April 2015 - Page 3 of 3

How Fantastic: Hastoe Hill Stables Going all out to support The Pony Club

Horse scout Blogger spotted that Hastoe Hill Stables has its own Pony Club Club especially to help their Kids count up their badges at their BHS Approved Equestrian Centre. Cool.

At Hastoe Hill Stables we run a pony Club centre for all our younger clients. The Pony Club scheme allows children to learn important topics and achieve badges and progressive tests. Our pony club is split into three groups:

FALABELLA – For children under the age of 10 years, who have never done pony club before. In the falabella sessions we focus on the basic of horse care, working towards mini achievement badges in grooming and pony behavior.

MINI – For children under the age of 10 years, who ride in our lead rein and beginner group lessons. In Mini sessions we focus on being comfortable around the ponies and knowing how to look after, feed, groom and care for the ponies. We also work towards mini achievement badges and the bronze progressive award.

JUNIOR – For children over the age of 10 years, who ride in our novice and intermediate group lessons. In Junior sessions we focus on the big achievement badges, like Mucking Out, Grooming and Handling and Saddlery. We also work towards both the bronze and silver progessive awards.

SENIOR – For teenagers, who ride in our novice and intermediate group lessons. In the senior sessions we focus on some of the more advance badges such as Equine first aid and native british breeds.

We really try to make the sessions as fun as possible, we also offer special pony club activities throughout the summer holidays, such as jumping clinics, pony camps and extra badge sessions.

NEW SPRING/SUMMER 2015 COURSE!

1. Choose a group:

FALABELLA – for first time members who have never been on one of our pony club courses who attend lead-rein and beginner groups. Also members must be under the age of 10 years.

MINI – for members who have attended our pony club courses before and who attend lead-rein and beginner group lessons. Also members must be under the age of 10 years.

JUNIOR – for members in our beginner and novice group lessons, who are above the age of 10 years.

SENIOR – for our teenaged members in our novice, intermediate and advanced lessons.

PLEASE NOTE:

All our Current Pony Club members can stay in the same level groups for the Spring/Summer term.

2. Choose your time:

FALABELLA – Sunday at 14:30 half hour sessions

MINI – Wednesday at 17:15 or Sunday at 10:30 half hour sessions

JUNIOR – Saturday at 10.30am or Saturday at 14:30pm 45minute sessions

SENIOR – Friday at 18:15 45minute sessions

Please make a note of all the dates which the course will run on:

WEEK	WEDNESDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY	SUNDAY
WEEK 1	6^th May	8^th May	9^th May	10^th May
WEEK 2	13^th May	15^th May	16^th May	17^th May
HALF TERM	–	–	–	–
WEEK 3	3^rd June	5^th June	6^th June	7^th June
WEEK 4	10^th June	12^th June	13^th June	14^th June
WEEK 5	17^th June	19^th June	20^th June	21^st June
WEEK 6	24^th June	26^th June	27^th June	28^th June
WEEK 7	1^st July	3^rd July	4^th July	5^th July
WEEK 8	8^th July	10^th July	11^th July	12^th July

3. Sign Up:

Please make sure that you are a member of the Pony Club organisation, if not please look on our links page for a downloadable copy of the membership form. Click through here to Hastoe Hill Riding stables. The cost of the course includes all 8 sessions and the handbooks & workbooks as well as the badges recieved at the end:

12th July at 15:30 Badge Presentation.

The equine eye is the largest of all land mammals–whales, seals and the ostrich are the only other animals that have larger eyes. How well do horses see? Can they see colours, depth, motion and how well do they see in the dark? These are tricky questions to answer seeing as we can’t get this information straight from the horse’s mouth!

A horse’s eyes are located on either side of his head which is a big advantage for them as a prey animal as it offers a wide, circular view, meaning they can detect stalking animals sneaking up from behind. This panoramic vision is ‘monocular’ (‘mono’ meaning ‘one’) which enables them to view their surroundings on both sides, with either eye. Their ‘binocular’ vision (with both eyes) is directed down their nose and not straight ahead and the horse actually has a blind spot in front of its forehead. When a horse is grazing, his vision is directed at the ground in front of him and if he is relaxed, his monocular vision will be at work. Should he see something that warrants investigation, the horse will raise his head to bring the binocular vision into force. If the object was spotted in the horse’s side vision, he will turn and raise his head, or even whole body to look.

A horse’s large eye is an advantage as it enables him to detect the slightest motion which is why windy days make most horses uneasy…too many moving things! The horse moves its head in order to bring the object into its binocular field, which also gives better depth perception. This offers a better view, as while the horse has both monocular and binocular vision, he probably can’t utilize both at the same time, hence he raises his head to switch to both (binocular) eyes. Say you are riding along, your horse nice and relaxed…he is probably using his monocular vision. Suddenly he spots an unusual object ahead and instantly raises his head and pricks his ears. This allows him to look down his nose and employ his binocular vision. If the object is on the ground, the horse will lower his head, again in order to look down his nose and use both eyes for a clear view.

Another reason horses move their heads up and down is that their visual field is narrow so objects seen the clearest are the ones that fall within this narrow area–the horse tilts his head in order to get as much of an object as possible to cast an image onto the eye. So if a horse needs to look down his nose to see where he is going, what happens when he is ‘on the bit’ as in showing or dressage? A horse who is flexed at the poll will have his head vertical (at right angles) to the ground and cannot see straight in front of him, only down his nose towards the ground. Recent research found this blind spot in front of the horse is about the width of his body and a horse ‘on the bit’ must rely on the rider for direction as he is almost working blind! If you watch showjumpers negotiating a course, you will notice they lift their heads when approaching the fence to get a better idea of height and depth with their binocular vision. Try walking quickly towards a wall with one eye closed, then open both eyes and you will see that the view with both eyes gives you better depth perception.

Alison Harmon from the University of Western Australia, who has been involved in research on equine vision, once witnessed a nasty accident involving two dressage horses practising a freestyle routine. They were cantering around the arena, on the bit, and collided head on…their vision was directed down their noses towards the ground so they simply didn’t see each other! (this did make me wonder what the riders were doing!)

Horses were believed to have poor vision and be short sighted but they actually have very good binocular vision with a tendency towards long vision. It’s logical to think that given a horse’s wide vision range, they are able to see a rider on their backs however a rider is in the horse’s blind spot. If you can’t see either of the horse’s eyes when mounted, then he can’t see you!

How much detail can horses see?

Using a method of placing rewards behind a trapdoor, a reseach team tested how much detail a horse could see by placing stripes on the door. The horse was trained to choose the striped door over the plain one for the food reward. They varied the thickness of the stripes until they were so fine, the horses could not distinguish the striped door from the grey. From the results, they discovered that horses see as well as we do…perhaps better! Using the Snellen scale to compare horse vision with our own, indicates that horses actually see well at a distance. The Snellen scale for humans is 20/20, meaning that a person can read the same line on an eye chart from 20 feet that the ‘standard’ person reads from the same distance. Using this Snellen scale, horses rate 20/30 while as a matter of interest (and by comparison) a dog is 20/50, a cat 20/75 while rats rate 20/300.

Night Vision?

Horses are mostly day animals although they will continue to graze at night which suggests they do have some night vision. Horse’s eyes are sensitive to weak light, so they can see fairly well at dusk, but they don’t have the ability to adjust their eyes to darkness quickly, which is why they will often refuse to enter a dark building or float from bright sunshine. One cross country jump at the Sydney Olympics situated in dim shade caused some problems and a few falls.

Colour Vision

It was once commonly thought horses were colour blind but in fact they do have the ability to see some colour. The eyes contain light-sensitive cells and there are two types of cells called rods and cones. Humans have three different types of cones which means we can see all colours. Cats also have three types of cones but they are weak compared to ours so they can only see in pastel colours. To a cat, a green lawn appears as a whitish one. Dogs only have two types of cones and see colour similar to a human who is red-green colour blind. Horses have only two types of cones as well, so their ability to see colour is also limited.

To learn how horses saw various colours, the research team had to find a way to test how horses could tell the difference between actual colours rather than them just picking a colour that appeared bright, for example, red looks bright while blue looks dark. To do this, they asked the horse to select a colour on a grey background that they could vary from light to dark. They discovered horses could always pick out red and blue regardless of what the background was like. However, horses would only reliably select yellow and green when these were brighter than the background. If the brightness of the colours was equal to the grey background, some horses couldn’t pick these colours as easily. A few could tell the difference between green and yellow while others could not, so the results for these were mixed.

Given this information, maybe where some horses are concerned that old saying should be amended to, “the grass is always a wishy-washy greenish-grey on the other side of the fence”! Stallions in the wild have often been observed to prefer mares of a particular colour and it’s thought this is probably related to their mother’s coat colour. Knowing how a horse views his world makes a big difference when it comes to handling. And given how well horses usually perform when we are restricting their vision by riding ‘on the bit’ should instill a responsibility to ‘steer’ thoughtfully.

It also displays how much trust horses show by allowing us to sometimes be their eyes!

Information from: Horse vision and an explanation for the visual behaviour originally explained by the ‘ramp retina’. ALISON M. HARMAN. BSc PhD

With the competition season on track and the weather warming up (promise it will….soon) Horse Scout Blogger has been thinking about the warm down after your horse has worked. Just like you he will be warm, his heart rate and respiration rate will be elevated. No matter what the season, when horses work hard they produce heat and sweat. Properly cooling down your horse will ensure he stays sound and healthy. A daily workout for your horse probably consists of four separate periods: warm-up, active conditioning or schooling, warm-down, and cool-down.

During warm weather training, the warm-down and cool-down periods are especially important because horses may be hot from conditioning exercises. The warm-down is the steady reduction in exercise intensity and usually consists of 5 to 10 minutes of low-intensity exercise that culminates in a relaxed walk. While horses will invariably sweat less as athletic effort decreases, the importance of a warm-down is more than skin deep. Foremost is the redistribution of blood within the body. When a horse is exercising, oxygenated blood is carried to the hardworking skeletal muscles, and other organs of the body receive slightly less blood than they normally do during periods of rest. As the warm-down period extends, more blood is allocated to those organs and less to skeletal muscle.

The cool-down is distinct from the warm-down period. The warm-down, as mentioned previously, occurs when mounted and ends with a relaxed walk on a loose rein. The primary objective of the cool-down is to prevent overheating following dismounting. The horse should be untacked immediately to allow maximum heat dissipation, and should be moved to a covered or shaded area with as much air movement as possible. One of the most common methods of cooling a horse in hot and humid environments includes spraying or sponging with cool water. Body-wide application of cool water is acceptable during normal summer weather when temperatures are between 80°-100°F. The most strategic points for effective cooling include the underside of the neck and barrel, and the inside of all four legs. Drinking water can be offered to the horse once cooling has begun, which is determined by a reduction in body temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate.

Allowing a few swallows every few minutes during the cool-down helps the horse replace water lost during exercise. Horses should be encouraged to drink their fill. When your horse sweats on a daily basis, even in cold weather, it is best to provide a supplemental electrolyte. Electrolytes replace the minerals lost in sweat and encourage drinking, which reduces the risk of dehydration and muscle disorders.

Proper care of a horse following a ride signifies sound horsemanship as well as a healthy dose of respect for your horse.