Oak Hill Farm

01/02/2025

'The Nose knows' 😁
1-1-2025 Guya

01/01/2025

New Years Day trailwalk with Guido.

12/30/2024

Guido was trying to get a 'selfie'

12/23/2024

Important for your horse!
If your horse is reliant on hay as the main forage source either year-round or for certain seasons such as the winter months, a ration balancer is a smart addition to your feeding program.

Learn the difference between ration balancer feeds and supplements and how they benefit horses when pastures are scarce.

12/13/2024

Excellent advice.

𝗪𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘆?

Spending plenty of time in walk, particularly at the beginning of a session, is really beneficial for loosening up the joints, back and muscles. This is particularly important at the moment if your horse's turnout is restricted and because it's turned so cold.❄️ ⛄️

Here are some simple things you can do in walk that have lots of benefits. 👇
1. To encourage relaxation and confidence ride lots of free and extended walk on a long rein.
2. Ride regular transitions between medium and free walk on a long rein.
3. Riding lateral work exercises such as leg-yield and shoulder-in will help to improve concentration and coordination.
4. Walking over poles will improve coordination and regularity.
5. Gradually introduce a few steps of collected walk once an even, consistent medium walk is established.

11/29/2024

Makes perfect sense!!

11/29/2024

Love gymnastic exercises!!

Gymnastic Lines---A discussion

One definition---there are no doubt others---“A gymnastic line is a series of fences set at predetermined distances to attempt to obtain predetermined results.”

For example, you might start with something as basic as trotting poles, roughly 4 ½ feet apart, A trotting bounce will be around 9-10 feet for an average horse. A trotting one stride will be 18-19 feet for an average horse, a two stride might be 29-33 feet.

So you might set a bounce to a one stride to a one stride to a two stride, and the distances might be 9-18-19-31, or something like that. You have to watch what is happening and adjust accordingly.
The biggest problem with using gymnastic lines is that setting them up and adjusting them is a LOT of work, constant measuring, hauling standards and rails, changing, resetting, and so forth.

The way someone gets confident with doing all of this? You have to LIVE in a jumping arena. You must know distances. You must have an accurate stride. You must be watchful. You can totally mess up a horse if you get it wrong---You can even cause a wreck. So if you want to become a good fence setter, you must make a commitment, and if you are not willing to become educated, leave it to those who know more than you.

A slightly shorter interior distance might get a horse to land, rock back, and get his front end up faster, whereas a longer distance doesn’t challenge the use of his his knees as much. You just have to live it to learn it, A few will, but many won’t. that simple.

11/23/2024

11-22-2024 Guya enjoying the hidden green stuff!

11/21/2024

11/21/2024

11-20-2024 Guido and Scarlett

11/18/2024

11/18/2024

Very interesting, might have to try these on my horses.