C&A Performance Horses, LLC

09/13/2024

With each passing year, horses are living longer lives and many survive easily to 25 years of age or older. While this is good news, it also means that we need to be aware of changes that can occur with age in order to preserve the health and quality of life of our equine friends.

For example, Equine Cushing’s disease is one of the most common diseases of horses 15 years of age or older. This syndrome is better defined as Equine Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction (PPID) because it reflects the location within the brain that is abnormal. Clinical signs are associated with abnormally elevated hormone concentrations in the blood.

Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS) is another endocrine disorder that can affect mature horses and shares some of the same clinical signs as PPID. Although the two disorders feature some striking clinical similarities — most notably a predisposition to development of chronic laminitis — the underlying disease biology is quite different in each case. Successful management relies on proper diagnosis by your equine veterinarian first.

Our understanding of both conditions, especially EMS, is incomplete and evolving, but sufficient information is currently available to highlight some important similarities and differences for the interested horse owner. Consult your veterinarian for more information and work with them to develop the best wellness practices to ensure a healthy life for your mature horse.

09/02/2024

RJ Classics Devon Hunt Coat
Brand new
*Machine washable*
Size: 4S
Navy with subtle pinstripe
$100, buyer pays shipping, local pick up

09/02/2024

RJ Classics Essential Collection Hunt Coat
Excellent condition
Gray pinstripe
Size: 4S
$70 obo
Buyer pays shipping or Local pick up

07/18/2024

📢Save $400+ before prices go up globally on August 1st!

BEMER has been a huge game changer in recovery for both myself and my horses!

✨️Doctors offices, hospitals, physical therapists, equine professionals, veterinarians, chiroprators, farriers...Bemer is for every home, barn and professional setting!🦄

Visit the link below or PM me for more info! 🤠
Check out some of the horses 🐎 in the comments section who LOVE their BEMER time🧡💚

https://shop.bemergroup.com/en_US/home?partner=alex-hutchinson

03/23/2024

You’re seen and admired by people, and you don’t even know it. Keep going, horse girls 🖤🐴🖤

03/01/2024

Looking for feed room/grooming/partial tack room combo layout designs!
Show me all your fav hacks/designs/storage!

02/15/2024

Love my airbag vest. It provides that extra level of confidence, comfort, and style. 💯

02/15/2024

Horse Boarding…let’s talk about it.

I see a lot of people looking for “cheap board” these days. They want matted stalls, indoor, outdoor, ample turnout and private tack..for around $500-$600 a month. Let me break that down for you.

Whether you rent or own, each dry stall is going to cost your farm owner/operator $150-$250 a month. ON AVERAGE. Quality hay, grain and bedding will run ON AVERAGE $300-$400 (or more) per horse. So right there your dollars are spent. This does not include maintenance, footing, staff, utilities, insurance or incidentals. At $500-$600 a month, your barn owner is breaking even or operating at a loss.

Now let’s talk about staff. Working students are becoming unicorns. GOOD ones are almost impossible to find and stall cleaners are demanding $20 an hour and then not showing up. Most trainers I know can’t find reliable help and are either burning themselves out or operating at an even bigger financial loss.

Inflation? That’s been a blast. ALL of our costs are rising…which means our small margins are smaller…or gone.

Client expectations? High. Everyone wants perfect footing, a lounge, top quality everything AND access to their barn owner at all hours. Want to know what time I hear from clients? 24/7. FB and texts…11pm….6am…and everything in between. Think there is a stipend to be on call for non-emergencies 24/7? Of course not.

Want to know what your barn owner is making? Likely less than $5 an hour. I worked 231 hours in August…I personally drew less than $800 in take home. That’s with an education, decades of experience and great show results. Many farm managers are making even less.

What does this mean for the future? I don’t know. My gut tells me that in the next 10-20 years the middle class barn owner will vanish and barns will be owned and managed by those who don’t need your money…and who will price their services accordingly. I fear that by the time my kids are grown, only the wealthy will have horses.

So…that’s my thoughts on that…Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

*my photo, my barn*
**shared , not my post. Cannot agree more. Hence, no longer a boarding business. **

09/28/2023

Hey horse girl…
It’s okay if you have to take a rest.
It’s okay if you had the longest day ever, you’re running on 5 cups of coffee, you’re sitting in traffic, you’re at your wits end and trying to get to the barn before the sun goes down…. And you start to think maybe you should just go straight home instead.

It’s okay if you are getting over an illness, or an injury, you’re having a bad pain day, or your mental health isn’t in the best spot and you’re thinking… I don’t want to go to the barn today.

It’s okay if you have had a full day at work, chasing kids and adults, completing school projects, work projects, and your horses are with you at home and the barn chores get done but not much else.

Your barn can be your favorite place, and you can still need a 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒅𝒂𝒚.

Your horse doesn’t want to see you rushed, in a bad mood, sick or weak, or hurting and stumbling. Your horse wants to see you healthy, happy, and ready to give him or her all of your attention.

You don’t need to be everything to everybody every second of every day.

If your body is telling you to rest, listen to it… every day looks different 🖤

09/27/2023

09/26/2023

If you depend too much on the reins and try to pull your horse into a frame …

Imagine the bit being in front of your horse’s mouth. Instead of pulling back, you want to push him forward into the bit for a softer, springier horse.—Phillip Dutton

Seven-time Olympic eventer Phillip Dutton won Olympic team gold medals at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and individual bronze at the 2016 Games. He has competed in seven World Championships and won two U.S. team Pan American gold medals in 2007 and 2015. He is based out of True Prospect Farm in West Grove, Pennsylvania, and Buck Ridge Farm in Loxahatchee, Florida.

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

09/18/2023

To help move your horse sideways in leg-yield, imagine you are an ice skater …

You push off with one leg toward your other foot, stepping and putting your weight to the side, like an inside foot to an ice skater. Also, you cannot collapse at the waist, or you would fall.

Ruth Hogan-Poulsen has earned her USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold medals as well as her Freestyle Gold Bar. All of these awards are with top Honors of Distinction. Her students have won top honors in the USDF Year-End, Horse of the Year and All Breed awards. She has been designing competitive musical freestyles for decades, which have been performed in all levels all over the world. She splits her time between Vermont and Florida.

🎨: Sandy Rabinowitz

09/07/2023

Merck Animal Health is voluntarily recalling three batches of Banamine/Banamine-S (flunixin meglumine injection) 50 mg/mL in the United States, used for injection in cattle, swine and horses to the consumer level due to the presence of particulate matter. Banamine/Banamine-S (flunixin meglumine inje...

08/22/2023

Not much has changed over 20 years... 😂😁

07/16/2023

06/24/2023

While the sympathetic nervous system prepares the horse for mental and physical performance, its counterpart, the parasympathetic nervous system, is responsible for rest, recovery, and regeneration. The BEMER Horse-Set covers a large part of the equine musculature. Through strategically placed coils, the patented pulsed-electro-magnetic field (PEMF) therapy distributes its beneficial effect on the entire horse’s body.

03/26/2023

Shared:
Cold hard truth: as long as your leg is squeezing, scrunfhing, begging, and jabbing
And as long as your hand is backward, locked, too open, or micromanaging-
You cannot balance your horse.

No amount of exercises, no clinics, no patterns and no trying to collect will bring your horse into a better shape, because your body will be opposing their movement every stride. They are going to be forced to brace to carry you, and you will be perpetually blocking their back and neck and jaw.

It’s a hard truth. I was SO painfully humbled having my leg and hand taken away for a long period of time by my teacher. I wanted to work on making my horse balanced, but essentially I was the first problem that needed to be fixed. I’d developed terrible “trainer leg and hand,” essentially micromanaging horses to death to get stuff done. It happens.

I had to learn to really ride with my seat, and how to connect a horse to my body by not being blocked. Lots of horses who wouldn’t go forward we’re suddenly very forward when my leg wasn’t tensing up their ribs perpetually. Then my hand was much more able to follow because I wasn’t needing to constantly reshape what I’d blocked with my leg.

It can be a tough pill to swallow. Most of us like to believe we’re better riders than we are, and believe many of the horses imbalances are their problem, not ours.

Good riders dedicate themselves painstakingly to the very important, but minute details of good riding-
A feeling seat, a long supple leg that follows the movement of the horse, and an elastic arm, elbow and hand.

I am not there yet. I will spend my lifetime learning this. And I will insist that all my students work on this as well, before allowing them to fiddle with the horses ribs and mouth in a way that only tightens them.

02/10/2023

“Horses don't have a gallbladder. Because of this, horses' livers only secrete bile acids, salts, and buffers when stimulated by consumption of food. Horses with an empty stomach for a prolonged period of time are more prone to ulcers because the stomach continually releases stomach acid, regardless of whether or not food is consumed. The buffering agents which neutralize this acid are only released when food is consumed. Do not let your horse go more than 6 hours without eating. Do not exercise or transport your horse on an empty stomach.” - Podcast Ep. 48 | Gastro pHix - Foregut Health

Listen to the entire episode wherever you consume your podcasts!

bluebonnetfeeds.com

02/02/2023

‘I want to just ride’ - Say this to any seasoned professional in the game and they will look at you like ‘Oh honey’ 😂

You have to learn to be a rider, groom, horseman/women, business owner, lead a team, handle clients and alongside all this you’ve still got to muck out and pick a broom up until you can earn enough money to have someone help you do this whilst you are doing something else to earn this said money.

‘I want to just ride’ doesn’t exist and if you see someone doing that you have no idea how hard they worked to get in that position. So get sweeping my friend ♥️

12/09/2022

Good horsemanship is....

Going out in the dark when its cold and windy and raining to double blanket the retired senior pony who's spent her life working hard...

Its patting your horse when you walk out of the ring even if you didn't take home the blue ribbon.....

Its going back out in the freezing cold to drag your house downhill so it will drain and the horses can be watered again the following day...

Its many hours in the summer heat stacking hay in the loft....

Its all the trudging through mud and snow to feed or check up on the horses...

Its spending your last few dollars on a round bail or bag of feed or farrier visit instead of buying those new boots you could really use...

It is that thing motivating you too keep going even when your sweating in unbearable heat or feeling like your fingers are frozen to the point its painful to get the barn chores done.

Its all those hours spent mucking stalls, riding less then perfect horses because they teach you the most, listening carefully to every vet and dental appointment, and every discussion with your farrier about how to better their hooves.

Continuing lessons when you can even if your a talented rider

Its every clinic you attend or article you read...any knowledge you can gain is helpful at something in your equestrian journey

Good horsemanship is a ton of hard work in less then perfect conditions, when you just don't feel like it but doing it anyway because it's all for the betterment of every horse in your barn, every horse you ride, and every horse you come in contact with.

11/04/2022

Things your riding instructor wants you to know:
1. This sport is hard. You don't get to bypass the hard…..every good rider has gone through it. You make progress, then you don't, and then you make progress again. Your riding instructor can coach you through it, but they cannot make it easy.
2. You're going to ride horses you don't want to ride. If you're teachable, you will learn from every horse you ride. Each horse in the barn can teach you if you let them. IF YOU LET THEM. Which leads me to…
3. You MUST be teachable to succeed in this sport. You must be teachable to succeed at anything, but that is another conversation. Being teachable often means going back to basics time and time and time again. If you find basics boring, then your not looking at them as an opportunity to learn. Which brings me to…..
4. This sport is a COMMITMENT. Read that, then read it again. Every sport is a commitment, but in this sport your teammate weighs 1200 lbs and speaks a different language. Good riders don't get good by riding every once in awhile….they improve because they make riding a priority and give themsevles opportunity to practice.
5. EVERY RIDE IS AN OPPORTUNITY. Even the walk ones. Even the hard ones. Every. Single. Ride. Remember when you just wished someone would lead you around on a horse? Find the happiness in just being able to RIDE. If you make every ride about what your AREN'T doing, you take the fun out of the experience for yourself, your horse, and your instructor. Just enjoy the process. Which brings me to...
6. Riding should be fun. It is work. and work isn't always fun.....but if you (or your rider) are consistently choosing other activities or find yourself not looking forward to lessons, it's time to take a break. The horses already know you don't want to be here, and you set yourself up for failure if you are already dreading the lesson before you get here.
7. You'll learn more about horses from the ground than you ever will while riding. That's why ground lessons are important, too. If you're skipping ground lessons (or the part of your lesson that takes place on the ground), you're missing out on the most important parts of the lesson. You spend far more time on the ground d with horses than you do in the saddle.
9. Ask questions and communicate. If you're wondering why your coach is having you ride a particular horse or do an exercise, ask them. Then listen to their answer and refer to #3 above.
8. We are human beings. We make decisions (some of them life and death ones) every day. We balance learning for students with workloads for horses and carry the bulk of this business on our shoulders. A little courtesy goes a long way.
Of all the sports your child will try through their school years, riding is one of 3 that they may continue regularly as adults (golf and skiing are the others). People who coach riding spend the better part of their free time and much of their disposable income trying to improve their own riding and caring for the horses who help teach your child. They love this sport and teaching others…..but they all have their limits. Not all good riders are good coaches, but all good coaches will tell you that the process to get good is not an easy one.

09/29/2022

Take fall grass very seriously!

Great PSA from Equus magazine!

09/11/2022

Yes!!

Yes! Balance is key!