Senior Horsemanship - Tips to Help Us Enjoy Better Years with Horses and More of Them
The podcast name is changed to Senior Horsemanship and I’ll be building the senior horsemanship website over the next few weeks.So why the change? Probably the most important reason is that I’m certainly a senior horseman at age 71 with three horses. I’m very interested in riding, caring for, and training my horses as long as I can. I’m also very interested in making as long as I can to be as long as possible.That’s my goal in horsemanship. I don’t have any goals in the competitive arena, Not that competition is bad, but I just want to enjoy my horses. If you compete, then I hope you do it for the joy of working with your horse.So what will we talk about? How about the following.I’d like to talk about horse training, first because a well trained horse makes life safer and makes our time with our horse more enjoyable. A well trained horse also has better prospects for a good home if for some reason, we can’t continue to keep our horse. So for the good of ourselves and our horses, horse training for seniors is a great topic.I’d like to talk about horse care. I care for my horses myself and I’ve learned some things in the process that I’d like to share. I also hope to learn from others about ways to make horse care better and easier as we grow older.I’d like to talk about riding fitness and safety around horses. I’ve lost about 40 pounds over the last year and a half and it’s made riding easier for me and my horses. But with the weight loss has come a loss of some strength. I’ve also suffered from my share of horse-related injuries over the years including a broken arm, broken ribs, several concussions and most recently broken toes. What can we do to be safer with our horses. I’m not as nimble as I once was.I’d like to talk about the mental aspects of horsemanship because we need to rely on the mental more than the physical as we get older. When I was younger, there were ways of handling horses that could be characterized by “make them do it” and “don’t let them get away with it”. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that there are better ways and I’ll talk about them.Finally, I’ll talk about how horsemanship can be much more than riding a horse. I’ve been a volunteer with Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society here in Texas for a number of years and there are some volunteers who could be examples for all of us. Several volunteers can’t ride anymore, but they foster horses and give them a great start on a new path in life. Other volunteers work on the admin side to give the organization the ability to help as many horses as possible. All of those activities count as horsemanship. We’ll talk about those and more.Again, I appreciate all of the topic ideas I’ve received from members of the Equestrian Seniors Facebook group. I appreciate your interest in the podcast. And I hope to continue to provide information that interests you in the days ahead.Thanks for listening.
Senior Horsemanship - Tips to Help Us Enjoy Better Years with Horses and More of Them
Helmets and Hay - An Anna Blake Comment
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In hushed moments, we know that is our sacred promise to horses. We buy their hay. I was sternly corrected for these words, so I’ll double down and be more clear. Call “buying hay” the tip of the financial and emotional iceberg, call it an abbreviation for the ways we alter our lives for horses, for the love and commitment that we offer freely. It’s the base level, the easy task, cheaper than the list of pros we hire for their care, but it stands in front of the rest… if you ask horses. We’re romantic; horses are pragmatic. Hay.
Here’s my problem. I’m a trainer who has lived long enough to have seen some horrible things. What I haven’t seen, people have told me about in minute detail. My mind is haunted by descriptions of horrible things. People hire me to resolve issues that result from these horrible things. On a good day, it’s my job to see all the horrible possibilities and put a smile on my face and do my job. I feel anxious for you and your horse. And I’m selfish. I can only take so much and a helmet cuts the chances of serious brain injury in half, math even I can understand. Those are great odds. Put your horse first; wear the helmet.
I require helmets at my clinics and I’ve written about them extensively, but lately, I was asked to write about vests, too. Yay. I love them as much as horses love hay. Please, consider a safety vest or an air vest.
Okay, say you truly are the exception to the rule. Your horse doesn’t eat. Of course, serious riders wear safety gear but you’re tough. You don’t care, it’s about tradition. You are opposed to change (although you have managed to adapt to a cell phone.) Besides, you don’t do what the pros do, maybe you “only” trail ride. No jumping and really, your horse is old and seriously lazy. He is as bombproof as a horse can be.
The problem is that we have it mixed up. Humans are the ones who aren’t bombproof.
This is a quote from Anna Blake’s blog post titled, Helmet Safety and the Ability to Buy Hay. For more from Anna, I recommend her book, Relaxed & Forward: Relationship Advice from Your Horse.
We all know that riding horses increases our risk of a fall and traumatic brain injury. Why not wear a helmet to make it more likely that we can continue to buy the hay that our horses treasure? Why not wear a vest to make it more likely that our horsemanship path will continue in the years ahead?
Here's a link to the Harvard Health publication, A Guide to Cognitive Fitness.
And this is a link to Descript, the audio and video editing software that I use and recommend.
And a link to the Second Half Horsemanship website.
