Doc's Haven Farm, LLC

09/05/2024

Legit

08/12/2024

Great to practice

08/06/2024

lol. Yes. 👍

Use your Mother Loven Flippen dog forsaken corners!!!! 😂 No seriously though. It makes a huge difference.

08/01/2024

Got a nice little downpour over the farm today. The chicory is just about the only thing thriving in the heat.

07/12/2024

Good to know!

HBHB Tidbits: Did you know that at human speaking pitches, horses need slightly more volume than we do? Not much, but it's notable because people often assume horses have bionic hearing and can pick up faint whispers. If you're working with a horse in a round pen or longe line, or from the saddle, and she doesn't respond well to vocal commands that she knows, try speaking up a little more. If the horse is over the age of about 20, you'll have to speak even louder to be heard.

Oh, yeah, and that stuff about how your horse hears your heart beating from four feet away? Sorry, there's no evidence for that. Your horse can't hear your heart beating any more than a friend walking beside you can.

Bits of info from the book "Horse Brain, Human Brain!"

07/01/2024

Some dramatic skies and fun with the babies this evening.

06/14/2024

Some pics of one of our home bred youngsters and a brilliant sunset at night check.

05/21/2024

05/19/2024

❤️

A picture that truly speaks volumes...From our human perspective we can see a beautiful environment with green grass and elegant white fences, but if we just look closer from our horses' point of view instead...Well, then everything changes. Then we see how desperately they try to remain next to each other, no matter their inability to touch either, then we see where the grass just doesn't grow anymore, evidencing so clearly where they always remain to be together as much as they physically can...Please, horses are herd animals, horses are social animals, they are meant to be together, as it's just where their sense of safety and peace comes from. There's absolutely no way to change it, there's no way to pretend not to know it. If we can only keep our horses alone then I'm sorry but we just cannot have them 💚

Picture credit: Tracey J Parker

04/17/2024

Good visual

To lift the back, the horse must be able to reach forward and stretch downward with his head and neck …

Imagine that your horse’s shoulder blades form a slot through which his neck must fall in a downward direction. In order to reach and stretch, his neck must come straight out of his shoulders. If his neck isn’t aligned with the slot, the horse is unable to lower it.—Beth Baumert

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

04/15/2024

Yes

03/29/2024

Agree

“No pain, no gain” has been repeated so many thousands of times that it has become an accepted truth by many athletes.

“Suck it up,” “Dig deeper,” anyone who has been on even a lower rung high school sports team will have heard those dreaded words, “OK, guys, just one more lap.”

But does this attitude, this ethic, pertain to training horses?

I have become increasingly convinced that it does not, and my convictions are based upon an analysis of the word “motivation.”

Humans, totally unlike horses, are motivated by rewards that are meaningless to horses, meaningless unless you are so brainwashed by Walt Disney type thinking that you actually believe that horses want “glory,” care about “fame,” know the difference between a blue ribbon and a white ribbon.

A human may want to earn a letter in basketball, may care greatly about being written up in some sports magazine, may have ardent desires to be idolized or rewarded with money, and because of that the human athlete will accept that the physical and sometimes emotional discomfort, actual pain of “digging deep” is a price to be willingly paid.

All the hard driven, hard ridden horse feels is the pain with none of the motivation. And think---What does being in pain bring to a horse? It brings anxiety, fear, resistance, a desire to escape those pressures. A scared horse is NEVER a learning horse. The scared horse gets worse, not better. And when the horse naturally resists, what do so many riders do? You know full well what they do. They grind on the horse even harder.

People can be SO DAMN DUMB about this. I KNOW that I was. Are some people even capable of learning better methods? I often wonder about that.

03/15/2024

❤️

03/02/2024

This is excellent. Be a good horse person and you’ll never need a “unicorn “. Besides, they don’t exist!

Ok friends, let’s be real… We’ve all seen some ISO ads lately that would make any true horseman stop in their tracks…

—————————————————————
ISO Unicorn

Absolutely no spook, quirks, vices, maintenance, special needs. 100% safe.
—————————————————————
Thank goodness they are shopping for unicorns and not horses, because a good horseman knows that is absolutely impossible from a horse.

Personally I spooked at a squirrel yesterday, and I have better vision than a horse and am not a prey animal.

No one can guarantee any activity in your life is safe—-not soccer, not baseball, not tennis, nothing. Those are the choices you make and the risks you voluntarily take on to participate in the activity you’ve chosen and to live your life. We all try to make the best choices we can of course, but any seller that promises any facet of your life is guaranteed safe is selling snake oil.

As for the horse’s quirks and special needs? I’ve owned hundreds of horses in my career and worked with many hundreds more. The five best horses of my career were as follows:

—————————————————————
Horse #5. Vices: Cannot pull mane or body clip without heavy sedation. Must be in front when hacking in group. Why it’s worth it: Horse of a lifetime for his rider.

Horse #4. Vices: Free because he failed his PPE so badly at 5yo. Needs $800 shoes from a top farrier every 6 weeks. Why it’s worth it: Competed at the upper levels of eventing very successfully and reliably for 11 years.

Horse #3. Vices: Poor mover in the trot, extremely hot, needs a very kind rider. Why it’s worth it: Evented through advanced level, national champion at intermediate.

Horse #2. Vices: May rear and buck. Kicks and bites on ground. Will not go in any wash stall. Why it’s worth it: Never once dropped his rider. Evented through advanced level.

Horse #1. Vices: Incredibly spooky, poor mover in trot, chip on X-rays. Why it’s worth it: Successful and prolific advanced horse, sold and exported to a European Olympic team.

—————————————————————

Our horse shopping advice to you? Be a good horseman.

If the horse makes you smile every day, who cares if it’s tough to pull its mane?

If the horse takes the best care of you, who cares if it flinches trotting past a trash can? Use your inside leg.

If the horse does the job you need it to do, who cares if it needs a good farrier? They should ALL have good farriers.

If the horse saves your behind every time you don’t see a distance, who cares if it cribs on a feed tub?

Good luck, happy shopping, and for the love of unicorns, stop seeking things that don’t exist or you’ll never find it.

—Megan Moore, Verona Equestrian
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(Welcome to share, please don’t copy paste.)

02/23/2024

What rider schooling a horse hasn’t noticed that some days seem better than others? "Better" can mean many things, calmer, steadier, more responsive to aids, more actively forward, less frantically forward, easier to keep balanced, lots of different ways of responding to the training that we think of as positive.

And what I have begun to realize is that old saying that “comparison is the thief of joy.”

By that I mean that if I start to question, “Why is he being like this today when he was so good just two days ago?” I am creating a slightly accusatory tone, maybe if only to a subtle extent, but that disappointment is there, and disappointment is a negative quality to hold when anyone is training a horse.

Why? Because of the ever so human and natural desire to fix it, to improve it, to get it back to the way it was two days ago.

And what is wrong with that? Don’t we train so that the horse DOES get better?

Yes, but not if we start to intensify the fix-it buttons by adding, perhaps, more pressure, more repetition, more urgency. Training well is a subtle dance between asking for some difference while tiptoeing along below the anxiety threshold of the horse.

So often if we had just been able to think, “He was better two days ago,” and leave it at that without asking the “WHY” we could have ended on a better note than by getting into any sort of contest, two days ago versus today?

Anyway, something to possibly consider if you find yourself in that situation---.

02/22/2024

💯❤️

What. Why. How.

The best riders are those who can use all of their faculties: reliable mechanical techniques that service their feeling or instincts. Rational riding is riding that depends on thought as well as feeling. It is systematic and progressive, mastering fundamentals and adding complexity methodically and appropriately. - William Steinkraus, “Reflections on Riding and Jumping: Winning Techniques for Serious Riders.”

02/18/2024

Flexion vs Bend

For the sake of clarity of this post, and specifically equine education, I am going to generalise by saying that people misunderstand/confuse the terms Flexion and Bend. These terms are used interchangeably without clear comprehension or clear ex*****on during training.

FLEXION
Flexion refers only to the change in position of the joint found just behind the ears and poll – Atlas axis joint. Flexion refers to the decrease in angle between 2 related body parts (bones). From the point of origin to the point of insertion. Only one joint is involved.

BEND
Bend refers to a change in position or curve throughout the horse’s body, nose to tail.
Bend is when several subsequent muscles along the same line of direction are equally contracted/activated, resulting in the body/body parts creating a curve. More than one joint is involved.

https://www.xenophonec.com/single-post/flexion-vs-bend

02/12/2024

😔

Pat them. Pat them pat them pat them. If your horse even thinks about thinking about how to think about the thing you want him to think about, PAT HIM. Praise every right thing, all of the time.

DO NOT ‘make the right thing easy and make the wrong thing hard’.

JUST MAKE THE RIGHT THING EASY, and forget about any botched efforts or wrong answers. Don’t take it personally if the horse doesn’t get it right first time. He doesn’t speak your language. He doesn’t understand your ambitions. He doesn’t understand conflict through the lens of human interpretation. He just knows how to horse, yet he is willing to learn, adapt and change for YOU. Make sure you do the same for HIM.

Horses are the only animal on the planet willing to try for us and to give us everything they have, for absolutely no return for themselves whatsoever.

If you do not foster the horse’s desire to try, you will lose this most precious gift.

02/01/2024

A horse's respiration rate is directly tied to their stride at the canter. They inhale when all 4 legs are off the ground and exhale when the first front leg touches the ground.

For this reason, it is difficult to get an overtired or overheated horse that is breathing heavy and fast to move with long, slow strides. A horse that is breathing hard and fast will naturally move with quicker legs and more tension in their body. The key is to start with a relaxed horse, not an exhausted horse.

01/25/2024

Good questions.

The extent to which a horse can “let down” physically and mentally after some “intense” use often determines how well that horse can succeed in some second life.

I recently got an email from a woman who had looked at several show Morgans, and she was worried that they were too uptight to become the sort of backyard pleasure and trail horse that she hoped, in her 70s, to become her next companion.

Over decades I have bought many dozens of former race horses, and some of them settled to the point that they became kick-along rides, some became relatively quiet, some never got over the emotional anxiety of racing.

How emotionally damaged is too damaged, do you think? And how long and how difficult a process, GENERALLY do you think it should take for a horse that has been made anxious in one life, in one type of training, to recover enough to be what some call a “Steady Eddie” in another type of use?

I know that “it depends” is an easy answer, but if some horse that has been in any sort of pressure cooker environment has been given some months of turnout, has had gentle handling, but 6-8 months later is still prone to being tight and nervous, do you think there is still hope that the average rider will be OK with the horse?

And, yes, it also depends on the human who is trying to make the changes happen. Lots of variables for sure, but what are your general impressions?

01/19/2024

A few pics of our snow day

01/19/2024

Worth reviewing best safety practices. Sometimes we can get too comfortable and complacent with the mundane.