Who's to say?

** I would like to preface this post with a short note that I was reluctant to publish this post, due to the fact that one of my friends at the barn recently lost her young, 4 year old filly to colic. She was using quality feed and seemed to be doing everything right and then this happened. Everyone at the barn is deeply saddened and many of us are still shaking our heads in complete disbelief over her loss. **

What do you feed?  This is a fairly common question in the industry. We all have our own ideas of what works and what don't and sometimes we are limited by either our budget, what's available in our area or a combination of both. At the end of the day, we will all agree that we want what's best for our hose(s) at a reasonable cost.

There was a woman at the barn that when she first came in, was getting her coastal hay from a guy for a decent price that included delivery and stacking. Sadly though, the quality of the hay was quite lacking. To make up for it, she was feeding supplements. A Lot of supplements, from weight builders, corn oil, hoof supplements, electrolytes and a combination of powders, pellets and liquids.

There was a grain that was sworn to be 'a great value' at $20 for 100# and yes that is a pound sign not a hash tag. While I have seen the "Value Feed", I really haven't gotten a good look at the tag on it to see what it's made up of. It has a lot of corn, whole oats and molasses in it, but I honestly couldn't tell you what else.

In comparison, I am feeding my two a senior feed in addition to their alfalfa pellets. The senior feed is $10.70 a bag for 50#. So while there's really not much difference in price, there is a rather large gap in the quality. The senior feed is a more complete feed and was designed to give the older horse all the nutrients they require to keep them healthy. In the event your horse can no longer chew their hay or regular feed, you can still give them the senior feed so they get everything they need.  

Since being on Senior feed, my horses coats have gotten super soft and they are beyond shiny. Katman has dapples galore, as does my tb mare and although she may lose her mind and drop weight over who knows what, it has helped keep her weight a bit more manageable. She might walk away from her alfalfa pellets and leave them for later, but she will snarf down every bit of her senior feed.

What struck me as funny but also sad at the same time, was the fact that this woman was more than happy to hand out advice to anyone and everyone about what they should be feeding their horses. All fine and good, but what everyone chose to ignore was the fact that in less than a year, all but one of her horses had coliced- some more than once. One of them coliced because a friend had fed for her without giving the horses their concoction of supplements.

The friend of mine who lost her filly, was also feeding alfalfa pellets, senior feed and a slow feed net full of coastal hay. Her filly had really blossomed in the time she had her, going from not much to look at, to something quite special that turned heads. Her filly was shiny to the point of having dapples, silky soft coat like my mare, nicely filled out and muscled up with great feet that were easy to trim but tough enough to go without needing shoes. She looked great and didn't need all the supplements to get there. Nobody really knows what caused her to colic.  RIP little girl.

So who's to say which feeding program is the better one? I'll just stick to feeding mine the alfalfa pellets they're used to, the senior feed they snarf down like crazy and hay nets stuffed with coastal grass. It's been working for them this long, why change now?

Really?

Long ago and far away, I developed this crazy idea.....  that my hands needed to be on or really close to the withers at all times. I'm not sure where or when this started or really the reason why. It might have been from showing and always seeing riders with their hands close to the withers and somehow thinking that this is where mine belonged too.

Then someone had gotten video of me riding the WB mare Aruba and I sent a link to a friend of mine, asking her to watch it and tell me what I need to fix to improve. One of the things she told me was that I needed to widen my hands and give the horse some room to work. I tried it the next time I rode and wouldn't you know? My mare worked about 1,000% better. It took me a while to make this the new "normal" and some days, it's still a work in progress.

So imagine having someone else now telling me, that I need to ride with my hands close to the neck/withers. All I could think was- "Do you know how long it took me to break that damned habit?"  Yeah. That's where I'm at. So what would you do?

Now both of these people giving me advice, definitely have their 'creds'. Person A has shown at upper level shows, both nationally and internationally and Person B has judged a lot at upper level shows like Regionals & World for breed shows. They both know a lot of big names in their resective sport- B is more western, A has done both but is more English discipline focused now.

As for my hands, I have finally found that the 'Sweet Spot' is for them to be as wide as my feet. That way the horse has the area the width of their body, to move between them. What I was being told was- whatever the width of your hands, that's how wide the lateral movement of the horses head will be. If they are close to the neck/withers, the horse can only turn their head that much back and forth, but if your hands are wide apart, they have more 'wiggle room' and it's easier to evade the bit and avoid or refuse obstacles.

My thoughts on that are that if the horse is not sure of something and is not confident enough in you or themselves, they don't give a shit where your hands are at- they are Not going over or thru what's in front of them. More realistically, the horse probably doesn't care if we stay on them and some of them might prefer we come off so we can't 'push them' anymore to tackle the obstacle.

So has anyone else been in this position before or am I the only one?