Elk Country Equine Services LLC

04/19/2025

In this week's new 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 I shared three often overlooked, but critical qualities we must develop for a fast, efficient footfall on the barrel pattern, AND for a consistent first barrel. 🛢️

Find and listen in to Episode 77 - 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥 on iTunes and all your fave podcast apps or online at www.BarrelRacingPodcast.com! 🎧

03/04/2025

🔥 Hot Take🔥
Age doesn’t equal experience, and experience doesn’t always mean safe and reliable

I’ve had 3 year olds with better minds than some 7 year olds.

A good mindset isn’t something you can train, it’s something a horse is born with.

Sure, time in the saddle, miles on the road, and exposure to different environments build experience, but was it a GOOD experience with a GOOD trainer?

A horse can have years of experience and still be unsafe for the average rider.

A 10 year old horse that’s been on the trails for six years might still spook at every rock it sees. Age alone doesn’t guarantee a steady riding horse.

When looking for a horse, don’t get caught up in just the number of years, focus on disposition, trainability, and how the horse reacts to new situations.

Does it just give things a wary look, or does it come unglued when spooked?

Don’t just look at age when you’re shopping for a new horse, your next best horse may be a 4 year old! 👏🏼🐴

03/01/2025

03/01/2025

Energy matters with horses.

High energy, low energy, nervous energy, good energy, bad energy; the horse recognizes and feeds off it.

Learn to control your energy if you want to help your horse be successful and confident. Learn to control your emotions if you want to learn to control your energy.

Controlling your energy will help make you a better horseman… it will likely help you with many things outside of the arena too.

www.betweenthereins.us

02/18/2025

The horses that concern me the most are not the intensely expressive or explosive ones. It's the ones that hold it all in and take the world on their shoulders. It's the ones that freeze instead of flee. It's the ones that internalize their stress.

These horses also tend to be among the most desirable personalities. They tend to be described as "kind", "quiet", and can "take a mistake".

And they often ARE kind, and they do desire to be quiet, and they do absorb the errors of their riders and handlers.

I am the most concerned about these horses because these are the horses that get mistaken for being more broke than they are when in reality they're often not all that broke, they just don't outwardly express their concern as dramatically.

I am the most concerned about these horses because though their capacity for internalizing stress might be larger...it does have a limit.

I am the most concerned about these horses because when they finally reach that limit, the explosions are on par with the undoing of something that's been under pressure for a very long time.

I have seen more than one of these horses get labeled after such an event as "dangerous" or "unpredictable" when in reality the outcome was a slow train that could have been seen coming for miles before it actually caused an accident.

I am the most concerned about these horses because so much of time, the moment we finally start paying attention to a horse is after they've done something we can't ignore.

02/04/2025

01/27/2025

01/24/2025

WHY YOUR 4-H KIDS DON’T LIKE CLIPPING…

As much as the title of this sounds negative I promise it is the exact opposite. I have been pondering for a while now why lots of 4-H and FFA members don’t fit their own animals. Sure some do and I applaud them loudly! However I see more and more leaving it up to one person or a couple people in their club. This got me asking a few 4-H members I know, hey why don’t you clip? Their answer, 99% of the time is “Oh I don’t want to do that, I hate clipping”.

If I ask them why I may get any number of responses but it all boils down to one main point. They find it uncomfortable, either physically or mentally. Physically it can be hot, sweaty, itchy or painful. Sometimes a combination of all four! These factors can all be controlled to a point by wearing a good quality clipping coat, bib overalls and clipping in a well ventilated area.

The real struggle is the mental discomfort. Being insecure about their skill level. Being nervous of messing up their calf or their friend’s calf. These are the real challenges we need to help them overcome as parents, 4-H leaders, FFA advisors and Ag teachers! Getting good at fitting is a lot like working out. It takes work, it takes struggle, it takes practice and reps before you truly see the results. They need to know they are going to suck at it at first. Some of them will be better than others naturally, the same as some people start out being able to do more push ups or being able to run further. So how do we do we help them? The same way a personal trainer helps someone get in shape. Teaching them the form, spotting them as they begin the reps, giving encouraging words and pushing them to expand their knowledge by entering competitions and clinics.

We all recognize the role that showing livestock can play in the development of a child. Teaching responsibility, graciousness and work ethic are a few of the positive things that come from showing a livestock project. What about teaching them the art of digging deep, the satisfaction of honing a craft and the confidence that comes with knowing you can take any animal and your clippers and make them better. Lots of people comment on the amount of swagger that fitters have and that confidence in their ability is why. So encourage your kids to fit their own animals, help them where you can and push them to seek information from others that are more experienced and knowledgeable! There are more clinics and competitions every year. Take advantage of them! Happy clipping and learning!!

01/19/2025

01/06/2025

There is a reason, I think, that horsemanship is so hard to teach, and that is because it's truly an art and not a science.

You can go to school for art. You can learn from masters of a particular art form. You can study the chemical composition of your medium and learn about how those mediums behave in different circumstances. You can learn about the history of your art, how it originated and how it's evolved. You can study trends and dabble in different methodologies.

But no matter what, in order to become an artist, you have to experience it. You have obsess over it. You have to go to bed thinking about it and get up thinking about it. You have to become a little bit consumed by it. It drives your passion and your curiosity. You have to dedicate a part of your soul to its inception, creation and development. In some ways, you have to get to the point where you cannot separate yourself from it, as it has become a part of you and you of it.

I have received requests in the past asking me to write more about specific techniques, "how-to's", if you will. I will admit I struggle with this because it feels to me kind of like someone asking me how to have a conversation. I can give you a very general framework, but a conversation is intimate and personal. To write one for someone else would seem to me to be a request to boil down everything that is beautiful and awe-inspiring about horsemanship into base mechanical elements: important, but ultimately in my experience not AS important as the energy, flow and feeling of what is happening between the horse and the human.

Yes, you need a basic skillset to be an artist. You need to know how to hold the brush. You need to know how to choose a canvas. You need to know a thing or two about how your medium behaves and how to bring out the best in it.

But what ultimately creates art is the person behind the tools and the feeling within them. And since no teacher can create this for you, we simply have to try and set up scenarios and allow space and spark inspiration for people to go seek it within themselves.

12/11/2024

How do hay nets on round bales impact the axial skeleton of the horse?

You all asked, and we delivered with more research! And I promise it has been worth the wait!

Last week, the second portion of our study evaluating hay nets was accepted into the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, and this time we teamed up with an equine chiropractor (thanks Dr. Taylor Rieck) to evaluate changes in the axial skeleton!

Introduction: Many horse owners use hay nets. As our last study demonstrated, they have many benefits including a reduction in hay waste and management of bodyweight and body condition scores. Additionally, we were able to explore the impacts on dental health and did not have any concerns regarding soft tissue damage, tooth wear, or dental abnormalities. But that has led us to our next question, can the act of eating hay from a hay net result in changes to the axial skeleton of the horse, specifically relating to the vertebral column?

Materials and Methods: Because I want this post to be able to stand alone (and some of you may have forgotten what we did since the last research post), I will start from the beginning and I apologize for repeating myself. Thirteen mature geldings were used in this study and assigned to treatments based on weight. The study began in September 2021 and all horses received dental work and were assigned to their treatments, seven started on the no hay net control (CON) and six started on the hay net (NET) treatment and all were fed grass round bales. In September 2022, horses received dental work again and switched treatments in the cross-over design. Throughout the study, these horses lived in identical neighboring pens with shelter, ad libitum water, and free choice grass round bales with the only difference being NET horses had their round bale hay placed in hay nets with 1.75”/4.45 cm openings (graciously provided by Hay Chix) while CON horses did not.

During this study, from May through August of both years, changes in the axial skeleton were evaluated. This time frame was chosen as horses were not being worked in undergraduate courses. In May, when the semester ended, an equine chiropractor adjusted all horses to get them to a baseline. Horses were then evaluated for range of motion and pain-pressure thresholds at 4-, 8-, and 12-weeks post-chiropractic adjustment. Cervical range of motion was evaluated using neck stretches for lateral movement as well as chin-to-chest, chin-to-knees, and chin-to-fetlocks. Pain pressure threshold was evaluated at different points on the body using a pressure algometer which documented the amount of pressure applied until the horse moved away to avoid the pressure. Additionally, another chiropractic adjustment took place at 12-weeks and subluxations (misalignment of bones) were documented and rated on a 0 to 3 scale to indicate none, minor, moderate, or severe subluxations. These scores were combined for each location or vertebral region (cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral).

Results: There was an average 8% increase in cervical subluxations observed in NET horses (P0.05) and sacral vertebrae were not analyzed as no subluxations were found.

Another finding was that average cervical range of motion was 5 degrees greater in NET horses compared to CON horses for chin-to-chest and chin-to-fetlock measurements (P≤0.05). No differences were observed in pain-pressure thresholds when comparing treatments (P>0.05).

While not the initial objective of the study, we also saw decreased range of motion and pain-pressure thresholds over time regardless of treatment, which suggests the benefits of chiropractic - but I will save this topic for another post when I can dive into into it deeper!

Discussion: Our main findings were a slight increase in subluxations in the neck for NET horses alongside an increase in cervical range of motion. While these findings initially appear to contradict each other, previous research in humans has found that activities which stimulate voluntary neck movements utilizing a wide range of motion and postures can recruit and strengthen cervical muscles. As a result, prehending hay from a hay net may have simulated exercises to strengthen the neck in these horses, however, these movements may have simultaneously resulted in an increase in cervical subluxations.

Conclusions: This study has demonstrated that hay nets do have the ability to influence the axial skeleton of the horse with minor changes. However, the researchers believe that the proven benefits of hay nets, including reduced hay waste, prolonged feeding time, and weight management, outweigh any minor changes in the axial skeleton observed in this study. Additionally, results from this study suggest regular chiropractic work can be beneficial for horses regardless of hay net use!

What Next? While this study gathered some very useful information to create a foundation of knowledge, I would love to investigate hanging net height and hole size to determine how these factors may influence the axial skeleton and time to consumption for horses in the future!

Funding: This study was funded by the University of Wisconsin - River Falls and HayChix.

I hope you find these results as fascinating as we did! There is always so much to learn!

Cheers!
Dr. DeBoer