Stormy May, a graduate of the United States Pony Club, and professional equine video producer, is dedicated to promoting the harmonious relationship between human and horse through quality riding instruction and educational videos, workshops, and other products. www.stormymay.com

Horse Mangement Newsletter by Stormy May

Selected articles from HMN's November edition! To read the full newsletter, see back issues, or to join the HMN's email list, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HorseManagementNewsletter/

* Note to Canadian Pony Clubbers: Any Pony Club advice given below is based on the US Pony Club Rule book, and should be confirmed with the Canadian Pony Club rule book (available to download on the Canadian Pony Club Website www.canadianponyclub.org), or ask your DC.

Feature: A use for horse management skills!

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by Maggie Weems, DC Middle Marin Hunt Pony Club, Sierra Pacific Region

In which The Whys and Wherefores of the obscure to bizarre pony club rally horse management esoterica finally became clear to me at Galway Downs.  Full phase events and FEI shows need them!

THE HEALTH AND RECORD BOOK, STALL CARDS As it turns out, in international competitions you need to have all sorts of records identifying the horse's identity (color, marking, size, age, breed, whirls and swirls and cowlicks, scars...can you believe descriptions of the horse's chestnuts?), even a passport with photo!  You are not allowed to move your horse from its assigned stall without permission because folks are constantly walking through, checking on the international level competitors...

One of our teammate's vet had lost her horse's vaccination records, and without an up-to-date record book wasn't sure if she was qualified to compete or was current on vaccinations! At the front end of the competition we needed resting rates for pulse, respiration and temp which was followed throughout the competition to make sure the horse was holding up to the stress of the new locale and the competition,  the veterinarian and organizing officials asked questions and kept statistics regarding each horse's conditioning schedule was noted (for the benefit of the horse, and for the national organization records), the horse's and rider's show records were important to confirm qualifications for the upper level competition, record of feed and supplements because rules regarding performance enhancing substances are extremely strict .... and oh yeah, if you have a special vet prescribed thing, you need to take the note to the TD...

LABELING When 277 competitors all have the same brushes, rags, buckets, galloping boots, bandages, pillow wraps, splint boots... and 4 of them are on your team coming out of the same trailer tack room where contents have adjusted during the haul--it's nice to know whose stuff is whose. Plus, scratches became an issue... we sure didn't want to use an infected horse's equipment on any other horse.

TACK ROOM and BARN AREA Every morning and every night, we watered down the aisle and raked it. Dust and scattered hay and feed makes everyone cranky, dirty, itchy, watery eyed, sneezey, and hotter--not only does a dusty barn area muck up your hard work at putting together a decent turnout for the horse and rider, it also makes your cold beverage container a little gritty, which is gross. Finally, topping off water buckets in the dark, it was nice to not wipe out someone's pile of "junk", i.e. their saddle rack and bandages and saddle pads and helmets...  because you pulled the hose tighter....  

Since we were hanging out in the barn area, keeping the stalls tidy wasn't just a good thing for the horse, the people appreciated not inhaling  ammonia fumes and having flies under control.  Having participated in a few rallies and having the habit of putting up tackrooms at shows, we were pretty aggressive about adding eye hooks and various small carpentry projects so that all the equipment had a proper, convenient place to be put away in.

Every morning and every night we put all the rider equipment and each horse's equipment away in a designated and labeled box, and took an inventory of what we needed for the next day.  Believe me, the very nervous riders slept and ate much better and were much more pleasant to be around when they knew where their stuff was.  And the grooms consequently had a much more pleasant time because they didn't have to suffer cranky riders or guess if the rider had disappearing equipment from a last minute adjustment the previous day! When tasks of feed and watering had to be delegated, it was very nice to be able to say--grab the bags labelled "Wednesday night" for each horse--and not have to explain the special combination of oil, oats, flax seed, etc. that each individual needed.  Boy, and by the fourth day (we were there for 7 days) you were feeling tired--competition adrenaline fatigue and muscle soreness and never enough sleep or down time.  Everyone seemed to be on their feet, moving, from dawn to dusk, literally.  And everyone was put to work-- We were pretty efficient, much less time lost this show looking for shampoo or the black crop with the blue stripes, or Hannah's arm band--or the black short haired brush for Chuck, or a rag to dust off boots or whatever the thing was that was needed on the that instant or the rider would turn to ash and blow away.

Lots of tack cleaning.  All the time.  Much of cleaning boots.  We did not have a sponge drying basket per se, so had to improvise.  Otherwise the sponges got gummy and stinky-- or lost.  I think we had one all purpose cleaning sponge by the end of the week...

LABELING SPONGES It is totally possible to label a sponge it appears (and it would be totally stupid to have a little tag hanging off the thing or to have it in a plastic bag), when you are running a vet box between phase C (end of steeplechase/roads and tracks phase) and cross country... as it turns out the industrial synthetic sponges that can hold lots and lots of water were the best.  Forget natural sponges. At a full phase, the rider has a pit crew that cools down the horse, with buckets and buckets of ice water and sweat scrapers and ice flying, and horse walking ... repeated in a confined area for all the competitors as they come through -- everyone who has identical looking equipment.  Nice to have the labels.  you also don't want to offer the horse a drink of water from a bucket that has just had liniment, or diluted alcohol rub for cooling down, hence "WASH ONLY" in big letters...  AND we actually did wipe out the horses' eyes and docks and mouths (so knowing which sponge was which was reassuring, the disposable wipes were the best).

By the way, our horses were spotless for their many many formal inspections and jog outs.   

Hmmm, we needed to talk about music ahead of time, but had not.  There was a lot of turning on and turning off and turning up and turning down of various sources of music, news, soothing and irritating....  I for example like southern rock, loud at all times.  Someone, I haven't identified who yet, really did not!

NEUTRAL ZONE--UNAUTHORIZED ASSISTANCE You normally can't talk to your rider when they are competing on pain of elimination.  But right after steeplechase, the pit crew was allowed to observe the horse and rider, hand off electrolytes, get instructions about time/timing, check shoes, adjust boots, etc. in a very small area between steeplechase end and start of last roads and tracks--one individual was delegated to do the team's communicating so the rider wasn't getting input from 5 different directions -- in the authorized assistance/neutral zone!

EXTRA EQUIPMENT We brought extra horse shoes, halter and lead rope, lots of rags, a girth, galloping boots, clean dry gloves, crop, girth, bridle, stirrup leathers, stirrups, saddle tight (!), saddle pad... down to the vet box.  When Rose came through the finish flags for phase C, she had three minutes extra plus her 10 minute allotted time to recover and get to the start box for cross country.  We set up two rows of buckets with ice water, scrapers and huge sponges.  Our stable manager, pit boss, met rider and horse at finish line, rider dismounted answered some officials questions, took some electrolytes, went to sit, while the stable manager raised the stirrups, loosened the girth and started walking the very sweaty, blowing horse. 

The vet crew took the horse's pulse, respiration and temperature. The clip on the thermometer became very important as the horse started walking away with the thermometer in place, and then pooped the thermometer out!  The horse was walked through our cooling station.  There were 6 of us plunging huge absorbent sponges into icy water, getting as much cold water as we could on the poll, legs, chest, croup, then belly and flanks, water on, scrape it off, horse would walk, come back, water on, scrape it off, an official counting down the time.  We did a safety check on the equipment, wiped all the sweaty wet equipment off, wiped the horse as dry as we could, the vet cleared the horse to go on to the next phase, girth was tightened, our rider was off!  While we didn't use any of our "extra" equipment, some folks in the station next to us borrowed some of ours....

TOOL BOX I actually used the jack knife a couple of times, to open up hay bales, to take down odd bits of rope and twine left around by the previous barn inhabitants, and to cut off a pinney that had too many undoable knots because our rider had no time to fool around before he got to his next horse... I suppose he could have put the second pinney over the first one.  We didn't think of that...  We used hammer and nails in the tack room, screw driver and Allen wrench to change a gullet, replaced a battery in a cross country watch.  Duct tape--for cross country boots, to patch a tear in a sheet... to close up a feed bag, to label a box... to write new ride times on and paste over the old ride times on the cards next to the stalls... super glue to reinforce the sticky bit so we could fasten hooks on the cement wall to hang halters next to stalls.  We might add a bicycle tire patching kit.  Some weird kind of desert thorns did in 4 different bicycle tires by the second day of the show, so folks had to walk/run from the barn to wherever on errands which could be tired and cranky making...

FIRST AID KIT We used betadine scrub, band-aids, a couple tubes of triple antibiotic ointment (the people kind on the horse's-- we had to find out if the "pain" reducing triple antibiotic ointment would introduce an illegal substance into the horse's blood stream, it didn't), vet wrap, rubbing alcohol, regular betadine, witch hazel, rubber gloves, Vaseline, ... and that was for the horses that didn't get hurt.  Aspirin for the grooms' headaches and sore muscles and here's a wild story, one mare who shall remain nameless (but she was a chestnut and was previously involved in a midnight ride with Jose) split open her face with her stall confinement hi-jinks.  Still unclear how she actually managed to open up a four inch cut, where her blaze should have been, I think someone reported seeing bone... anyway, head wounds create lots of blood that needs to be soaked up.  Then a vet came, twitched her, stapled her head back together, and the rider leapt on and had the most brilliant cross country ride of their partnership!  Not a training technique, but was quite an interesting experience.  After her ride and cool down, the mare got a proper stitching up, and seemed extremely content and proud of her performance. 

FORMAL INSPECTION Our trainer and his horses were formally inspected 5 times over the course of a week, and safety/bit checked.  For the jog outs we worked it out so that the horses' hooves weren't dusty when we got there... and the rider's boots were shiny even if they had to walk too. 

Our horses received many compliments for their "exceeds standards" turn outs.  The officials seemed to appreciate the effort, the riders were more relaxed and confident, and it was a total psych-out for the other competitors.  Our horses and riders looked awesome, all the time!

BRIEFINGS ETC. There were all sorts of competitor briefings, meetings, introductions, course changes, rule announcements.  Time was a big deal.  Organizing course walks, hacks, hand walking, feeding horses, feeding people, grooming, tack cleaning, warm ups, cooling off ... you'd think with 7 days it wouldn't all be so tight for time...  We definitely made use of our notice board.  Riders and grooms never seemed to have time to eat, so folks took turns replenishing coolers of drinking water, snacks, sandwiches...

KNOWING THE RULES Dude, you have 30 minutes from when the times are posted to challenge scores.  At that level of competition, folks checked, and knew the rules.  No one wanted to be eliminated for a whip that was too long or an official timing error or a volunteer who scored a run out when the rider clearly called circle before a cross country fence, or losing to someone who hadn't crossed through the finish flags and so on.  When we were all completely baffled about a dressage score relative to another dressage score (three judges marks could each be pretty different on any particular movement depending on tastes and particular perspective) it helped to know what the FEI rules were that set out the parameters of what was scored and what was not.

Anyway, lots and lots of examples... test me.  Send me a note about your biggest pet peeve regarding horse management and what the goofiest piece is and I'll give you a for instance...