Cooling Out: What Ten Minutes of Walking Actually Does
The walk at the end of a session is the part most often cut short. Physiologically it is doing more work than the part of the ride that preceded it.
Articles by Tom Hargreaves
Summer Colic: The Warning Signs Owners Miss
The dramatic presentation is easy to recognise. The quiet one is far more common, and it is the one that costs time.
Wildfire Smoke and Your Horse's Lungs: What Happens and What Helps
A horse moves an enormous volume of air, which is exactly the problem when the air is full of particulates.
The Hoof Grows From the Top Down. That Changes How You Judge Progress.
New horn appears at the coronet and takes the best part of a year to reach the ground. Almost every judgement owners make about hoof quality is affected by that timeline.
What a Farrier Sees That You Don't
They look at the same feet you look at, every six weeks, across hundreds of horses. That combination produces a kind of pattern recognition that is difficult to get any other way.
Hoof Boots and Shoes: What Each One Actually Does
They are frequently discussed as rival philosophies. They are better understood as two tools that solve overlapping problems in different ways, with different failure modes.
Teaching the Sidepass Without Rushing the Hindquarters
The common fault is not that the horse cannot do it. It is that the hind end is being asked for more than the front, so the horse drifts across crooked and learns that as the answer.
Recovery Is the New Conditioning
For most of the last century, getting a horse fit meant adding work. The interesting shift is how much attention has moved to what happens in between.
Barn Tech Is Getting Cheaper. Not All of It Is Getting Better.
Falling component costs have put a lot of devices within reach of ordinary yards. Falling costs also make it much easier to build something that looks capable and is not.
Where the Money Goes: What Owners Actually Spend On
The purchase price of a horse is the least interesting number in horse ownership, and the one most new owners plan around.