Horsemanship 101

 Here are a few simple factoids to get started.  They’re just for fun.  If you have others send them in and I will add them to the list….

• Horses eat hay, they sleep on straw or shavings. 
• To curry your horse isn’t to add spice. In fact, a currycomb isn’t a comb at all–it’s sort of like a rubber brush, used to loosen and remove dried sweat and dirt from the horse’s coat.
• A stallion is a male horse, able to reproduce.
• A gelding is a male horse, not as lucky as the one above.
• A mare is a female horse 4 years or older.  
• One tightens a girth or cinch and shortens/lengthens the stirrups.
• If your filly (young female horse) is fresh, it doesn’t mean she’s just baked; it just means she may, if you’re not careful, buck you off. 
• When breaking a colt (young male horse;sometimes used to mean young horse of either gender) you don’t destroy it; you’re just teaching him to carry a person on his back.
• Horses can sleep standing or lying down.
• A saddle horn, despite its name, can make no sound at all; it’s the post-like fixture at the front of western saddle where a rider can wrap a rope to hold a steer.
• The hair on top of the head, between the ears, is called a forelock, not bangs.
• You band a western mane (small bits of hair held in place close ot the neck by virtue of teensy rubber bands)and braid an English one (equally small braids, also held with teensy rubber bands and /or yarn).
• If you’re riding western, you jog or lope (proper names for the horse’s natural two-beat and three-beat gaits).
• If you’re riding English, you trot and canter (different proper names for the same two gaits).
• Real riders never jump on and gallop off the way you see in the movies; a horse, like any athlete, needs to be warmed up first to avoid injury.
• And real riders don’t jump off after a long gallop and tie the horse up or turn him out–they cool him off first.
• Gallop up, all hot and sweaty, and gulp water out of a stream the way we would when thirsty? No cowboy would allow his horse to do that–the horse could colic (potentially life-treatening stomachache for a horse, and in fact the number-one killer of horses).
• A lead rope is used to lead a horse, not a leash.
• Clucking or chirping – the sound a rider makes with his mouth to signal his mount to “get on up,” or increase his speed.  Some horses are so well trained that a single chirp will send him from a walk to jog, or jog to lope. 
• On the bit – term meaning the horse is collected.  He is feeling his rider through his bit, from the tension in the reins. 
• Pitched away – reins so draped that the rider can’t feel the horse’s mouth.  This is typical of a well-trained horse that doesn’t need a lot of contact from the rider.
• Snaky –  A sneaky, opportunistic type of mount that will look for any and all ways to get rid of the pesky person on his back. 
• For a treat, your horse will appriciate a carrot or quartered apple, but if you really want to make points give him your watermelon rind, cut into bit-size pieces for saftety’s sake.  He’ll love it! And, you’ll enjoy watching as he foams and bubbles his thanks.
• Be considerate in tightening your girth or cinch.  Remember the scene where Prissy is cinching up Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind?  If you pull too hard, too fast, your mount may be gone with the wind too….
• A cow dog is not a strange hybrid cross of bovine and canine.  In reality, it’s a dog bred to work cattle alongside his mounted owner.
• Along those same lines, when walking in the stockyard, watch out for freshly made cow pies and road apples.  They aren’t the kinds that make your taste buds tingle.  Actually, they’re more accurately described as “land mines.”