (emphasis mine)

“It’s not galloping cross-country over natural obstacles anymore,” said Ilana Gareen, an amateur rider and assistant professor of community health at Brown. “I liked the fact that you could go to eventing and just be a good rider, do well, and have fun.”

I left out a lot and there's more that follows. I haven't kept up with eventing since I quit doing my low-level but fun rides when work got too demanding -- and eventing had become impossible on another level.

I knocked myself out to compete in eventing. My employers let me work on flex time during the season so that I could come in early and leave work before it was too dark to ride. I took my vacation days to trailer to events and stayed in hotels worse than the stable my horse was in. (One motel had bullet holes in the door, I'm sure of it.) It was exhausting. It took lots of money. It was excellent fun and absolutely thrilling. I even got to cover the events I went to as a reporter for The Chronicle of the Horse. (I never competed at the top levels so there was no conflict -- I would not be interviewing or covering the stories about people at my level.)

But it began to dawn on me that some people competing at my level were not at all at my level. Many were professionals, and I remember at one event that there was a former Olympian competing a young horse at my level. I was usually put in divisions with professional riders, teachers, trainers and even my own coaches -- not because of any handicapping system or because I was good, which I wasn't. Amateurs and professionals were routinely mixed up.

I don't need to win, but I need to feel like I have a chance. It was discouraging. So I wrote an opinion piece for The Chronicle of the Horse expressing my frustration. What I proposed were amateur and professional divisions. I found out that's a great way to get a lot of people mad at you.

The local and regional professionals don't want to be in a class with national and international stars. But what fun is it to beat people like me?  That was a long time ago, and some of these folks still hold a grudge. I'm no longer a member of any of the organizations so I don't know for sure that things haven't changed, but a search online of entry forms and other eventing information doesn't seem to show that anything has been divided into amateur and professional divisions.

I think that what I complained about may be in part what is behind these deaths, especially when the falls are attributed to inexperienced or amateur riders who aren't as good as the professionals they're competing against.

Well, DUH! Here's some more from the NYT's article:

Top competitors, coaches and course designers argue that the sport’s death and injury toll is most likely related to an influx of new riders to the sport. Participation in eventing competitions in the United States has grown by 36 percent over the past decade; riders filled roughly 46,000 competition slots in 2007, according to the association.

“You have people who didn’t grow up fox hunting or going on wild rides the way we did,” said Mick Costello, an event rider who builds cross-country courses. “They haven’t been used to tumbling falls. They get a thrill out of going fast, and a lot of them aren’t ready.”

Mr. Costello and others acknowledge that the increasing skill of top riders has pushed them to create more complex courses. They have recently been designing “speed bumps” to slow the riders, to little avail. “These people are so good, they just take it in stride,” he said.

I'm sorry. I grew up foxhunting and racing my friends on dirt roads. We did wild, crazy things and lived to tell about it. That doesn't make me Olympic material or prepared for courses designed to challenge the professionals. They've taken out the fun and replaced it with unacceptable risk.

 

And by the way. You can have a good, fun event horse for under $25,000. In fact, you can remove a zero and still get something sound and fun. You won't beat the Olympians, but you probably wouldn't beat them if you spent $100,000. Not that I'd know.

 

One of Abused Trexler Horses Dies, Bones Found Were from Horses Starved to Death

Apparently good, restorative care isn't always enough to save an abused animal. Horse #47, Jabask Gdancer, pictured here, of the Trexler herd has died. This is an excerpt from today's story, which you'll find here and here:

There are new developments in the case involving the Trexler family horses.

The agency says that a female Arabian horse named Jabask Gdancer passed away about two weeks ago. Josh Gowans with the Humane Society says the animal developed colic, and could not overcome what the agency says was a lack of proper care given before they seized her.

Gowans said, "Given the conditions of the horse and what it went through, we do feel like its general condition is such that it couldn't recover from the ailment that it had."

That's not all the bad news. Preliminary tests on the horse bones found on the Trexler property show that many horses died of starvation before the herd was confiscated. You can see the video and read the story here.

But here is some good news, though it adds to the burden of care that the Humane Society is carrying. Here's a photo of one of the foals recently born to one of the confiscated mares. More are on the way.

The three Trexlers are facing eviction from the house where they are now living. You can find more posts on this sad affair by browsing through smellshorsey's "current affairs" category.

Camden May Get Year-Round Horse Arena

Good news! Camden, S.C., long a center of horse activity, may get a year-round equestrian arena. Camden already has the Carolina and Colonial Cup Steeplechases at Springdale Course, the National Steeplechase Museum and a foxhunt with lots of preserved acres for hunting or just riding. The city itself is very horse-friendly, though there are signs that say, "Horses Not Allowed on Sidewalks."

Here's the news:

Kershaw County Council voted to give $150,000 over three years to a year-round horse arena if the nonprofit spearheading it is awarded a $3 million grant from the state.

The S.C. Equine Promotion Foundation wants to build a large-scale equine arena in Camden that could mean more than $22 million annually in state tourism revenues and 300 jobs in and around the county, an economic impact study said.

This is a long way from being reality, just as $150,000 is a long way from $3 million (especially in a state that's not rich), but it's a step forward.

Horse Abuse Can Get You 20 Years in S.C.

I've tried to follow the Arabian horse abuse case by the Trexler family since some of the horses found were hidden in a barn at the end of my road. (I never saw the horses -- they usually had one chestnut gelding in fair but not robust shape who was very friendly and was kept in the pasture. I didn't even know they used their barn, which from the street is a cute little traditional barn. So much for me being a nosy neighbor or even an aware one.)

Anyway, the local paper has a summary story about this case that seems to cover the whole thing from the beginning until now. You can read it here. The newest development is that all three family members could face felony charges that will bring 20-year sentences.

I hardly know this neighbor. I used to see his wife at the pool and always enjoyed talking to her. She was nice. I know she also fed the feral cats in the neighborhood, which may not be the wisest choice but shows her kind heart. She has since left him -- I think before all this happened -- and I'm really sorry for her and her son that she has been mentioned by name in the newspaper. She's not connected to this terrible story at all.

How did her husband, a state agriculture official, end up hiding horses that were not his and were near starvation (and had been quarantined in Georgia) in his barn? Was he trying to save his mother's hide? Did he have a plan to fatten them up? Were they only there temporarily? If the stalls had been clean and they had food, I'd like to believe he was trying to save the horses. But the stalls weren't clean and they didn't have food. It appears he was only trying to save his mother. Whatever the reason getting involved in his brother's and mother's mess was a big mistake. And now he's lost his $84,000 a year job and may face 20 years in jail.

I was talking to another horse person. Let me emphasize that we don't know squat so this is all speculation. No, it's gossip. I said that my neighbor should never have let his mother hide the horses in his barn. The other horse person said, "How could you tell your mother 'no'?"

I just wish they'd found clean stalls, food and water in the barn. I wish he'd tried to help his mother and the horses. It's a pretty tangled web and I'm sure I don't know much about it.

One funny thing. It seems like we have more "tourists" in the neighborhood. Every time a car drives slowly by our house and I see them looking at our horses I think, "Thank goodness they're fat."

Three of my neighbors have extremely aged horses that can't keep weight on. If you'll look at the rest of their herd (and notice the swayback-ness of the old horses) you'll realize that the old horse might just be an elderly creature. But if I were them, I think I'd spray paint "Old horse. Eats tons. Can't gain weight." or something on the creature so the "tourists" would understand.

And another of my neighbors just took in a stray dog who was near starvation. She says, "If they look at the other dog (a rotund black lab) at least people can see that we feed our animals and that there must be a reason this dog is so skinny."

It's a funny thing to feel like you're being watched and judged.

I just hope they don't interview Buddy and Lucy. They'll probably complain that the service is two slow and that they'd really rather have orchard grass.

Hay! I Just Paid $11.99 per Bale

Woo wee! I'm running out of hay, as I knew I would because we can only store so much. I just bought ten bales of Timothy and mixed grass for $11.99 per bale. Did I mention Buddy and Lucy eat a bale a day?

I also got a bag of alfalfa cubes. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but maybe they'll need less hay if they're getting soaked alfalfa cubes (I don't know what I'm doing but this is how I got through last spring when I ran out of hay so I know what I'm doing except how to buy enough hay for the winter).

I think I've found enough reasonably priced, quality Coastal Bermuda hay to get us through until first cutting. I'll know next week when it will also be delivered.  And I'm not telling a soul where it's coming from!

In the meantime, here's what the humans at my house are having for supper because of the price of hay. Have you seen the TV ads for this? It looks so tempting that Lily and I were all set to buy it -- until the last scene. 

Good News! Quarantined Horses Don't Have EIA

Since the news media love to leave us hanging with the bad news about the Trexlers breaking the Georgia equine infectious anemia quarantine on their horses and bringing those horses to S.C., I decided to turn into an investigative reporter (not much of one) and find out for myself: do these horses have equine infectious anemia or not?

I had to go to the Clemson's Sandhills Station today to pick up Buddy's Coggins test (negative, always expected and always a relief to get it in my hands) and I asked there about the Trexler horses, since that's where their Coggins tests would have gone, too. The woman at Sandhills told me which vet to call, and I did. That receptionist there told me that all the Trexler horses were negative, too.

So. Good news for everybody. Guess that's why they didn't report it.

By the way, two of the Trexler's have been extradited to Georgia to face charges there.

The story is now national, with coverage by USA Today that includes tidbits such as that the guy at the Department of Agriculture who hired Trexler is no longer there because he took $10,000 to protect a cock-fighting ring.

They Better Not Have Brought Equine Infectious Anemia into this Area!

Okay, it was bad enough that the Trexler family didn't feed their horses or care for them. That really was bad enough, far worse than words can say.

But now I'm really mad. They brought 26 horses here, into my county and possibly my neighborhood -- as in right down the block -- that were quarantined in Georgia for possibly having Equine Infectious Anemia.

They've not only abused their horses. They've put mine and a great many others at risk for this disease that can't be prevented and can't be cured.

That really makes me mad.

In an unrelated event, I had a Coggins pulled on Buddy last week to keep him current since Lily has big plans for shows. I expect the test to be negative, and I'll be really glad when that yellow piece of paper is in my hand with an X in the "negative" box.

How much worse can this story get? I guess we'll find out when the forensics report comes back.