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All about horses in northern B.C. Issue # 57: December 11, 2000 Published each Monday by Kristi McCrindle, editor Well, cross your fingers for me, Dunny should be home Wednesday. With the severe drops in temperature (apparently Edmonton was closer to -35 C than our comparatively balmy -25 C!) hauling her in an open sided trailer is a bit nerve wracking, so I sent along her shipping boots, two blankets and a hood. Hopefully she'll be toasty enough! Until she arrives safely home, I'll be worrying. In the meantime, circumstances have prevented me from working my horses since last week. I hate going that long without at least exercising the geldings, but between meetings, power outages, picking up my Mom (who came for a visit) and my partner (home from camp), and now the cold weather, there just hasn't been opportunity to take them up to the arena. I'm hoping that by next week things will be back to normal again as I really enjoy keeping them (and me!) on a schedule. So here's hoping next week brings us a little bit warmer weather so we can all get back outside and spend some quality time with our fuzzy equine buddies! photo courtesy Chris Hassell ~ Kristi :) PS I've been asked to have a look at the different saddle pads and cinches out there, and thought I'd start by looking for comments from our readers. Do you have a type of cinch or girth you prefer? Why do you like it? Anything you won't use? Why not? What about saddle pads - do you have preferences there, and why? There are lots of options these days, and what the guy next door uses might not be the right option for your horse. email to editor: kristi@hiway16.com Photo Show for horse photos Next season has started! Kristi is adding events to the Event Schedule already.

	Past articles are all available in the
NEW! Tip Of The Week		Trail Horse series In Hand or Leadline Trail
Please send in your tips for horse care and we'll share them with everyone! We want ideas like: - Re-using your old dandy brushes by nailing them on their sides to a board and using them as a boot cleaner, - Or wrapping heat tape around a plastic water bucket to stop it from freezing in the winter, - Or cutting out piece of crazy carpet and having your farrier use them as pads to prevent snowballing in your horse's shoes this winter. Ever done something that worked so well you wish other people could do it too? Now is your chance to share it with them, here at Northern BC Horse! Email your ideas to kristi@hiway16.com Western, English, Penning or Trail riding, all equine sports have a voice on Northern B.C. Horse Northern B.C. Horse is brought to you courtesy of our advertisers including: Burns Lake Building Supplies Griffin Enterprises Hoskins Ford Northern Horse Supply Ridennoure Paint Horses The Tack Store Uniglobe Travel North Thanks to our advertisers for making this all possible... ...for information about advertising, email jim@hiway16.com If you are new to Northern B.C. Horse, check out all the previous issues on the Archive page. Kristi is building a great knowledge base about horses, with the emphasis on our area of the world	Meetings... So, now, with riding pretty much done for the year, the meetings of the various area clubs get going in full force. Decisions are made now that result in clinics, shows, and other equestrian events being held throughout the riding season. Volunteers are always an integral part of any club, be it horses, skiing, baseball, etc. Without volunteers to step forward and take responsibility for parts of an event, nothing would happen. I urge you to get involved with your area horse club - it might be a saddle club that encompasses all disciplines, or a specialized club such as one for dressage riders or reiners. Meet up with a friend who belongs to one of these clubs and go along for the ride to a meeting. While the meeting itself might be a bit dry and over your head (try not to feel too intimidated!), you should be able to get a flavour for who and what the club is. Introduce yourself to some of the key players at the meeting when the meeting is done - lots of the groups I've been involved with have a mini-social afterwards with someone bringing coffee and cookies, and some groups head out for a drink together. This will give you a great opportunity to meet some new faces who have the same interests as you do. As you get to know the group better, you may feel more comfortable in getting involved with the projects, and thus a new volunteer is brought into the club! Coming meetings include the Bulkley Valley Exhibition Directors Meeting in Smithers on December 14, and the Bulkley Valley Quarter Horse Association meeting on December 16 in Telkwa (Quick). These two organizations hold shows in conjunction with one another, in late August. The Exhibition has a huge horse show (apparently the 3rd largest in all of BC!) and takes tons of arranging. The Quarter Horse Show has to subscribe to all of the rules and regulations of the American Quarter Horse Association, so it too has lots of organizing to be done. This year they are hoping to add a Paint show as well - it is growing bigger every year! If you are interested in getting involved with either of these two groups, please come out to the meetings (email kristi@hiway16.com for time, place, and contact info) And in the meantime, don't hesitate to start getting involved with your area club.	I've had a request for ideas for teaching young horses prior to their under saddle training. In last winter's columns (see Archives) we covered a lot of different ground work you can do with any horse, but especially with your youngster. Another area you can explore with your horse is In Hand Trail. Pretty much all of the obstacles are the same as those covered in previous weeks about Trail Horse class, except you will be leading your horse instead of riding it. The bridge can be approached pretty much the same way - use grain to catch the horse's attention, take one step at a time, and don't force the colt too soon or too quickly. Allow him to sniff the bridge, and to step on it when he is ready. While cajoling him to move might help, forcing him just because you can will only make him fear the strange item more. To work the gate, take each movement slowly and pause often. You can use any gate to practice - the stall door, the gate near the barn and so on. Stop your colt in front of the gate and ask for his attention to remain on you. Open the gate with one hand, while keeping the colt still with the other. When the gate is open, walk through it and when you are clear of the gateway, then ask the colt to follow. By asking him to wait, it helps prevent him from running you down should he spook or decide to goof off. Once through, ask him to turn and face the gate - this does two things, one, it keeps his attention on you as you latch the gate, and two it means you are less likely to get kicked than if his rear was near you. The 360 box is usually fairly large and simply there to test the colt's ability to move away from you when asked. I haven't seen a 360 box in a Leadline Trail class that wasn't large enough for the colt to do a complete turn on the haunches (as opposed to the front feet, back feet, motion in a ridden trail class). The sidepass can be taught on the ground by expanding on your colt's body control. Ask him to move his hind end away one step in response to a light push near his flanks. Move your cue up to the girth area or even the shoulder to ask him to move his whole body sideways. If he doesn't get that the front end needs to move as well as the hind, try combining your turn on the haunch cue with a hand placed on his shoulder. You should not be asked to sidepass over a log in In Hand classes. The back-thru should be fairly simply, but if the pattern calls for a back-thru with turns in it, find out if the handler may touch his horse or if the handler may use a whip to cue with. The individual club rules may dictate how you will guide your horse though the obstacle. With practice, you will find that your horse will respond to your body language and verbal movement cue (such as a cluck), instead of having to physically touch him. Other obstacles might include the mailbox, walking between cones, shrubs, or hay bales, walking or jogging over rails or branches, and that kind of thing. The more you can expose your colt to prior to show day, the less likely the course will worry him (the crowd, announcer or bleachers outside the ring might be far scarier than the obstacles inside the ring!). Even if you don't plan on showing your colt in Leadline or ridden Trail classes, the extra experience will pay off over the long term.
	If you have tips or questions you'd like to share with other local equestrians, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com

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