Equine Anatomy, big time!

The blog entry below has photographs of the winter white fluffy stuff and iron-hard temperatures but not this year (at least so far). Instead the 'iron-hard' refers to many people's lethal pasture conditions with ice pockets and ground ice slics. I know, my Cochise Apache I thought was a toast number on Boxing Day after a shoulder split, and after so many amazing coincidences, stunning veterinary care, acupuncture, physio and massage (my bills are truly eye watering, he feels great!), my knowledge input's yanked up yet again. And, given I'm boning up (sorry, very bad pun) on anatomy and horse physiology all over again, this website is terrific. Watch the video and you'll see what I mean - ! Link at http://www.horsesinsideout.com/

Winter - !

Here's a few pics that according to my, er, sometimes erratic filing system! suggest winter time aroundabouts this time of year back in 2010. One of Alberta's typical snow years that one and these were taken at Station Flats near Bragg Creek, one of my favourite schooling grounds for young and new-to-backcountry horses.

Why - ? Open meadows so if a mountain bike or human runner or hiker trots into the field of vision on a trail you can slide out of harms's way through its widely spread trees. There's a wooden bridge to practise over, with the hum of running water underneath. Helicopters, even, landing at the nearby ranger station!

These girls were out for a day that had started at around -10 C. and warmed up, if I remember, to around 0 or just a bit above. Fanny Barrette's the group captain! and took her map reading seriously in the trailhead before legging up onto her elegant grey. They're all wearing different gear, from trad. Western to more Mountain Equipment Co-op but layers work, so do saddlebags and soup-filled thermos containers in saddlebags as well as knives and hoofpicks and all the usual gear. Winter riding really can sing and if you're a photographer in the high wild places, oh yes!

As an extra warming tip, if you wear something around your neck (preferably silk) and ditto something around your wrists, you will be a ton warmer - it's a backcountry survival training tip that one. Socks, wear natural fibres or your feet will initially sweat and then get very very VERY cold (!). The 'Cloud' stirrups Fanny has on her saddle distribute weight load more evenly and no pressure points - a ton of range riders I know of, always practical in their thinking, are now absolute converts.

(Canyon) Creek Trail looped.....

(CANYON) CREEK TRAIL (parking at the west end of Prairie Creek Trail) and returning on the gravel POWDERFACE ROAD, mid-week (no traffic).


The fall colours when we arrived late, say around the 1 p.m. mark, were THE best I’ve ever ever seen. We parked on the side of the gravel Powderface Trail (by the west end of Prairie Creek Trail), snugged on the cinches and the safety gear and off, five minutes tops. A horse these days who knows his job and thoroughly enjoys the expectation of a ride well done.

I’d heard about this Creek Trail, heard even that years back an endurance race had taken place, started I think even, from this very point, and heard too it was a sod, of pure bog.

Well, long distance international equestrian horse races, the long milers, these days are won on flat or just rolling ground, deserts often as the Dubai sponsorships particularly have come into effect. Endurance rides in Alberta are still taking place in pure bog and muskeg. The finishing times for the Californian Tevis Cup, burningly hot terrain, have decreased fantastically this past decade.

Why?? are Canadian endurance race planners (and riders) still riding in bogs and muskeg??

Don’t get it. At all. Don't get why this trail is marked for equestrian users either, for 11/12ths of any rideable time - ??

So, I’d deliberately chosen CREEK TRAIL after five weeks of ferociously warm weather, no dew even, not a drop.

From the parking place, the maps are a bit deceptive as you have to climb the hillside to the right (east) of the gravel Powderface Trail first before, peering beadily, you’ll see a mostly overgrown entrance to a trail over the small hilltop, with a red diamond well tucked back in.

At day's end I agreed I was right (!). There’s no way I’d ever ride this trail in even ‘normal’ conditions but bone dry, like this glorious day, there were, say, still five bogged creek-type crossings. Some roots. One slatted lodgepole pine crossing, decaying and just about OK for hikers but, one foot into with a horse, a log flipped up so we backed up and bushwhacked around upwards and around and back onto the trail.

Fabulous forests and then dirt sections, the sky overhead cobalt blue, the odd chickadee and a ton of squirrel middens.

Yep, ideal bear country material and I know for a fact it’s a wildlife corridor, respect it too.

We saw a squirrel, another animal I never thought to see, ever, and in such amazing circumstances of just total grace you wonder if the moment, truly, ever happened.

The trail descends again after its mild elevation gain, hardly puff worthy, and then briefly swings right-handed along a creek based valley thick with willows swathing into crimsons. The afternoon light began to slant, just as we crossed Canyon Creek. There you hook westwards (left-handed), and it’s not well marked or well used. No horse shoe tracks, no hikers’ boot treads and one pretty elderly mountain bike’s marking that had gone through a long long time ago.

You kind of follow the very pretty valley, the creek singing its songs to your left, and then there’s a meadow. Don’t, as I did, continue to follow the trail closest to the river (one slightly scrambled rock climb, not difficult but if you’re not confident in your horse, nope) but instead take the higher trail out of the triangular meadow, which’ll end up taking you, about a mile up, to join again together.

Lovely surfaces for riding, dirt, open sections, meadow and soft turf, with some random campgrounds and fire circles.

Because it was a weekday and late and low traffic volume we returned back on the gravel Powderface Trail, the first part homewards back to the trailer a bit of a swinging circular climb that had been, just lovely, graded and not its usual corduroy that has your shock absorbers trembling. After that, there’s actually a good deal of side trails to either side that you spend, in fact, little time on the road itself.

The trees rustled and twirled their pinks, their fluorescent yellows and even touches of reds this year. Back at the trailer, The Fox munching his cubes and thinking pleasurably of his haynet for the homeward journey, and by now seriously almost dusk, two young men arrived, unloading backpacks. They chose the Prairie Creek Trail going eastwards, a valley that in five minutes would be in shadow and with a temperature dropping like crazy. Interesting.

Will We See Bears - ??????

Man, I've heard that comment as we set out from trailheads so many times if I charged $5 a time I'd be holidaying in Mexico. And, reading the Alberta Equestrian Federation's latest e-newsletter, with berries and lush raspberries gloriously thick and ripe, experts'advice on encountering bears is dutifully mentioned to their trail-riding members.

Well, with The Best I've stood downwind of a few bears so unbelievably rank my eyes stung and I seriously wondered what they had for breakfast earlier that morning. Carrion, prime carrion, had to be. And these were encounters in September and October, three different locations, one a just gorgeous silver tipped grizzly - actually, there were all grizzlies so special occasions there.

The Fox gets a tad twitchy without his cool-as-cucumber girlfriend but he's pretty OK, and the pinto couldn't give a damn.

Moose, though, ah, moose. And, pulling out of Mesa Butte and flicking on the CBC's 1010 AM program as the rig crunched through a few potholes, oh joy, the newscaster had on the world-renowned 'Dr Moose', handily live from a cellphone in northern Manitoba.

The man obviously adored moose. He told stories. Anecdotes. He mentioned the males' noses will be deepening, darkening now from the colour they've shared over the summer with Mrs Mooses, as their hormones prepare to open the floodgates. In three weeks, he remarked, velvet from the antlers will begin to be scraped off, the males will start to express opinions about territories even though their rut won't officially be in, er, full thrust for a few months yet.

A magnificent moose, in his prime, once fancied The Best and we darned near had a near-death experience, cascading down a scree slope in saner moments I would have described sincerely as absolutely unrideable. He really did have his antlers in a twist, I mean, have many pure white lady mooses have you seen in your lifetime?

Horses, you see, find it difficult to 'read' moose. Moose stand still, no body language to read, are they a threat, these large, almost black animals - ? Better to be safe, let's run-for-home and that nice-safe-trailer, eh? On foot, hiking, yes, I'm bear aware but having read a stack of park wardens and biologists' accounts, annoyed moose have stomped, chased and treed more than their fair share of humans. If you're riding along willows, muskeg, streams (West Bragg Creek, ah, has some wonderful areas of precisely these ingredients, another is the section by 'Moose Pond' before it elevates into the spectacular Eagle Hill Trail too), watch your horses' ears, perhaps a sudden 'dragon's snort' or a jolted halt, high headed. It's a great opportunity, too, to learn to read landscapes, practise developing the mountain people's amazing peripheral vision, drag your own vision away from tunnel vision on your trail line only, listen to ravens discussing the deal - then, as Andy Russell once described, each day in the mountains begins its moments of magic.

Scratches Update

I am very bored with scratches (also known as 'cracked heels' apparently in Ontario and as 'mud fever' in the UK and Ireland. The Best is EXTREMELY bored with them too. It's taken nearly two weeks, eventually ending up with a new application of veterinarians' Moore&Co 'Scratches Ointment', covered up with plastic, then padding, then a carefully applied bandage of equal pressure, both hind legs to level out any favouring of one leg (and its ligaments and tendons). Every day. Yawn. We almost got there, no puffiness (ie, no poulticing which went on for a whole darned week) and I left the bandages off for 14 hours and we were back to square one.

Eeeargh. So, we resumed. One hind leg (she's black skinned, as are all pure-bred and part-bred grey or white Arabians) has, guess, a white sock (hard black foot though) and that's the one that's cranked my back into major creak zones.

So, with the drier weather forecast for a week to come, do I or .......? ....... cross my fingers and hope, this time, we're OK - ? Decisions, decisions.

Scratches.......

Unreal sometimes how the world works! An experienced horseman told me just three days ago of how a lot of horses are getting scratches suddenly this month, I nodded and poof! two days later my white mare (hard hard black feet) has them on her near hind on the fetlock. I slathered on Vicks last night (old country remedy I've used often, something in the camphor is the active ingredient plus the gel - I am guessing something like Vaseline? - keeps the area soft). This morning the infection's backing up her leg, so will be poulticing the swollen affected area from hock to fetlock in a couple of minutes with hand-hot kaolin (trade name is UPTITE, huge plastic tub of the stuff costs under $20) plastered on thick, then a sheet of Seranwrap to keep the heat in. The deal works on the theory of osmosis if you remember your science lessons - ?! - and then a good wrap of what are now old-fashioned tail bandages. Which can be re-cycled and re-washed. Vetrap's fine but getting equal pressure (try doing an example model on your wrist say and you'll be surprised at the torque) can be the devil, and it's a one-use only product. Fine in some circs, yes, I agree. She's also getting a shot of Bute as she's definitely not sound and will stop Miss Cranky biting everyone's ass in the field.

I'll be giving that until late this afternoon, pull the lot off (normally for UPTITE poulticing I aim at 12-18 hours tops and see what miracles have happened), scrub down with antibiotic soap and hot water and see what's improving. The Best pulled this stunt too once in 2004 where her leg came up in 24 hours, and she needed major antibiotics for 12 days in total - plus a heart-starter emergency shot when she reacted big-time to the vet's first intra-muscular penicillin injection aimed at getting antibiotics into her bloodstream and into gear. My heart too just about seized at how quick that reaction set in that day...... but in 20 minutes she stabilized and was amazingly nonchalent about the whole life-death deal.

Horses, just totally in the moment! After that she had antibiotic powder (not penicillin!) mixed with water in a mouth syringe and became amazingly canny at anticipating when I had just oats in my pocket or that dratted gunk! ...but for her, yep, it took a good two weeks before the scratches cleared out and she was sound and really right again.

Some horses, I can remember one that stayed a summer for mountain work, had eye-watering cases of scratches and not her I-am-dying-and-my-legs-are-swelling-and-infected reaction at all. Interesting that, as The Best has one of the highest pain tolerances I've ever known in a horse.

Another experienced trainer and breeder has just emailed in recommending a product called T-Zone (which includes tea tree oil as one of its ingredients - always useful for the first aid kit that oil!), and which is stocked apparently at The Horsestore in Kensington, Calgary.

Any other remedies, thoughts, yep, please post a comment!

Horse feathers!!.....well, actually, horseFLIES..........

Dragonflies are out, mosquito count down but darn, even down here in the southern ranges of Alberta's shining mountains, the horse and deer flies are a right pain. I'm using Repel-x (which Rachel Carson and her thoughts on DDT I doubt would have approved of) but she's not sitting on 1200 lbs of equine thinking that a good buck, get rid of The Human and run like the wind will solve the problem.

Well, if anyone has anything that really DOES repel this monsters, please please write in, OK - ?

At home on Horse Creek, and along the local open grassed ridgelines, we're putting in fitness hours (no bugs, we like this)...........if I was a four legged I'd think life was pretty OK if this could be like year-round (!). Graze, shelter, wander down to the creek for a drink, roll in a muddy spot as a fly deterrent, graze, snooze....yep, you get the idea, my horses are pretty happy these days.

But.

If you read some punchy material coming out on Complex-PTSD (a longer term version of Post Traumatic Stress) with animals, Gay Bradshaw is right out there with her meticulously researched book on mind-altered both tame AND wild (national African parks) elephants. Just out is Project Nim, on humans and chimpanzees and anyone after that who isn't profoundly affected could be just a tad closed down on what sentient animals that can experience, in their format, joy, fear, pain, stress experience.

And, so on to horses. Where ARE horses going in recreational fields? Dominique Barbier remarked recently that up to 80% of competition type horses in Europe under the age of eight had either had had significant surgery or euthanization. Stifle and hock injections because of arthritis, many variations really...........the German vet Dr Gerd Heuschmann's book "Tug of War, Classical versus Modern Dressage" now has a DVD out with an English translation that's stuff filled with precise anatomical info.

Remember the high-end technology needed for the nasty Hobbit, where a human had electronic sensors attached to his anatomyfor the initial filming, and then the studio team superimposed the Hobbit's image atop the movement - ?

Well, THIS is effectively the first time I've seen this concept applied to a horse movement informational piece. The 'camera' is above the spine, or alongside, or in/with movement, stripped of hide and outward muscle, pared down to bone, ligament and tendon. It's OCD watching material! Highlighted areas of slack tissue get highlighted, and major stressor points that develop either with hyperflexion (rollkur) often seen with 'modern' dressage tactics, show jumping and sometimes Western reining training.............and, too, as eventing (cross-country jumping)has gone a slightly alternative quick-fix route, horses around the six-year old mark are developing into the 'terrible sixes'in often fairly high-headed 'compressed' outlines without the boring muscle-building initial phases of topline stretch, flex and build. A really interesting phrase, eh? - heard for the first time a month back.

I admit, my jaw dropped on that one! In my years eventing, six was when the youngsters started to really sing and hit stride, not hit pain, stress and arthritis....and, eventually, either hitting enormous and chronic vet. bills - or bucking and behavior problems.

In its own analysis, yep,a human-induced form of equineC-PTSD, particularly if on a high-protein, high acidity diet while cooped up in a 12 x 12 foot stable for hours on end. The recreational horse OWNER perhaps needs to look at horse welfare - ? The emotional and pyschological well-being kind - ? - and think hard, long and reflectively - ?