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The Horse Course: Introduction to Basic Care and Management

University of Florida

4.9 (452 ratings) | 24K Students Enrolled

There are over 100 million horses, donkeys and mules in the world today and owners of these animals can be found on almost every continent and in almost every society. The Horse Course will cover many unique aspects of equine ownership and touch upon the science behind many of today’s management practices.

Skills You'll Learn

Disease Management, Nutrition, Animal Behavior, Vital Signs

Reviews

4.9 (452 ratings)

5 stars
401 ratings
4 stars
40 ratings
3 stars
8 ratings
2 stars
2 ratings
1 star
1 ratings

AK

Jun 25, 2017

Such a good informative course about Equids. I look at them in a completely different way now, than how I used to see them earlier. All credits to the course and the Professor.

AL

Jun 04, 2016

Excellent course! The course content was informative and the instructor kept the flow going at a nice pace and was interesting to listen to. I highly recommend this course!

From the lesson

Basic Equine Physiology

This week will start out with covering some basic physiology. We will then advance into hoof anatomy and care. This will lead to spending a lecture discussing laminitis, a serious hoof condition in horses and other equids. The final two lectures will jump into the various coat colors and markings in horses.

Coat Colors14:07

Coat Markings10:48

Taught By

Chris J. Mortensen, Ph.D.
Professor

Transcript

All right, welcome back, and in this lecture we're gonna talk about

just some individual pieces of equipment, and was one that people had requested.

So, you know, trying to decide what to cover,

I just figured I wanted to cover some of the basics.

So if you kind of know all about horse equipment,

you can probably just skip this lecture.

But if you're not too sure you may listen to this kind of short lecture on

different types of equipment, and their names and proper names.

And for people that don't know, the major piece of equipment

that everybody uses, or every barn should have is a good halter.

And this is really what we use to, you know, lead the animal not only for

health inspections, but for grooming and other things.

So, a good halter is, or a bunch of halters every barn should have.

Now, there's different types of halters.

There's these leather halters which are a little bit more expensive.

What's nice about them is they do, they can break.

So if an animal has a halter on for any length of time, and

gets their head stuck somewhere.

They may be able to have an easier time breaking it.

One of the things that we talk about here in Florida,

we're worried about hurricanes and stuff.

So I always tell people if you do ever have to leave your animal,

leave a leather halter on, not this nylon halter that doesn't have as much give,

cuz if they get caught on a fence or something, they can break it.

But I have seen a horse break a nylon halter.

That's not to say that it doesn't happen.

I have seen one refuse, lay down until the halter broke, got up and walked away.

And then the other kind of halter you might hear about is a Johnson Rope.

It's just kind of like a rope, a little rope halter.

And it's amazing, once you get these animals trained to be haltered,

that Johnson Rope doesn't put a lot of pressure on their face but

you can lead them around everywhere.

Horses are amazing, they're really, really amazing.

Why do we use halters?

Again, that's to handle the animal and then also anytime we're working around

them and you want to tie them to a solid object, you wanna have them in a halter.

Now I will say, we're not gonna cover it in this lecture but

you can definitely look online for it.

Whenever you tie a horse, you wanna use a quick slip knot,

meaning it's a knot that you can quickly pull the rope and

untie them in case they get into a wreck or something's going on.

So you never wanna tie them in a solid, solid knot.

So if something happened, you couldn't get in there quickly and release them.

So just a note.

Okay, the other piece of equipment that attaches to a halter is the lead shank or

lead rope.

And you can either have, cotton, nylon, leather type ropes.

And they either will be a direct chain that attaches right there, or you can

get these chain extensions that you may see here on this leather halter there.

Now the chain extensions you can run up over the nose like that.

Some people run them in the mouth almost like a bit and then some

people may actually run them across the gums, which you know again, if you're

trying to control an animal, you have to be really careful with these change.

You can injury them.

Be very, very careful.

Especially leading stallions,

something you want to use to keep them mindful of you.

I've handled plenty of stallions and sometimes they need just a little bit of

a reminder of whose in charge without harming them.

You know, saying that.

Now, the next piece of equipment I wanted to talk about was the bridals.

And there's really two types.

There's the western type and the English type.

So we'll kind of differentiate between the two.

But basically they each have three basic parts.

So the first is the headstall.

So here you can see the headstall here and also in this English bridal type.

There's the bit that goes in the mouth and then there's the reins.

So, here's the reins here.

Here's the reins here.

And we'll kinda talk a little bit about the differences with them.

Now, this is primarily used for communication between you and

the horse when you're riding them.

Okay, so whenever you're on top of the horse, using to guide them,

this is one of the ways that we communicate.

Now, there's other ways, especially with riding, your body position and weight, and

stuff like that.

But just understand that the bridle is one primary source of communication.

Now, let's first talk about the western style bridles and

some of the style differences that you see out there.

One of the easy ones is just the different headstall types.

So, here you can see a split here, so it covers both ears in that top image.

Here is just a single ear.

And then, here's a conventional where you have the brow band and

then also up over behind the ears.

So, those are three different headstall types that we see in Western bridles.

Now, when you compare them to the English below you'll

notice that there are headstall differences.

And then, also In the Western,

we don't have a nose band, whereas in here in the English, you do have a nose band.

Western uses split reins, and

also there's a curb strap right there, underneath the chin, okay.

Where you don't tend to see that in your English bridles, okay.

So, those are some of the differences between the two.

Now, the English bridle, again, you can see the nose band.

It generally doesn't have a curb or chin strap and then they use buckled reins.

Okay, so, pretty simple, pretty simple.

Now, this one I had fun putting together.

There are so many bits out there.

It's really gonna drive you mad if you're trying to select the perfect bit for

your animal.

And I'm gonna kind of talk about the three differences, three different types.

There's the snaffles, the curbs and the combinations.

Now, there's no way in a lecture I could tell you which bit to use.

That's between you, your horse, your trainer, or

if you're a trainer you're figuring out by using your animal.

I will say the diameter of the bit in the mouth,

the greater the diameter the less severe it is.

You sometimes see these really fine bits and you've gotta be really, really careful

cuz I mean you could cut a horse's tongue off if you were too rough with it.

So, generally we try to shy away from those.

We want ones that are gonna be comfortable in the horse's mouth and

that the horse can respond to through training.

Now, the two different types,

your main types you're going to see is a Snaffle and a Curb.

Okay, a snaffle bit is one where the reins and headstall, so

here's the headstall attaches directly to the bit,

and then here you can see where the rein's attached to the bit.

A curved bit is one where the reins and headstall are attached to the shank.

So here's the, the headstall attaching to the shank.

And then here's the reins attaching to the shank.

Okay, and they work differently.

So a snaffle bit is one that's gonna work directly, you know, on the tongue and

the roof of the mouth.

So you can see with that, you know, with the movement.

It's gonna direct the horse.

Where the curb bit is actually leverage.

So you're getting leverage on the mouth and then pulling down on the head.

So in the pull behind the ears.

So they work differently for different disciplines.

A snaffle and curb used in Western and English disciplines.

There's not one discipline that uses one or the other.

Now the snaffle bits, again going back to so many different choices.

There are a ton of different ring types that the snaffle will go in.

So this is the dee ring type, this is the loose ring type, and

then this is the egg butt type.

And again, there's many, many others and you know, just by using trial and

error to figure out which one works best for your horse.

This is probably the best advice I could give you with that.

Now, with these snaffles you're gonna see different mouthpieces, okay?

So the first one is a jointed, and then you have something that's solid, so

there is no joint or break.

And that's called a Mullen mouth.

And then this one, you can see, has a slow twist.

So, that means the bit has a small twist in it,

maybe to get some more responsiveness from the horse.

Now, the top image is stainless steel.

The middle image is rubber and the bottom image is copper.

So, they are made of different material, too.

I will let you know that the copper actually makes horses salivate more, so

some people think that helps the responsiveness of the bit in the mouth.

Now, the curb bit, again you have different mouthpieces and

really what they look at is called the port size.

So the mouthpiece that actually goes in the curb,

that's actually gonna work on the tongue and the roof of the mouth.

So those are gonna have differences.

And there's things like rollers that go on there, and again, there's so

many different ones.

It's impossible to cover in this lecture.

So talk to your trainer, talk to other people,

find out what works best with them, and try it out on your own animal.

Now there are combination bits.

There's the Pelham, the Kimberwicke, and the double bridle.

So work very similarly where, you know,

you have a bit in the mouth, works with leverage.

And you'll see different disciplines that will use these types of combination bits.

And then you'll see things like bitless bridles, and

these are ones where there's actually nothing in the mouth.

So on the Hackamore at the top you can see there's actually no bit in the mouth.

And then the Bosal just goes around the muzzle of the horse.

So these are ones where there's actually no control.

The Hackamore uses some leverage on the animal.

But there's no communication with the mouth of the horse.

So, something that you'd have to have a horse that's very responsive to just

pressure on the muzzle to be able to use these.

Now this one's just kinda,

I threw it in there because a long time ago you hear longeing.

You're like, what's longeing?

So there's a thing called longeing, or we use longe line.

This is a very, very useful technique on training younger horses or

even older horses getting them exercise.

And basically, it's a long training line.

So when you see people running horses in cycles, that's what their doing.

Their lunging, and the lines are either cotton or nylon.

And you attach this to their head.

There's different things you can put on there.

You can put a bridle, halter, you don't get as much control and

you have to be careful again because you have something in the horse's mouth.

But there's also this longeing cavesson,

that's the optimal thing where you can put snap it directly to that.

And then you can have the horse go in circles, change directions, and

stuff like that.

So that's what people are doing if you ever wondered what that was,

what that activity is.

It's called lunging.

Now, the saddles, again, this is something that could be a really,

really long lecture so I'll just keep some of the basics.

And, anytime you saddle a horse you want to make sure there's a saddle pad

underneath a horse.

Its very, very important to include this piece of equipment.

And saddle pads are important, not only do they protect the back of the horse,

they protect your saddle.

They help absorb any moisture or

sweat also while you're riding, and they help the saddle fit better.

So it's always good to have a good saddle pad.

And when looking at these saddles you always want somebody that has

experience to make sure that that saddle is a proper fit for you and the animal.

Now, there's all sorts of different saddles today.

I'll break it down to really Western and English type saddles.

But again, these are ones that you want to make sure you have a saddle that is for

the intended work.

If you're going to a show, make sure you have the proper saddle.

There's one specific for competitions.

And they're made, generally of leather, but

you are finding saddles with synthetic materials that are just as nice.

Some of our leather ones.

Now, I'm just going to put this slide up here, you can pause it if you kind of

want to look at some of the different, you know, what we call different parts of

the Western saddle, I tend to prefer Western saddles.

I will be honest with you, I'm a big guy, I'm 6'5, so

my weight in my seat isn't always the best.

And I tend to like this large saddle that not so much hanging on, but

it just holds my weight better.

I've ridden English saddles, I've ridden polo ponies before.

I tend to freak out a little bit cuz my weight gets going one way,

the horse goes the other, and sometimes Dr. Mortensen just falls on the ground.

No, it doesn't happen as often as it used to.

But I tend to prefer a Western saddle where other folks

tend to really like these English saddles.

Especially hunter jumper types where you wanna cover a lot of ground and

move there quickly.

So they each have their purpose.

And I have a lot of friends that prefer to ride English and

can't stand the Western saddle.

It just doesn't feel good to them.

So I've actually, you know,

one saddle I don't cover in here that I've ridden is a McClellan saddle.

And talk about the most uncomfortable thing in the world.

It is an old cavalry saddle.

And, it's just this, it is the worst.

Not very comfortable, I don't know how those guys rode.

You know across the Western plains riding those things but.

You know just get me in my good Western saddle.

So English saddles there too you can pause and look at the different pieces of that.

And you know just for equipment I mean obviously there's

thousands of pieces of equipment that we use with these animals.

Just some final tips with that is just always make sure to take

care of your equipment.

Clean it, wash it, if you're using leather you want to make sure the leather remains

flexible, doesn't dry out.

Really got to take care of these things because they're expensive.

It costs a lot of money.

And we wanna keep you involved with horses, and the longer you can keep your

equipment lifespan, the more money you can spend on other things, with your animals.

Or buy another horse or donkey.

Also very, very important that the saddle fits the horse,

because if you have a tight fitting saddle, or improper saddle, you develop

things called saddle sores, other problems with their backs, so we don't want that.

And then you too.

If it doesn't fit you and you're not having a comfortable ride,

like if you rode the McClellan saddle, you'd give it up.

Trust me, it's not comfortable.

Don't buy one.

Some people are probably gonna yell at me on message boards about that.

But you want to make sure the saddle is comfortable for you too, so

you enjoy the sport, what you're doing.

And that's it, so see you soon.

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