The elephant in the room...

It's time we had a talk. That talk we'd all like to avoid, about a subject that is making 99% of us very uncomfortable these days: the economy.

One poster wanted me to go into this topic in depth. You know what, I can't. Like many Americans, my knowledge of the financial world and how all of this works is shamefully inadequate and I wouldn't for a minute attempt to opine on all of the root causes of the problem. I know what many of you know - hay and grain and gasoline and veterinary services have rocketed upward in price at an alarming rate, while our salaries have not budged.

I know that a great many people bought homes for themselves and their horses via subprime lenders and adjustable rate mortgages. Basically, an ARM is like a ticking time bomb. It starts out being something you can handle and all is well and then all of a sudden, POW, your mortgage payment doubles. Who can afford that? Well, just about no one. And so the lender gets the house back (not that they want it or know WTF to do with it, but they sure as hell aren't gonna let you live there anymore). And so the people and their animals are out on the street - and it's a hell of a lot easier to find a place for a broke person to sleep than a broke person with ten animals.


I know that even if you're trying to be responsible and know that you can't afford to own a house, finding property to rent where you can have your animals is getting tougher and tougher and those properties that do exist are becoming more and more expensive. Worse yet, a lot of the property owners are losing those properties to foreclosure and suddenly the innocent renter, who paid their rent on time and did nothing wrong, is on the street. Trust me, the bank does not care. It's gotten so bad that one sheriff in Illinois has refused to carry out any more of these types of evictions.


Full care board? Sure, that's out there, and it's getting more and more expensive, too. You can't blame the barn owners - they face the same rising feed and bedding costs. (And stop bitching at them, you boarders. They are not going to Maui with that money. They are merely trying to stay out of foreclosure so that YOU have a place to put YOUR horse. No one gets rich boarding horses.)

Again, few of us have experienced the same astounding leap in our salaries. And most frightening of all, companies are giving in to the financial pressures by cutting their own costs - by cutting our jobs. Jobs that seemed "safe" with solid companies are no longer reliable. A person can be a great employee and still get downsized through no fault of their own, and find nothing else out there. The jobs at their level have disappeared, and Burger King won't hire you if you're overqualified. Meanwhile, the bills keep coming...

So what is the solution, in these scary times? I can't solve the financial crisis and honestly I don't think either of the candidates can, either. I think this is pretty much the hand we're all being dealt and we'd better adapt. I've had to do a lot of thinking about it - it's been a bad year for vet bills with my bunch and clearly I need more money than I have, despite having fewer horses than I did a year ago. The conclusion I've come to is that, unless you're a planner and have savings in the bank and a super stable profession which is unaffected by the economy (which, let's face it, is not typical of horsepeople), we all need to have multiple income streams. Maybe that's a second part-time job. Maybe it's a home based business. Maybe we start offering a service. I just think many of us need something else, something extra, to help ensure we don't wind up in dire straits with our animals in danger if we get the rug yanked out from under us at our main job, or if the ARM fairy smacks us a good one and we wake up to find our mortgage has gone up $600.

One thing that I do know about economics is that bad conditions create new opportunities just as surely as good conditions do. For example, the bankruptcy lawyers and the collections firms have more work than they can handle. If you want a stable and safe career to put hay in your barn, those are two areas to consider. They won't be downsizing. There are also opportunities for side businesses here. More women are going to be going to work out of financial necessity, so if you love the SAHM life, offer child care. A friend of mine is paying her sister $1200 a month to watch her two kids while she works - that's not a bad extra income if you're already at home with yours and you love children. That would keep a dozen horses in good hay in my part of the country!

If you have a horse facility, I think self-care board is going to become super popular even in parts of the country where we haven't seen it before - it's the cheapest way out for someone desperately trying to hang on to their horse through hard times. (I warn you, if you haven't offered it before, it's a bear to oversee - but the demand will definitely be there.)

Another great revenue generator, if you have a facility and enough parking, is the fun show. People still want to have fun in tough times, but they don't have a lot of money. Having a fun show with a flat fee to ride in everything is a great source of quick cash. Order some cheap ribbons and cheap prizes like hoof picks, fly masks, etc. and put on a show. If you do games, you don't even need a judge - just a stopwatch!

Got land? Grow hay. It sure as hell isn't getting any cheaper! Grow your own hay at least...if you're clueless, ask around. Some farmer will do all the work for you for a share of the hay. The split used to be 50/50 - these days it's probably much more for the farmer but who cares, you'll have your own hay! Look at the conditions around you and ask yourself what new business opportunities are being created by them - and then jump on that. Look at the horse world - what do we need? More horses? NO! We need more training, for horses and riders. Offer that instead. Break out those old broodmares and put them into your lesson string. Many of them will be delighted for the attention.

Those are some of my thoughts, and yes, I do have a plan for myself and my own horses after thinking all of this through that I'm really excited about. More to come on that. ;-) If you're a financial expert, by all means, chime in. If you've found that wonderful second income stream in this economy, please share! We all want to be able to keep our horses and keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed, but we simply can't assume that we're going to be able to do that just going to work from 9 to 5 like always.


It's Friday and today's Friday Featured Rescue was privately rescued by a friend of mine. Biff is an eleven year old registered Standardbred gelding who rides and drives and is great on trails. I talked about him before, in this post. The family he's with can't continue leasing him and he's looking for a new job. If you are in the Portland, Oregon area and could use a solid, confidence builder horse, my friend is happy to lease him again to the right situation. He would just be great for someone who has had a bad experience and needs a horse whose reaction to everything is "so what." He'd also be fine for intermediate lessons - the canter still needs work but he'll trot around forever and he's great on the longe line. He is also available for adoption if you fall in love. E-mail me with BIFF in the subject line if you're interested!


Wishing you all a wonderful fall weekend. The colors are amazing out there if you're in a climate where the trees change...go on that trail ride. The yard work will wait!

The most important thing you can do for your old horse

It seems like a lot of the Internet has "met" Alibar, and I'm no exception. I loved seeing his pictures. He was everything that an old horse should be - fat, happy, shiny and beloved. I didn't realize he had passed away last month, at age 29.

Read her blog entry about his last day. If they have to go, this is how you do it. This is how they deserve to go. Not in a slaughterhouse. Not starving in some field. Not colicking with some idiot owner not noticing until they're nearly dead.

I really hope that someone who is considering trying to "get rid of" their old horse so that they can have a new, unbroken one to ride and show will read this girl's blog and realize they want their horse's last day to be like Alibar's.

There's only one way to guarantee that...keep your horse.

Stupid is as stupid posts!

This is from "Barnyard Mare" whose real name is Mary Powell Hunter. You gotta read this:

"I worked for a prominent Impressive breeder. I worked for him 4 years. I buried no less than 8 Impressives, both HH and NN. I pulled dead foals out of mares and buried mares with foals hanging out. I helped post a couple as well. This man breeds high dollar Impressives, gets at least $50,000 a yr from the incentive fund and usually has World Champion halter horses each year. in the years I have raised foundation lines, I pulled one foal and the only horse I ever buried was one who broke its leg. I watched way too many pretty horses die that were Impressives. The hybrid vigor is lost with Impressive. I am also starting to see certain Pocos and Doc Bars showing some signs of hybrid vigor loss. Some of my horses have Poco and Doc Bar but I am breeding away from that . THe mares that dopped dead were posted,,,gues what the NN mare had a HYPP attack....surprise surprise."

The N/N mare had a HYPP attack? Um, sweetie, that's like saying I just had a foal. IT IS NOT POSSIBLE.

I'm DYING to know who the guy was who was unfortunate enough to employ this chick. Anybody know? I think it's ironic she's bad-mouthing him when it's obvious she's way too dumb to be breeding horses herself.

I mean, here's HER stud. Pass the barf bag. Downhill, nasty straight shoulder, and there's a "nest" if I ever saw one. What are his foals going to be good for? He looks like an overfed pony cross, not a Quarter Horse.

And of course, she admits she doesn't have "time or money" to show. Uh-huh...

No one is more anti-HYPP than I am, but I am tired of people like this spreading misinformation and scaring the world off of any horse that goes back to Impressive. She blasts Impressive for being "inbred" and claims this is the source of HYPP. This is DEAD WRONG. From the UC Davis web site:

"The original genetic defect causing HYPP was a natural mutation that occurred as part of the evolutionary process. The majority of such mutations, which are constantly occurring, are not compatible with survival. However, the genetic mutation causing HYPP produced a functional, yet altered, sodium ion channel. This gene mutation is not a product of inbreeding. The gene mutation causing HYPP inadvertently became widespread when breeders sought to produce horses with heavy musculature."

So, basically, before we knew what HYPP was or how to test for it, breeders specifically selected the heaviest muscled horses for breeding. Many of them were that heavy muscled because they possessed the defect, which "fits them up" by causing involuntary muscle contractions. So breeders were more likely to use HYPP horses for breeding than non-affected horses. Those breeders weren't at fault - no test existed at that time - but they DID cause the current prevalence of the disease by creating a lot more horses with it. It does not have a single thing to do with any of Impressive's ancestors. Impressive is the horse who had the mutation and he sired over two thousand foals before anybody knew better.

Now we know better, and breeding H/H and N/H horses should stop. N/N horses have exactly the same chance of having a HYPP attack or passing HYPP along to a foal as horses who do not trace to Impressive - ZERO.

P.S. Sweet Pea? You claim your stallion doesn't go back to Three Bars. For fuck's sake, why don't you know your stallion's pedigree better than I could learn it on the web in five minutes? Your stallion has got TWO crosses to Three Bars through his maternal granddam. Lee Bar and Rocket Bar. It's one thing to make a mistake about someone else's horse's pedigree, but shouldn't you know your own?

P.P.S. From her web site: "For horses age 18 months to 24 months, the maximum time per day of riding will be limited to 30 minutes." YUP! Get cracking on those 18 month olds, you wouldn't want them to grow up sound or anything!

P.P.P.S. She says she's pro-slaughter on her web page. Well, no shit, what else are you gonna do with the offspring of Fatty Blackburn McCue there? He's built like a beef cow.

I am still working on this...

So please don't drive me nuts with e-mails about OMG what happened to the blog. :-) Blogger is like the world's biggest PITA to customize and I'm going to resume this project after dinner.

Edited to add: Yes, I have to remember to change the font size now because it's different when you have two columns. I won't be able to go through and fix all of the old posts, however. And the main part of the blog is going to be white if I can ever figure out how to reset just that portion. Working on it, there's some code I'm not finding that's overriding what I have the main portion set to.

A letter from your horse

I love this...someone just forwarded it to me. FYI, I may do a redesign on the blog today, so if it gets all f'ed up, don't be too concerned. I haven't been hacked into by evildoers, I'm f'ing it up myself...LOL!

A letter from your horse ...original version and the real story ...

When you are tense, let me teach you to relax.
When you are short tempered, let me teach you to be patient.
When you are short sighted, let me teach you to see.
When you are quick to react, let me teach you to be thoughtful.
When you are angry, let me teach you to be serene.
When you feel superior, let me teach you to be respectful.
When you are self absorbed, let me teach you to think of greater things.
When you are arrogant, let me teach you humility.
When you are lonely, let me be your companion.
When you are tired, let me carry the load.
When you need to learn, let me teach you. After all, I am your horse.

And now, the REAL story.....

When you are tense, let me teach you that there are lions in them thar woods, and we need to leave NOW!
When you are short tempered, let me teach you to slog around the pasture for an hour before you can catch me.
When you are short sighted, let me teach you to figure out where, exactly, in the 40 acres I am hiding.
When you are quick to react, let me teach you that herbivores kick much faster (harder) than omnivores.
When you are angry, let me teach you how well I can stand on my hind feet because I don't feel like cantering on my right lead today.
When you are worried, let me entertain you with my mystery lameness.
When you feel superior, let me teach you that, mostly, you are the maid service.
When you are self absorbed, let me teach you to PAY ATTENTION. Remember? I told you about those lions in them thar woods?
When you are arrogant, let me teach you what 1200 lbs. Of "YAHOO LETS GO!" can do when suitably inspired.
When you are lonely, let me be your companion. Let's do lunch. Also, breakfast and dinner.
When you are tired, don't forget the 600lbs. Of grain that needs to be unloaded.
When you are feeling financially secure, let me teach you the meaning of "Veterinary Services".
When you need to learn, hang around, bud. I'll learn ya.

Two words: Jail Cell

This news video was sent to me along with a translation of the copy. Apparently this Christine Wels person is in Denmark.

http://www.rtl.de/rtlaktuell/rtl_aktuell_videoplayer.php?article=22414&pos=5

Translation:

Newsreader: This is the training of a dressage horse: Again and again the former top rider, whose name we can't disclose due to legal reasons, hits the animal for 30 minutes non stop. A hidden camera films the totaly terrified horse even being beaten with the butt of the whip. We show the footage to the editor in chief of a reputable equestrian magazine (Oldenburger Sportpferd Magazine). He is shocked.

Jan Toenjes: You don't understand "What is she doing there?" and the horse certainly doesn't understand it either! A senseless beating...I'm just lost for words!"

Newsreader: The former well known dressage rider hits her horse almost 500 times alone in this 30 minute training session, but when she is confronted with her actions she denies them

Reporter: "Why do you do this?"
Wels : "I don't do "this" at all!"
Reporter: "Why are you denying this?"
Wels : "I don't torture horses-why don't you go and have a look at the horses?"

But pictures speak a different language:

An animal protection worker leads the horses out of the boxes and they show evident signs of mistreatment. The pasterns are bleeding and their mouths show the scars of deep wounds-obviously the results of the brutal trainings methods. This is not the first time this athlete (trainer) has been accused of mistreatment of animals and is probably the reason she has now moved to Denmark . Animal protection organisations intend to forward this footage to the authorities so we never have to witness these images of tortured horses again.

The sad part is that this isn't new. This woman got convicted of abuse just a couple yeras ago! WHY were people still sending her horses to train? GOOD LORD, LEARN TO USE GOOGLE! If you are too dumb to use google, you are too dumb for horse ownership! The information was right out there!

She was banned from having horses but here she is on video abusing again. LOCK THE BITCH UP. End of problem. She won't be finding any more horses to abuse in her jail cell.

As Toenjes correctly observed, that horse did not learn anything except to hate the bitch with the whip in the middle of the circle. If there is any justice, he will run her ass over. HUGE kudos for the person with big enough cojones to film this and get it to the media! Boy, would I like to see THAT happen more often. Everybody here, myself included, has witnessed something like that that we should have filmed and reported. Now that I have video on my camera phone, I'd definitely do it. Would you? How else do we fight training barn abuse?



~~~~~~~~~~~~
On to some happier subjects:



This is hilarious. I love this kind of honesty and I think she sounds like a great deal for someone who doesn't have enough time for their horse and has a horse meeting this description:



Free Groom Available (Vancouver/Burnaby)
Reply to: sale-836237914@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-09-10, 11:55PM PDT


Arthritic, overweight, middle aged woman seeks horse of similar
description. If you'd like your big old pasture pet thoroughly
groomed and ridden down the road at a walk twice a week, I'm your
girl.



Oh, and a last note - check out this entry in a photography contest. The horse is an ex-racer called Tall Glass that was rescued and rehomed by LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society in Ontario, Canada. How cute is that? The proud momma of both child and horse would appreciate your votes, and I think the pic certainly deserves them.

One simple rule that would fix the entire problem

On the last thread, Trojan Mouse commented "We need a shortage of horses to shore up prices and limit the number going for slaughter." Exactly. It's not any more complicated than that. So if you are a breeder, all you have to do is ask yourself one question: Is what I'm producing (a) in demand and (b) in short supply?

This is not really THAT tough to figure out. Let's say I want to breed AQHA horses and l;et's say that while I know conformation and pedigrees, I don't know what's in demand. Well, I could first go and look at the World Show results from last year and see who is siring the horses that are winning. I'm a hunt seat rider, so I'm going to look at the hunt seat classes. Well, you don't need to be good at math to see that Skys Blue Boy's get are kicking ass. There are a bunch of them winning and placing at the World level.

OK great. Now let's move on to Dreamhorse and look for 2008 foals by him. Hey, here's a colt by Skys Blue Boy. It's selling for $15,000. And he is freaking gorgeous. You can see with a look that, barring injury or stupid training, this colt is going to grow up to kick some ass. He isn't going to have problems finding a home. He is not the kind of colt that there are too many of. On the contrary, he is the kind of colt people are likely to fight over.

Look all over the Internet. Do you see a lot of gorgeous, correct AQHA colts by a top siring stallion that are easily going to be 17 hands? Nope. No you don't.



Now, crappy little foundation bred colts with fat necks and bad shoulders and no balance that are going to mature out at a whoppin' 14.3? OH HELL YES. They're as common as mosquitoes and about as valuable these days.

(By the way, you know how many weanlings by Skys Blue Boy are on DreamHorse? One. That one. SUPPLY AND DEMAND, people...BASIC economics!)

Let's continue. I'll try this with a breed I know less about - Hanoverians. It didn't take much research to discover that Don Frederico is really freakin' hot. He's proven himself both as a show horse and as a sire. Here's a filly by him on Dreamhorse. Yeah, she's in that gawky, ribby yearling stage but this is a very nice filly who's already a champion in hand. She's $15,000. That's a pretty good investment when you see that trained offspring of Don Frederico are on the site for $50,000! Sure, anybody can price anything at anything online but when you consistently see those high prices on a stallion's get, it's because they really do sell for that.

Again, how many youngsters by Don Frederico are on DreamHorse? Two yearlings. No weanlings.



Foals like that are simply not the problem here. Here's the problem.

"Weanlings, yearlings, two year olds and more for sale. Please vitit our website listed in My Contact Details. The site is still in process. We had 43 babies this year and are still working on getting them all listed. We primarly have roans, palominos and buckskins, $500 and up."

WHY? WHY? WHY? OK, first of all, I'm gonna make a bet there's not a single future World Show top ten finisher in the bunch. Their pedigrees all read like Who's Not Who in the QH world. (Nobody cares what's four generations back. NO ONE.) Second of all, I've been on too many of these sized ranches not to know that the odds that these FORTY-FREAKING-THREE foals are being handled regularly, clip, tie, load, etc. are about the same odds that I will stop biting my nails at my age. These people have SEVEN stallions and I see no indication on their web site that any one of them has accomplished a damn thing. They have over SEVENTY mares and they're all bred. Probably none of them have accomplished a damn thing, either.

Now, had they applied my VERY SIMPLE rule and done a little market research to see if the foals they intended to produce were (a) in demand and (b) in short supply, they would have quickly realized neither of these things were the case. Instead, they breed on in merry ignorance, producing animals that are about as common as field mice.

It's just not that hard! If you MUST breed, breed something that people want and there isn't enough of. And don't believe your neighbors' opinions about what people want - go online and find out! Go to an auction and see what sells for under $1000...that would be known as "what you don't want to breed." Take breeding seriously. Look at it like a business. Don't produce seventy wrenches when there's a surplus of wrenches and people want to buy hammers. These are living creatures and it's just not fair to them.

P.S. A side note to Bill Brewer of the AQHA: SHUT UP! For god's sake SHUT UP and STOP ENCOURAGING these people, you ASSHAT! We need to breed LESS LESS LESS LESS LESS horses! NOT MORE! Are YOU gonna buy their hay? Bill, I realize from your pic that you're approximately one million years old, and perhaps when you were a kid, there was a shortage of Quarter Horses, but NOT ANY MORE. Right now Quarter Horses, heck, all breeds, are dying DAILY in the slaughterhouses. The only way to effectively stop slaughter is to make horses so rare that their value increases and no one can afford to eat them. Make horsemeat as pricy as caviar and you're just not going to see very many of our horses dying hanging from a hook with their throats cut.

And I don't want to hear any claptrap about how we need cheap horses to make horses accessible to everybody. The hell we do. We need to make PROPER NUTRITION and PROPER CARE accessible to every horse, and driving up the prices will do a hell of a lot toward that goal.