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As the days get longer and the sun finally starts to make an appearance, it feels like we are finally moving away from the dark days of winter! One of the things that excites me the most about keeping horses is the long summer evenings spent riding across the countryside. Many people often fail to understand the benefits of hacking, for both horse and rider.   Hacking out need not be just for pleasure - incorporated thoughtfully into a strict training regime, hacking can be p...

Polework is important in order to cultivate self-control, balance, focus, suppleness, elasticity, coordination and strength in both the horse and the rider. The stimulus of the pole helps the horse/rider combination to readdress the basics, ensuring all scales of training are followed to a high standard. The uses for polework are endless; it is prevalent when working horses on the flat, when completing a rehabilitation programme, during progression towards jumping and when jumping competiti...

There has recently been an article in the press regarding the use of crank nosebands and whether they should be banned in competition by the FEI. Crank nosebands are very controversial as they are designed to be worn tighter than a normal cavesson noseband. This is possible, as rather than just being done up normally, a crank runs through a buckle and back on itself, acting as leverage. In the article, it was discussed that the crank noseband clamps the horse’s mouth shut and...

In 2015, The British Equestrian Trade Association estimated there were 944,000 horses within the United Kingdom, of which the majority of these horses will be ridden at some point within their lives. As a result, every year thousands of horses within the UK undergo their journey to a fulfill a ridden career. Some people will opt to undertake the backing process themselves, whereas others will choose to send their youngsters away to receive a professional service. Regardless of who undertakes thi...

Have you ever thought that your horse drifts to one side? Is ignoring signals? Or has an uneven muscle build no matter how evenly you feel you work them? Then think of this, instead of looking purely at the horse, have you ever sat back and considered your impact when riding. This is where rider symmetry is of great significance. The concept of rider symmetry has been largely ignored over the years with focus on the horse as a single unit. However, this as most riders recognise is far from the t...

The earliest documentation of veterinary medicine dates back to 3000 BC, suggesting a person called Urlugaledinna, a resident of Mesopotamia, “was an expert in healing animals”. From there the veterinary school of Lyon, founded in 1761 by veterinarian Claude Bourgelat, became the first establishment to provide veterinary education. These initial stages within veterinary medicine led to huge technological advancements and have resulted in gigantic leaps in scientific knowledge, sculpt...

So you've decided to breed from your mare, but even before the excitement of searching for the right stallion can commence, two major decisions need to be made... First, do you have adequate facilities to breed a foal – the room, the finances, the time? It will be another four or five years before you can back the offspring and it will have cost a good deal more than buying an already mature horse! A foal is better off with company its own age – can you team up with another breede...

Learn what you love : Rebecca Slade Third year BSc (Hons) Equestrian Coaching and Sports Performance at Writtle College I’ve been riding for as long as I can remember. Horses and riding is in my blood and, as many riders will understand, being in the saddle is definitely the best place in the world to be. Competing is what drives me, I like to have something to aim for and give my training purpose. My university studies give me a deeper understanding of the factors affecting the perf...

The Exmoor pony is one of the nine native breeds of pony to be found throughout the British Isles. The pony originates from the moor in the south west from which it takes its name.  The Exmoor for this reason is often seen as something of a pair with the other southwestern native breed, the Dartmoor pony. Although, both breeds are very different to one another.   Work done by the veterinary school in Edinburgh on its antecedents would indicate that the Exmoor pony is derived fr...

Mountain and Moorland is a generic term that is normally used to refer to the indigenous and native breeds of pony which can be found throughout the United Kingdom. The title is used because many of these breeds are indeed found in their natural homes, on mountains and moorland.   The UK is blessed to have nine of these native breeds that are the envy of the world over.  A popular question in equestrian quizzes, the best way to remember the identity of all of the nine native br...

The Welsh breeds are divided into four sections types called the Sections A, B, C and D.  The smallest of the four groups are the Welsh Section A, the Welsh Mountain pony and the Welsh Section B, the Welsh pony. All four sections come under the auspices of one society which is the Welsh Pony and Cob Society but each section has its own studbook. The Society was founded in 1901.   It is probably fair to say that the Welsh ponies are arguably the most popular and iconic of all ch...

The Arab horse is perhaps the most influential of all breeds in the modern equine population. Consider its prominence in the modern Thoroughbred through the three founding stallions, the Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian and the Byerley Turk, Turk being another word for Arabian. This Arab foundation of the Thoroughbred is often overlooked in favour of the subsequent pre-eminence of the Thoroughbred, which itself has gone across the world to influence so many different breeds. But what th...

Of all the breeds of horse to have perhaps the greatest and most far reaching influence on not just other breeds but the development of the modern sports horse, the Thoroughbred  must take the accolade. As the supreme equine athlete, the Thoroughbred is beyond compare and it is for this reason that its influence can be found in so many other breeds and cross breeds.   During the last century, the Thoroughbred was exported to Europe to introduce lightness and quality to modern w...

The Shetland pony is one of two native pony breeds that heralds from Scotland, the other being the Highland pony. The Shetland pony as its name suggests, derives from the Shetland Islands. The Shetland can probably lay claim to originating from the most inhospitable of all terrains, the rugged islands which lie to the north of Scotland. It is also the smallest of the nine native breeds of pony which can be found in the United Kingdom. Some have claimed that the pony is small due to the harshness...

A Warmblood is a horse bred somewhere between the hot bloods of the Arab and Thoroughbred and the cold bloods of the Draught horse. So it follows that a British Warmblood is a warmblood horse that has been bred in Britain, doesn’t it? Well theoretically yes but it is a bit more complicated than that.   Whilst the UK used the English Thoroughbred to lighten Draught breeds to produce riding horses and hunters during the middle of the last century, continental Europe imported Eng...

Christmas is almost here and everywhere you go you can hear festive songs playing. Shops and supermarkets play us Christmas music (starting in November!) with the aim of getting us to think about Christmas every time we go out, in the hope that, even if we didn’t come to shop for Christmas, we end up buying a gift anyway – sneaky! But a bi-product of this is that every time I go into a shop, I can’t help but bob along to the music, and then, when I leave, I’ve got the tun...

The New Forest pony has one of the largest height ranges of all the nine native pony breeds found in the UK and comes from an area in the south of England from which it takes its name. The New Forest is a large area of land of just over 200 square miles which sits in the counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire; it includes a mixture of heathland and forest. There is no minimum height limit for these ponies and some can be as small as 122 cm or as tall as 148 cm. The New Forest was created ...

The Fell is one of the nine indigenous native breeds of pony to be found across the United Kingdom.  As its name might suggest, it is a pony that originates from the north of England.  The Fell pony was used as a pack animal to carry copper, iron and lead from mines in the north west of England although the existence of these ponies pre-dates the industrial age and can be traced as far back as prehistoric times in Cumbria and Westmorland. It is suspected that the Friesian had some infl...

The Selle Français is the main French breed of warmblood horse, but unlike its Dutch and German warmblood neighbours, the Selle Français has had quite a different evolution.   Like many continental warmbloods, the breed Selle Français came into formalised existence in 1958 when Europe was recovering after the Second World War and the horse was no longer required as an agriculture worker or a beast of burden. The breed originated in Normandy where heavier horses ...

The horse has long had a place in harness and some breeds evolved solely for the purpose of pulling vehicles and literally, the clue was in the name. Amongst these would be the Yorkshire Coach horse, the Norfolk Roadster and the Vanner, hence the shortened word “van” that we all know today which generally describes a light vehicle designed to carry goods but in earlier times, would have referred to the type of horse that would draw them. In the context of the horse, a Vanner was gene...