Author Archive

Oh crap!!  How on earth does this stuff always end up on my desk? 

These are lovely pictures of beautiful, healthy horses.  They have a gorgeous green pasture with lots of trees for shade.  This is a perfect setting, right?  We wish that we had a place like this.  We could call it “Safe Haven Ranch”.  We will build an arena and turn-out completely out of metal posts where horses can get impaled and fence it in with flesh-tearing barbed wire.  In fact, why build a barn?  Metal impalement posts and flesh tearing barbed wire are much cheaper and could be the wave of the future because we are fast becoming more educated horse owners these days.
 

Gee, imagine how much $$$ that zoos and dog parks could save with this safe, modern method of fencing in the animals.  We think we are on to something here.  Just make the flesh ripping barbed wire and impalement posts closer together and your children will be safe in this park as well.  Think of all the money we could save, of course not counting the Doctor and Vet bills, but oh well, what is one dead horse every so often.  After all look at all the money we saved on fencing. 

Give us a break people and use some common sense.
 

The U.S. could and should learn a thing or two!

First of all, every single horse in England has to be micro-chipped and also has to have a passport.  The passport contains information regarding the horse as well as the owner.  Age of the horse, medical information, name and phone number of the Vet, any medications the horse is on, etc.  This is a great idea that the U.S. should adopt. 

A while back “Fugly’s Blog” she showed a starving old mare that was literally dumped on a street in Southern California and left to die.  If this mare had been micro-chipped we would be able to find the owner and prosecute faster.  They will find the owner and prosecute eventually, but micro-chipping would stop a lot of this type of horse abuse.  The mare died right there on the street.  Rescue could not get her up.  She was too weak and therefore euthanized on the spot.  Americans are great horse owners aren’t we?

Another subject that England is avid about is what it takes to become a riding instructor and a trainer.  They police this profession with a vengeance.  We don’t police this profession at all.  Anyone in the U.S. can become a horse trainer if they have the money to buy the costume and print the business cards.  Shame, shame, shame on us!

I quit training horses because of this exact scenario.  The only way an honest riding instructor/trainer with proper education is going to make $$$ today is to own their own ranch or stable.  If you don’t, the only way you are going to get ahead is to be as dishonest and uncaring and negligent as the rest of these frauds.  I just could not do it.  I didn’t have my own place and I’m not an evil, abusive, backstabbing liar.  So I quit.  I don’t miss the U.S. training horse world whatsoever. Now I just enjoy my own horses and help out my local friends with their horses, and of course write these blogs.

Tonight I found my British Riding Instructor Book and I am going to read it from cover to cover and write about it.  Also my English horse owner friend is going to email me more on English horsy law and I will share it with all of you.  If someone from a different country can tell us how much more their horse industry is regulated compared to the U.S. we would greatly appreciate the knowledge.  Is anyone from the United Arab Emirates reading this?  They police the Arab horse industry.  We would also like to know if anyone is getting Parelli or John Lyons certified in any foreign countries.  Somehow we doubt it.

“The Equine Miracle Harness is sewn by our shop out of heavy duty nylon which has a strength of 6000lbs.  Would that be the same nylon that halters are made from? The harness is made of 2 colors, red for those pieces that go around the body and blue for those pieces that go under and over the horse for easy installation. The one size fits most harness is completely adjustable, allowing a custom fit for horses from foals to a 1000 pounds.

While standard halters allow control of the head only, this harness allows the handler total control of both the head and body at all times. It is designed to be used with a halter and lead rope with chain which are not included with this product. In addition to the front lead rope attachment point, each harness has 4 additional tie points (2 on each side at shoulder and flank).

This is a great product for young handlers also, increasing their control, power, and confidence where as they might have otherwise been easily overpowered by even young horses. You know what else increases “control, power, and confidence”?  Actually learning to properly handle a horse.  Which, if they can’t do then they probably shouldn’t be around young horses!

Safely teach your horse the following concepts and commands while instilling confidence in the animal and handler, and making training more enjoyable for everyone!

Leading
Whoa
Backing
Loading
Stalling
Shoeing
Washing
Cross Tying
Trotting
And MUCH more!

Each order includes an instructional DVD. The harness is durable and easily cleaned, and will be an asset to your training for years to come! We will ship internationally, please contact us with your postal code for a shipping quote.

Check out our website for more information on the product. www.equinemiracleharness.com “

Ok, we can kind of see how this might help people teach a young horse to lead – but then again so does a lead rope around the bum.  The lead rope doesn’t require $65 and the extra time and hassle of training the young horse to accept this contraption.  If you’ve ever tried to halter a horse that has never had a halter on you, then you know that most of the time they’re none too pleased about it – imagine how this thing’s going to go over! The lead rope also doesn’t leave nylon straps hanging down around the horses legs and straps and buckles around its body just begging to get caught on something.

What we don’t understand is how this thing is supposed to help with teaching the whoa, backing, loading, shoeing, washing, cross tying or trotting.  We’re going to go ahead and include lunging there as well – it’s not mentioned on their list but they do include a picture of it.  We’ll forgive them this oversight, kind and benevolent people that we are.

They have a video of a young girl leading a young horse and having trouble stopping it – so this miracle harness is supposed to give her control and a “whoa” command because it pulls the horse’s nose to its chest and eventually makes it stop.  Congratulations you’ve taught it an evasion technique and not the correct response to a command.  Kudos.  Really.

The only way we can even fathom that this contraption helps with backing a young horse is that it has already broke them to the feeling of a girth-type-thing.  But in terms of accepting a rider’s weight and aids – well not so much.  If we accept that this harness helps lead a young horse forward then we guess it could be used under the saddle with a person leading the horse while another sits in the saddle?  Personally, we prefer the method of breaking that utilizes ground driving to teach steering, halt and go before a rider even sits in the saddle but that’s another topic for another time.

We’re sorry, you want to load a young horse onto a trailer wearing a buttload of nylon straps?  Are you fucking kidding us?!  You know, we’d be a little more understanding if you had designed this piece of shit with even just a little bit of safety in mind.  You could have made it out of leather (which a horse can typically break free of whereas nylon is definitely not going to break) or put in some sort of quick release mechanism as opposed to the current system that requires the handler to undo two buckles.  If When a horse catches that harness on something and panics, good fucking luck getting it safely out of the death-trap harness.

They next state that the harness can be used to teach a horse to be shod, bathed and cross-tied.  We’re guessing these are just extensions on the “whoa” concept.  Weaksauce.  Talk about an attempt at a marketing ploy by just listing as many uses as they could possibly think up!  If you can make a horse halt you can make it stand for the farrier, stand to be bathed and stand in the crossties and to make a horse halt you need this product!   Yup, we’re sure there’s no way for a horse to hurt itself while wearing this thing in the crossties…  S’all good.

Check out their video of how to teach a foal to lead into a stall.  With mad skillz like those, how have you not run out and bought like 10 of these already? Clearly he knows what he’s talking about and has assuaged any concerns and/or misgivings we had through this informative video.  Neither of us have ever tried to pull a horse of any age into a stall but we certainly believe it to be a next to impossible task.

While we typically wouldn’t want to put someone down for their ingenuity – it takes courage to put yourself and your ideas out there -but this one receives two thumbs wayyyy down.  It’s not safe and the only aspect of training it is actually effective at (teaching the horse to lead forward) can be easily accomplished by using a lead rope or lunge line – two items 99.9% of horse owners already own.  Thanks, but no thanks.  And please don’t try to sell these anymore because eventually some dumbass is going to buy one and their horse is going to get caught on something and end up hurting itself.

From the FUGLYBLOG.COM January 30, 2012 Post.
http://fuglyblog.com/2012/01/30/its-a-miracle/