Working towards a close and loving relationship with your horse can bring health benefits to you both. You may not think your companionship plays a big role in your horse’s health, but in actuality, it does! If you take good care of him, you can develop a long lasting bond with your horse, which in turn leads to excellent horse health, close companionship and a happy horse that should live a long life.
Treat Your Horse like He’s Family.
Most horse owners treat their horses as a part of their family, feeding them well, including exercise into lifestyle, keeping him well groomed and showering them with lots of love and attention. Whether you have horses for show, sport or leisure, having horses is a wonderful experience because they are beautiful loving animals. A horse can provide a rewarding experience for those involved in caring for it.
The Correct Way to Care for your Horse.
The specific breed of horse will to some extent determine the level of care, maintenance and exercise needed. They may be easy-going and loving animals, but like any other pet animal, there are certain essentials you will need to provide to ensure their health and happiness. Below are important things you need to include in your horse’s life if you plan to have a happy and healthy horse.
- A large animal like a horse demands a high level of upkeep and care.
- Horses are herd animals – they are sociable and require attention and lots of love.
- You’ll need to visit them daily and care for them as part of your family.
- A horse needs an activity to engage in every day which will stave away boredom.
- Your horse will need a stall comfortable and big enough in which to eat and sleep.
- You must provide a healthy horse diet.
- You must provide the horse with lots of water daily.
- Annual vaccinations will be necessary.
- Routine health check-ups including worming and dental care.
- Foot care (hoof maintenance).
- Obedience training.
- You’ll need to have access to a large enough and well-maintained area in which to exercise your horse.
A horse will often misbehave if he thinks he is not getting enough attention. For example, they may try to break out of the stall to roam nearby fields to find things to do. Their general behaviour may change first of all. They can behave in a similar fashion to children, and will disobey or act naughtily to try to gain attention from you!
If you plan to get horses make sure you are ready because more than any other pet owning a horse is a huge commitment. Horse care can be very expensive, particularly if your horse has an accident or develops an unexpected illness and needs veterinary treatment. This is just one of many reasons for which you will need to ensure you have good horse insurance.
A Healthy Horse Needs Plenty of Exercise.
Like us, horses like to have a bit of fun. Perform regular exercises to keep your horse healthy and happy. Exercising should not, and does not need to be all day long. Horses should rest too. Remember also that it’s important to include a variety of different work and exercises for your horse as otherwise he will get bored quickly. You need try to change of similar activities or work frequently so the horses remain interested all the time.
Exercises to Help Maintain the Health and Strength of your Horse.
- Riding in circles/Bending exercises: using circles in a figure of eight movement. You should perform these circle eight movements on both reins (left and right) to maintain even suppleness and balance on both reins.
- Lateral work: Lateral work is similar to gymnastics. First you need to do groundwork exercises with your horse. You will notice that the horse’s obedience, strength and flexibility will improve over time.
- Pacing: The purpose of pacing is to improve the horses pace. Your training should focus on teaching your horse how to politely speed up or slow down. An example is walking to trotting.
- Training and control techniques; including endurance, jumping and dressage. The purpose of the dressage technique is to focus on improving pacing and lateral work. Endurance riding, as the name would suggest, focuses on improving the stamina of a horse.
You can exercise your horse virtually anywhere that space and safety allows. Only exercise your horse in a secure area that he cannot escape from. Ensure the area is safe for both you and the horse to work in so as to avoid injury. You can buy horse insurance to cover you if you are riding someone else’s horse; so be safe rather than sorry, as accidents can and do happen even to the most cautious of riders.
Horse exercise works well when executed in an area where the horse can concentrate. Areas that work well are either an indoor or outdoor arena, or a specific area in a field or on a farm.
Riders as well as Horses will Benefit from Horse Exercises.
Both horse and rider will benefit from these exercises, as a rider can practice balance and position whilst performing them. The rider’s skills can improve dramatically over a short period. The goal for a horse rider is to develop good “contact”. This term refers to how connected you feel with the horse, both through your upper body to the horse’s back and also through your hands and down the reins to his mouth. Your level of “contact” is determined by how well your horse has been trained and how much the horse has retained. A well-trained horse will have the ability to work through the back and hindquarters. You will know when you have established a good contact when you feel the reins soften as your horse arches it’s neck in front of you and rises it’s back under you, you will also notice that your horse will use its hindquarters to thrust itself forward, rather than pulling onward from the forehand.
Once you have developed good contact with your horse you will be able to work and perform exercises together which will help to improve your horse’s health and increase your horse’s level of happiness by creating a tight bond with your horse.
While exercise is key to a happy horse, other things can occur which may effect the health of your horse. If only it were true that a happy horse will always be a healthy horse. Sadly there are plenty of ailments and illnesses from which horses can suffer, which is why it is important to also have good horse insurance to cover the cost of unexpected vet’s fees.