Whenever I spend time with my ponies, there are small interactions we have or things I observe that touch me.  Here are a few from the past month.

Salsify:  This common weed was one of my first pony’s favorite snacks.  I often gave the flower heads to her instead of treats.  Mya is now in a loving home elsewhere, so when I saw a salsify plant and thought of her, I picked it and fed it to the pony here who was a friend of hers.  Madie seemed to appreciate the gesture, if not the meaning!

Gratitude:  It was four in the morning. I’d just come home from being up all night taking Asi to the hospital and seeing him settled there.  The evening before I hadn’t been able to swap day ponies for night ponies, so after feeding the ponies in the paddocks, I pondered what to do.  Dawn was just lightening the eastern sky and a near-full moon was still bright to the west, so I could see reasonably well.  I looked over the fence into the pasture, and there was Pearl.  I went to get her halter, and by the time I got back to the gate, Madie and Aimee had arrived, too.  I put all three away for the ‘night,’ thankful that they had been so extremely cooperative when I was exhausted.

Aimee and Pearl:  When Aimee was about a month old, she and her mom came to see me when I was at the barn.  Three-year-old Pearl was also there and was the object of my attention; I needed to bring her into a paddock.  I tied Aimee’s mom Madie then went to halter Pearl.  Much to Madie’s frustration, Aimee started following me towards Pearl.  Pearl was somewhat concerned about the fit Madie was throwing, but Aimee wasn’t bothered and walked right up to Pearl and sniffed noses.  She didn’t do the typical ‘I am just a little foal’ mouthy submissive type of approach.  She walked up as if she were the same size and age and introduced herself.  I nearly fell over laughing!  I thought to myself, you’re a confident little one, aren’t you!  The next time I saw Aimee and Pearl, though, Aimee did approach more meekly.

Aimee Answers:  This young pony is quite remarkable, so that’s why so many of these stories are about her.  One late afternoon I went out to do chores, including swapping the day ponies for the night ponies.  I was tired and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do a lot of walking to find the ponies on the hill, but they were nowhere to be seen, so I wasn’t optimistic.  As I was cleaning Asi’s stall, I sent out a silent message to my hill ponies that it would be really helpful if they would make their whereabouts known so I could easily find them.  The next thing I knew, there was a whinny nearby.  At first I didn’t see any ponies, until I realized it was little Aimee behind the fence at the waterer answering my request.  What a pony!

Aimee on the Rock:  One night when I was bringing Madie and Aimee in, I stopped next to a prominent rock.  It’s a flat hunk with a slight slant to it and a surface of about five feet by twelve feet.  Sometimes I call it my inversion table, a natural version of a healing tool I recently learned about from my chiropractor, because it’s big enough to lie down on.  That night as we paused there, Aimee walked past me and out onto the rock.  I was surprised at her confidence to just walk out on the slightly irregular surface.   I hurriedly took a picture of this unusual behavior, but it didn’t come out very well because she lost interest and hopped off to go elsewhere.  Then the other night, I was bringing Madie and Aimee in again past that rock, but this time Aimee was quite a ways behind us.  When I realized she wasn’t with us, I turned around, and there she was, standing on the rock.  This time I had plenty of time for pictures!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

As we stood there in shock waiting for the vet to decide what to do, Linda and I both asked my Fell Pony stallion Kinniside Asi, “How could you be so stupid?”  Not wanting to call my pony stupid, I revised my admonition to “How could you do this to yourself?”  Bruce and Linda and I have worked hard to make him a home here that has equine-friendly fencing, but he had opened a gate and let himself out and run a fence with a mare in heat on the other side.  He had lots of fun for the first few minutes, but that all changed in a brief instant.

Linda’s admonition had its roots in the fact that Asi had not stood still to be haltered when we approached him during those first few minutes.  Had he done that, or had the mare on the other side of the fence done that, the injury would never have happened.  But neither of them made that choice.  Sometimes I am amazed at the power of hormones.

The next day, with Asi in a hospital, I walked the fence line to try to understand what had happened.  I found a section of fence with Asi’s mane and other hair in it, but my detective work did not reveal how the injury had happened.  I began to wonder if I was giving Asi too much credit.  Maybe his hormones had in fact caused him to lose his senses and not exercise any self-preservation.  I prepared to go visit him two hours away, replaying in my mind the evidence I’d found as I drove.  In addition to hair in the fence wire, I had also found numerous broken juniper branches.  The juniper was bushy down to the ground, and it was over my head in height, so it was in that realm of being somewhere between a shrub and a tree.  The fence disappeared into the juniper on one side and emerged on the other, but was invisible in between.

After a slightly longer night’s sleep than the first one when I’d spent most of the dark hours either on the road or watching Asi get stitched up, I went out to do more detective work.  This second visit to the scene bore more fruit.  I looked again at the hair in the fence and the broken branches on the ground, then I thought to part the juniper along the fence wire.  Sure enough, obscured by the dense foliage, I found a metal fence post.  My faith in Asi’s inherent intelligence returned.  He could not have seen that fence post when he launched himself toward the mare through the tree, breaking branches as he went.  His injury now made much more sense.

After being a poor detective with another pony’s injury a few days before, I took some satisfaction this time that I had figured out the sequence of events.  Now I just have to work with my two young ponies on our catch-me game when their hormones are driving their behavior, so I have some chance of preventing something similar from happening again.  Oh, and the gate Asi opened?  Bruce had a safety put in it before I even got home from the hospital!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

It was dusk, and I was out swapping ponies from pasture to paddock and paddock to pasture.  I had handled three when I noticed I had blood on one hand.  A quick scan of my hand led me to conclude I wasn’t injured, so then the question was where did the blood come from.  I examined the three ponies I had been handling and found nothing, so I thought perhaps I had wiped a bug bite I had been scratching on my neck.  But then when I went back to the barn for the next phase of pony movement, I found a trail of blood drops on the ground about thirty feet long.  So I went back to again examine the three ponies I had been handling who had had access to that area all day.  Still I found nothing.  Maybe a barn cat had made a kill and carried a bloody prize somewhere? 

I finished my chores as darkness fell with no further information to explain the blood I’d found.  I went to bed puzzled, but since I hadn’t seen any unusual behavior from any of my ponies and I had a reasonably plausible set of explanations, I decided perhaps the blood wasn’t pony blood after all.

The next morning I discovered I had been a poor detective.  I went out early to check on the three ponies that I had been handling the night before when I found the blood.  Sure enough, Madie had an injury.  It was a puncture wound on her cheek; I apparently had brushed it with my hand when haltering her.  In hindsight I realized I had seen her be a little tender about chewing a treat I gave her.  Sigh.  The wound had obviously bled well the night before, but I cleaned it up and treated it with my healing products.  Then I made arrangements to transport her to the vet to have her checked.

Madie of course has her foal Aimee at foot.  I felt so fortunate that I had been taking Aimee on trailer rides for nearly two weeks so the trip the vet with her mom wasn’t too much of a stretch for her. Especially since my truck was in the shop so I had to borrow a truck and trailer and ask Aimee to step up into a higher trailer.  It turned out it was the unload that was more challenging for her!  It took her a bit to figure out how to jump down those extra few inches.

I had been a poor detective by not doing a thorough physical exam after I found blood.  I had checked back, neck, flanks, belly, and legs but I hadn’t thought to check faces.  Lesson learned!  And I’m grateful that no harm came from my error.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

I love my bareback pad but it’s time to move to a saddle.

When winter began last year, I set myself a goal of riding to the summit of Parker Peak, the highest point in Fall River County where I now live.  It would be a ride from home of about 3 miles one way with an elevation gain of about 800 feet.  What I didn’t realize when I set that goal is that there would be interim goals to accomplish first.  One of those is buying a saddle.

During my first decade with ponies, I would more often work them in harness than ride.  For the occasional short rides that I did do, I had a bareback pad with stirrups that worked well.  In hindsight I realize that many of those rides didn’t have severe elevation changes in them.  In my new life in South Dakota, though, where my house sits in a valley and so much of interest is ‘up,’ elevation change is to be part of my riding. 

Early in my teamster career I learned to look at hair patterns after removing harness to assess whether my pony had experienced any discomfort from harness fit or wear while working.  I naturally began doing the same whenever I removed pack saddles or my bareback pad.  After riding a few hills here, it became clear from those post-ride evaluations that having a saddle would be necessary for my pony’s comfort and for mine.

It didn’t take long into my Fell Pony career to learn that fitting a saddle to a Fell Pony is a non-trivial exercise.  I’ve read lots of threads over the years on various social media, which is how I learned that saddle fit is one part pony, one part person, and one part type of riding.  After I learned this, I wasn’t surprised that there was rarely consensus about the ‘right’ saddle for a Fell because there were so many different permutations of how a saddle was fit to a person/pony partnership.  My bareback pad seemed like a good solution for a long time.

In the meantime, I learned more and more about proper harness fit.  Numerous articles with my colleague Doc Hammill resulted in a book on harness.  My take-away from that project was that to buy a saddle for my ponies required taking equal care and concern as we had documented in our harness book.  Again, my bareback pad seemed like a reasonable compromise.

Now, though, I’m ready to invest the time to find a saddle that works for us in our new situation.  The bareback pad’s compromises have become problems that must be addressed to accomplish my goals with my ponies.  Three areas in particular are problematic with my bareback pad.  First, with my Fell Pony mount’s well-laid back shoulder, the natural girth groove is forward of the withers and the construction of my bareback pad and its girth pull the pad forward onto the withers, especially going downhill.  I can sit back further to correct this on flat ground but downhill travel is still troublesome.  And then the stirrup leather rings are forward of the girth, so posting a trot, for instance, puts downward pressure on the spinous processes of the withers which is completely unacceptable.  Finally, the stirrup position is compromising my posture when riding, throwing my legs forward.  Poor posture on my part ultimately adversely impacts my mount.

Life works in mysterious ways.  When I finally became ready to move on from my bareback pad, some consensus emerged amongst like-minded equestrians regarding saddles for my situation.  I am now engaged in saddle fitting processes with three different saddlers, and I’m learning a lot.  The biggest unknown at the moment is how many saddles I will end up with when I emerge at the other end of this journey!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

My book Harness Lessons with Doc Hammill and Friends is available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

“There’s lots of laminitis in the Black Hills.”  My stomach dropped when I was told this, shortly after moving myself and my pony herd to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  My ponies of course are considered easy-keepers, so I always worry about them developing any of the diseases of over-indulgence.  And my first spring here has certainly made me feel how incredibly fertile this environment is compared to the high elevation landscape where we all lived in Colorado. 

In Colorado, I had pony metabolic management well in hand.  By that I mean that I managed them in a way that respected their natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter.  Coming into spring each year, I had the herd in the moderate range of the Henneke Body Condition Score, where “ribs cannot be visually distinguished but can be easily felt.” (1)  Through twenty years of pony ownership, I never had to deal with laminitis or the other health problems of over indulgence.

This spring I am recognizing some errors in management that I made during the winter.  In Colorado I sometimes had to increase the amount of hay I fed to keep my ponies’ weight from dropping too far when the weather got tough.  This past winter in South Dakota, the ponies were full time on dormant pasture.  When the weather got particularly cold and/or snowy, I supplemented with occasional tubs of hay.  I was basing this on the condition of the lead mare, which was a mistake because she was not representative of the rest of the herd, who were all heavier.  So this spring, they’ve all come into warmer weather and green grass with a little more ‘cover’ than I like to see. 

My late husband and I, on our numerous trips to England, would come home and look at my ponies with a critical eye.  Often I would feel like my ponies had less substance than the ones we’d seen, but after one trip, Don pointed out that many of the ponies we were seeing had much more flesh than mine do except late in the year.  More recently I’ve had my hands on ponies bred by other people, and I was surprised how much flesh they had on them for the time of year.  I was reminded of a study that found that many owners don’t know how to assess healthy body condition in their equines. (2)  Equally likely is that equine owners don’t understand or manage to the natural cycle of fattening in the summer and slimming in the winter, with that second part - slimming in the winter - being the challenging part.

A recent visitor said, “Your ponies don’t seem obese.”  No, that’s true.  On the Body Condition Score, obese is considered to be when it is hard to feel the ribs, and I can still feel their ribs.  Nonetheless, I’m keeping the mares in for half days, following the lead of a like-minded equestrian here in the Black Hills.  I will feel more comfortable with their current weight when the grasses start to die back in the late summer.  And you can be sure that next winter, I’ll be careful with that extra hay!

1. Camargo, Fernanda, et. al.  “Body Condition Scoring Horses: Step-by-Step,” thehorse.com, article #164978, 1/15/19.

2. Morrison, Philippa, et al.  “Perceptions of obesity in a UK leisure-based population of horse owners,” 9/25/15, as found at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595036/

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories about what’s possible, practical, and powerful with small equines in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I was visiting a friend, and while we were talking in her barn, she coughed.  “It’s not coronavirus.  I promise,” she said quickly.  I believed her because she had been self-isolating, and she lived in an area where incidence of the pandemic had so far been low.  A dry cough is, of course, one of the symptoms of COVID-19.  I was at a cattle sale several weeks ago, and despite our efforts to sit away from other people, socially distancing ourselves, someone came in after we did, sat down behind me, then coughed in my direction.  I moved to another location quickly, and everything turned out all right, but we talk about that situation often whenever we venture into public.

The other day when my friend coughed, I also believed her assurance that her cough wasn’t due to COVID-19 because of what she said next.  “I’ve got a pony hair in my throat!” I have caught myself coughing multiple times for exactly the same reason.  It’s hair-in-the-throat season around here, with many of my ponies leaving me with handfuls of hair whenever I pet them.  Some of that hair, despite my best efforts, becomes airborne and enters my mouth.  Whenever I cough, though, I do catch myself pausing for a second to make sure I’m feeling all right otherwise.  What a fascinating time we are living through, where so much of what used to be normal is no longer that way.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can read more stories about my life with ponies and its connection to the world around us in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Sleepy Willowtrail Fell Ponies. The one standing up is the lead mare. The fully recumbent one is 9 months old. They definitely prefer hard bare ground for their napping location.

We likely have been told how important good quality sleep is to our own health.  It turns out that the same is true for our equine friends.  New research in 2019 found that the majority of horses studied are not getting enough sleep in their usual environments and that there is a correlation between inadequate sleep and collapse with associated injuries. (1)  Veterinarians say that equine owners should know how much sleep their equines are getting to avoid the risk of collapse.

We know that our equine friends can sleep standing up, but it turns out its important for them to sleep lying down each day, too.  Dr. Michael Hewetson at the Royal Veterinary College says, “A normal horse requires a minimum of one hour’s REM sleep per day which requires the horse to lie down.  If a horse lies down for less than that, they have an increased risk of sleep deprivation which can lead to collapse.” (2)  REM sleep can occur either when a horse is lying down with its head still up but resting it on the ground or when the horse is flat out on its side. (3)

The 2019 study by Juan de Benedetti of Brunel University, Uxbridge, found that 20 percent of the horses monitored were lying down less than one hour per day, and nine percent were lying down less than 30 minutes per day.  The longer rest periods (35 minutes on average) were between midnight and 3am and the next longest (25 minutes on average) were between 9pm and midnight.  These were horses “living most of the time in a stable and turned out in a field or paddock at least for a few hours every day.”  (4)  Dr. Hewetson says, “At the hospital we see cases of sleep-deprived horses due either to an underlying painful condition or because the horse is insecure in its environment.” (5)

In normal herds, one or two members remain alert while the others rest.  Often it is the lead mare, as shown in this picture.  She gets rest when a ‘second-in-command’ assumes the watch duty.  This system can be disrupted by stalling, by herd groupings that are unstable, or by an equine living totally alone, leading to sleep deprivation. The articles I read suggested that large barns with their many comings and goings and diverse noises can be problematic for some equines regarding adequate healthful sleep.

Foals, of course, sleep more than mature equines.  A university of Georgia study found that the average foal is resting lying down 32 percent of the time during the first week of life.  By four months of age, they are resting lying down only 5.1 percent of the time.  As a foal matures, more of its rest time is done standing, up to 23 percent when they’re older from 3.6 percent in the first week.  (6)  I have observed that up to at least a year of age, I’m more likely to see weanlings resting lying down than adult ponies.

I never thought about it until it was stated in an article and I recognized it to be true, but equines in paddocks or on pasture tend to prefer to lie down on hard-packed or heavily grazed areas, as shown in this picture. (7)  It may be because it’s easier to get up quickly on firm footing.  It may also be that sound carries more easily across an open area than into grass and the same with being able to see, and for prey animals the quicker information arrives, the better.

When I see an adult pony lying down, I am immediately watchful.  I wonder if they are okay or experiencing some sort of upset.  With this new understanding of the importance of their sleep, I will try to be thankful for their recumbent rest rather than worry about it immediately!

1. “Study shows sleep pattern concerns,” The Westmorland Gazette, December 2019, p. 29.  Courtesy my colleague Eddie McDonough.

2. Same as #1.

3. Mariette, Kim.  “Help Your Horse Sleep Better,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 47.

4. Same as #1.

5. Same as #1.

6. “Sleeping Like a Baby,” Equus #497, Summer 2019, p. 50.

7. Same as #3.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Several years ago, an article with a sensational headline was posted on the internet:  “Shetland pony behind Thoroughbred Speed.”  It was quickly pointed out that the headline had no support in the text of the article, which was indeed about the source of speed in the Thoroughbred.  At the time, research based on DNA analysis had provided information on the genetic basis of the breed’s speed.  Fast forward several years, and the actual research paper finally crossed my desk.  Not only did it become clear why Shetlands were called out in the erroneous headline, but also the article contained a surprise:  Galloways, often linked to Fell Ponies, were called out too.  In addition, Connemara and Highland Ponies were part of the research data set. (1)

Galloways as pictured in Oliver Goldsmith’s 1774 book Earth and Animated Nature

The researchers, based in England, Ireland and Sweden, both in academia and private industry, studied a gene that has one of two expressions:  sprint speed (C allele) or stayer/endurance (T allele).  They found that the C-allele is “not restricted to the Thoroughbred and Thoroughbred derived populations, is not a new mutation, and seems to occur at variable frequencies depending on the selection pressures on the population.” 

The history of the Thoroughbred suggests that the stayer/endurance type equine would have been more favored in earlier times when races were longer and several heats were run, whereas sprinters are more favored in modern times when single races over relatively short distances are run.  The Thoroughbred is interesting to study because it has had a closed stud book since 1791, so the researchers point out that the C-allele must have been present at the founding of the breed, but that it has been concentrated in modern times by selective breeding. 

The researchers were able to sample past significant Thoroughbred sires, such as Eclipse foaled in 1764, to learn that all of the historic sires were homozygous for the stayer gene.  Then using pedigree analysis of modern day sprinter versus stayer horses and doing DNA analysis of them, the researchers concluded that the C-allele was introduced as a founding event on the female side, from perhaps a single mare.   Since the breed was created in England, a British mare or mares is therefore assumed to be the source of the speed gene (C-allele).

In addition to looking at the presence of the sprinter and stayer genes in Thoroughbreds, the researchers also sampled numerous other types of equines to try to determine where the sprinter gene may have come from.  Donkeys and zebras were found to have no sprinter genes (all stayers T/T).  In fact the only sample where sprinter genes were dominant and homozygous was in the Quarter Horse where 83% of the samples were C/C, compared to only 22% of Thoroughbreds over all.  Modern sprinter type Thoroughbreds were homozygous for the sprinter gene in only 46% of samples.  So it was surprising to learn that the Shetland pony samples had an average of 34% homozygous sprinter alleles (C/C).  The headline writer can be forgiven for leaping to their erroneous conclusion of a link via speed between Shetlands and Thoroughbreds!  No other equine group that was sampled, outside Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, had as high a percentage of homozygous sprinters nor as high a frequency of the C allele as the Shetland.  I found this quite amazing.  Keep in mind, though, that there were lots of breeds that were not included in the research.

Most equine enthusiasts are aware of the three legendary founding sires of the Thoroughbred:  The Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian, and the Byerly Turk.  Equine researcher Deb Bennett, PhD, has posited that the English Hobby, an extinct breed/type, populated the female side of early Thoroughbred pedigrees.  Because the Hobbies crossed so well with the eastern sires, breeds created from the cross survived down through time while the Hobby was lost.  Yet some of those breeds also suffered extinction from their own success as crosses, including the Scottish Galloway, according to Bennett.  (2)

The researchers mention the Galloway in a context I was not previously familiar with: “…the Galloway breed, which was the preeminent British racing population before the formal foundation of the Thoroughbred breed.”  I had never before heard of Galloways as formal racers.  Informal, yes, as the mounts of the Border Reivers, but I was not aware of the history of racing before the Thoroughbred.  Miriam Bibby, who many Fell Pony enthusiasts know through her association with History on Horseback, contributed to the book The Horse in Pre-modern European Culture.  She says there that formal racing began at the Scottish/English border in the late 16th century. The Fell Pony Museum cites an announcement in the Newcastle Courant for a race at Penrith on June 17, 1736 exclusively for Galloways.

I found the following statement by the researchers problematic:  “The Shetland is closely-related (at least geographically) to the Galloway…”  First, there are other breeds that the Shetland is closer to geographically, such as the Highland Pony in the north of Scotland.  The historic range of the Galloway is towards the south of Scotland, often particularly along the Solway Firth.  And second, genetic research often links the Shetland breed more closely to the Nordic breeds than to the other British mountain and moorland breeds; the Shetland Islands are nearly as close to Norway as they are to Scotland. So it’s not clear to me that the Shetland and Galloway are very closely related.  I suspect the researchers made this statement to try to tie the Shetland to an early racing type that might have contributed the speed gene to the Thoroughbred.  The researchers could definitely have made better choices for comparison, however.  Bennett lists the following extant breeds similar to Galloways who are descended from Hobbies crossed on eastern sires:  “Welsh, Dartmoor, Asturian, Galician, Navarrese, Mérens, and Breton.”  Bennett says that the Irish Kerry Bog pony is the last remaining direct descendant of the Hobbies.

In addition to the Shetland, the researchers sampled two other mountain and moorland breeds:  the Highland and the Connemara.  In both these breeds, unlike the Shetland, the speed gene (C-allele) appeared in only 10% of samples with 86% of samples being homozygous for the stayer allele.  The Fell Pony is usually said to have significant endurance and is sometimes said to be related to the Highland.  These Highland results certainly lead one to believe that Fells are more stayer than sprinter.  The results for the Highland also distinguish it clearly from its near-neighbor the Shetland.

The Connemara hails from County Galway in Ireland.  When I mentioned the research about the speed gene to my friend Eddie McDonough, he recalled a song about horse races in Galway sung by the Dubliners.  I was struck by the lyrics that so easily conjured the excitement of a race day.  To listen, click here! I will continue to wonder if Galloways, while being known for speed, were truly sprinters or whether they were stayers like their modern mountain and moorland kin.

1. Bower, Mim A., et al.  “The genetic origin and history of speed in the Thoroughbred racehorse,” Nature Communications, 1/24/12.

2. Bennett, Deb, PhD.  “The World’s Most Important Horse Breed,” Equus #446, November 2014.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

My book The Partnered Pony celebrates how ponies improve our world. The book is available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The red line shows that there is a very slight hoof arch in Rose’s foot after several weeks of daily rides on a somewhat hard surface. The hoof arch assists with impact absorption.

A light bulb went off when I finally understood what I was reading.  I had seen it but never realized what caused it.  Brilliant!  A pony hoof is even more dynamic than I realized!  I was thankful again for the many hooves I’ve trimmed so that I could understand what was being described.

I am grateful to a fellow Fell Pony enthusiast for the book I am reading with the title Insight to Equus:  Holistic Veterinary Perspectives on Health and Healing.  I am in the midst of a long section on the equine hoof where the author is making the case for equines living a barefoot life.  I have always found that approach to make sense.  I am familiar with the experience of many owners that equines living barefoot often maintain their own hooves in near optimal condition.  Dr. Tomas Teskey repeatedly makes the point, though, that the ground conditions have to be right for this outcome.  My ponies have never lived on the right sort of ground for them to not need trimming.

One of the many incredibly important observations Dr. Teskey makes in his book about a natural hoof is that it is beautifully designed to absorb impact.  It is not a rigid structure which is why a horseshoe which is rigid can be such a detriment to the health of the hoof as well as the horse as a whole.  In fact the equine hoof has a number of structures inherent in it that enable it to absorb impact.  One of those is a hoof arch.

Dr. Teskey says that hoof arches are typically seen only on barefoot horses running on dry rough ground that are not conventionally trimmed.  So many of us are taught that a hoof should have a flat surface where it hits the ground, and we are taught to file to that sort of flat surface when balancing the hoof.  Not so fast, says Dr. Teskey!  Equines running on dry rough ground need all the advantage they can get from their hooves to absorb impact, and because hooves are not rigid, they can and do expand when encountering a rough surface and then contract again as they become airborne.  When we trim, of course, we are trimming in that airborne phase, so we aren’t actually seeing the plane of the hoof that meets the ground.  “Picking them up and looking from the side is a good way to see and feel the arch…  In healthy hooves, the arch flattens slightly as the hoof bears maximum weight…  During hoof flight, … structures recoil back to their original shape and are ready to immediately engage the ground again.”  (1)  Dr. Teskey also describes many other ways in which the arch assists healthy equine activity.

Once I understood what he was talking about, I couldn’t wait to go out and look at my ponies’ hooves.  Our ground this winter has been pretty soft, so the only pony I expected to see an arch on was my mare Rose that I am riding regularly on the ranch lane and a nicely graveled trail.  The picture here shows a very slight arch in Rose’s foot.  Awesome!  I then confirmed that all my other ponies have very flat hoof surfaces.

From now on when I trim, I will watch for a hoof arch and not file it away if it exists.  If they have it, they obviously need it for the life they are leading.  I am thinking about trimming and hooves with new appreciation!

1. Teskey, Tomas G., D.V.M.  Insight to Equus:  Holistic Veterinary Perspectives on Health and Healing.  Self-published, insighttoequus.com, 2019, p. 102

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more discussions about holistic pony ownership in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Many fell-running Fell Ponies in England experience flyovers by military jets. Many get to a point that loud, low-flying aircraft aren’t a big deal.  My ponies when we were in Colorado occasionally had military or emergency services helicopters fly over at low altitude, so they became accustomed to them.  Here my Fell Pony mare Rose and I experienced a flyover of a different sort, and it was a perfect addition to our ride.

Rose looks at turkeys on the ground under the grain bin.

I had taken Rose out to work on standing still around cattle.  We rode to the bull corrals and stopped to watch several older bulls eat.  They were pretty focused on their hay, and she did fine with that.  We then rode a little farther where a few more bulls including some younger ones were a little more active.  After a few times of me resetting Rose’s feet after she moved, she got the idea about standing still.  Then we headed towards the calf pasture where Rose’s feet tend to be the busiest. 

Almost immediately, though, we had company on the road.  First came the tractor and hay processor which Rose is quite familiar with, followed by a familiar Jeep then an unfamiliar pickup.  They all passed us by no problem.  Rose has been around equipment her entire life, so I thought this parade should be an easy test for her, and she passed with flying colors.  We continued on to the calf pasture and stopped to watch a dozen steers drinking from the waterer.  I had to reset Rose’s feet a number of times before she stood still enough that I could count a success and let her move on again.  We headed back toward the barn.

As we approached the barn, we saw that the tractor, Jeep, and pickup were all parked there, so we were to again have a good test of Rose’s ability to deal with relatively common stimuli but in a new place.  I was pretty certain it wouldn’t be an issue, and as we approached I could tell that Rose saw what was going on and didn’t have a problem with it.  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I could see we were about to experience something we hadn’t experienced before on our rides, and I had no idea what to expect.  A flock of about thirty wild turkeys had been spooked, and they were flying over the bulls at about fifteen feet elevation and approaching the road just ahead of us.  Perfect!  A flyover!

We had seen turkeys numerous times on our rides, always quite a ways ahead of us and always on the ground, but we’d never had them above us.  So I was extremely pleased and a little surprised that Rose kept on walking toward the barn.  The turkeys kept on flying just ahead and above us, and Rose acted as if it was perfectly natural that large black heavy birds with long wings and funny heads were crossing our path airborne.  I couldn’t have planned a better addition to our lesson ride.  The last of the turkeys flew over, and we continued to the barn.  We passed the vehicles at the barn, too, so it was easy to call the entire ride a success.

I was talking to a friend, and she mentioned that people sometimes poo-poo trail riding as a lowly use of an equine and the easiest to train for.  My friend and I heartily agreed on the contrary.  At least where she and I ride, the number of possible unexpected stimuli seems infinite.  How do you prepare a pony to remain calm and safe when faced with infinite unexpected stimuli?  And then how do you arrange for a flock of turkeys to fly overhead during a training ride to test that preparation?!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

I was feeling out of sorts, but pony chores still needed to get done.  In the course of moving ponies from one place to another, I fed a treat to a pony that I usually don’t treat.  I gave in to the look in her eyes that said, “I know you’ve given treats to the other mares; what about me?”  I immediately knew I was going to regret the decision.  In my experience it takes as long as three months before a pony who’s been given a treat will stop looking for one.

It was right after the holidays, and my brain was a little foggy and I was a little achy.  I was pretty sure I knew what the source of my discomfort was; I had gone off my usually healthy diet and eaten more sugary foods than normal from Thanksgiving through New Year’s.  I had cleaned up my act but then relapsed on a long road-trip, eating leftover Christmas cookies to pass the time.  After that, though, I ended up having trouble walking.  It took even longer to clean up my act than it had before.  This wasn’t a new downward spiral for me; I’d been here many times before in my life.  I knew I needed to shape up, but I also knew that I would likely succumb to dietary indiscretions again; history has definitely repeated itself in my life in that department.  Then I heard a podcast that gave me new insight and new motivation.

The title of the podcast (click here) was about detoxing the brain.  What really sucked me in, though, was the link the doctors made between poor dietary choices and decision-making.  I was obviously well aware of the link between poor dietary choices and inflammation in my body.  But what was new to me was the link between poor dietary choices and brain fog and the downward spiral of poor decision making that results from that brain fog.  It turns out then when our body is inflamed, so is our brain, though we rarely recognize it because we feel so out of sorts.  And when our brain is inflamed, with brain fog being a tell-tale symptom, we tend to make decisions differently.  Instead of making decisions with long term benefits and strategic goals in mind, we make decisions that result in shorter term gratification.  And those shorter term types of decisions tend to be self-fulfilling.  Eat the leftover cookies as a treat on a long ride in the car rather than avoid them, then suffer even more and make more bad choices.  It’s not just a mental cycle; there’s biochemistry behind it, too, which is what makes it so challenging to undo.

So, getting back to treating that pony….  I wasn’t feeling well, and I made a decision to feed her a treat which made her happy in that moment and I was happy too because I made her happy.  But when I’m feeling well, I don’t succumb to that look from those big brown eyes, and instead her manners are better and our relationship can be focused on expanding her skills rather than me fending off her attempts to get in my pockets.  And I am happy because she’s a better pony than she was before.

Now that I understand the impact that poor dietary choices have on my decision-making, I see a lot of patterns in my life that perhaps I can now reshape.  I’m more motivated than ever to stay clean!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

Stories like this one populate my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

At the groundbreaking ceremony for the Temple Grandin Equine Center at Colorado State University, a simulated tour of the new facility was shown.  On a wall was a mural with Temple Grandin’s quote, “The world needs different kinds of minds to work together.”   When Dr. Grandin herself spoke at the ceremony, she did so from her own experience as someone on the autism spectrum.  She says she thinks visually, which allows her to create novel but effective concepts for livestock handling facilities, but when it comes to building those facilities she needs help from people who think analytically/mathematically to do the mechanical designs and she needs help from people who think in words to write the books that share her concepts more broadly.

The facility that will bear her name, and the program that has already born her name for a few years, strives to integrate the three tenets of a land-grant university - education, research, and outreach – around equine assisted services for therapy.  In addition to how equine-assisted services have positive impacts on children on the autism spectrum, faculty research has also looked at positive impacts on seniors with dementia.  Additional target audiences include veterans with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and physically challenged individuals.

The groundbreaking ceremony was very sanitary, with shiny new hard hats and gold-painted shovels used by dignitaries to move pre-piled dirt from one place to another inside an arena next door to the site of the eventual Center.  No horses were present, nor was there any portrayal beyond a photograph of the often profound difference that equine-assisted services for therapy can make in a client’s life.  The organizing philosophy of the Center seems to be to put structure around research on equine assisted services for therapy and structure in the form of a specially designed facility around the educational and outreach arms of the university’s mission as it relates to equine-assisted services for therapy.

In casual conversation I learned that there was minor disgruntlement about Dr. Grandin’s name being on the Center.  Dr. Grandin is an advocate for humane slaughter, while many in the equine community are against slaughter.  Her words in her remarks ‘we need all kinds of minds’ are so important not only globally but also within our own community.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

I grew up in the temperate part of Oregon, so I had early experience in my life with gray skies and damp ground conditions.  I didn’t start to raise pastured livestock, though, until I lived in the dry high country of Colorado where rocky ground and powdery snow were common conditions.  The contrast in environments I’ve lived in helps me understand that management strategies vary, by necessity, from place to place.  My first visit to Indiana and Ohio showed me again that management does vary depending on where you are.

I bought my first pony more than two decades ago, and I was fortunate to have a pony mentor to help me learn how to manage my new hooved friend in my Colorado environs.  My grass was seasonal, and when it was green, it was rich.  Hay was an important food stuff for many months of the year.  My mentor showed me that dry lots were a crucial part of managing ponies where we lived.  That continues to be the case even today where I am in South Dakota.

Dry lots have several advantages in managing ponies.  Ponies are such easy keepers that they often can’t handle living full time on pasture with its ready access to food.  At the same time, regular movement is crucial to ponies’ mental and physical health.  And it is rare that a human partner can provide that sort of movement through work as British native breeds traditionally had.  We just don’t have lifestyles that allow us to use our ponies day in, day out, all year round.  Dry lots – large bare paddocks – allow ponies to wander about but not have constant access to grazing.  (The track system advocated by Jaime Jackson and others has similar advantages.)  Dry lots also allow ponies to be kept in herds where important social interactions can occur.

On my visit to the Midwest, I saw how several ponies that I bred were housed in that environment of deep soil and humid weather.  The ponies were kept for most of the day in stalls.  Their owners had learned that this was the best way to manage their easy keepers and still have them in their lives. 

When I was more naive I might have been horrified that the ponies spend so much time in their stalls.  Why were they not on dry lots where they could move about and reap the benefits that movement and intimate interaction with other equines provide?  Then I saw a ‘dry lot’ and it was anything but dry; more like a mud lot this time of year!  In some places, I suspect the only way you can have a dry lot there like I am used to here is to pave it, which of course has consequences that aren’t ideal for equines either.  Instead the ponies I saw were given daily access for several hours to a covered arena with equine-appropriate footing where they could run around, often with equine companions. 

Once when I advocated a dry lot as a management tool to another pony acquaintance, she was horrified by my stance.  She had had a pony once in a dry lot that had grown weeds, and the pony had been poisoned by one of them.  Obviously a dry lot in one part of the country may be a good management tool for ponies, but it isn’t necessarily a good tool somewhere else.  Other strategies are needed to deal with the mental and physical health of easy keepers.

I am grateful for having the opportunity to visit the Midwest and see how some ponies are kept there.  I visited in winter, and I suspect that management strategies vary around the year (and certainly by location and owner).  I am thankful for the owners of my ponies who have put so much thought into finding situations where their ponies can be healthy and content and still be part of their lives.  They are blessings in my life, just as are the ponies in their care.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

More stories like this one about the practicalities of owning ponies can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The other day I was talking to a master teamster, and when our conversation neared its conclusion, he asked if I was going out to put harness on my horses after I hung up.  Alas, that wasn’t my plan.  I then shared with him that when my life changed last year, I had sold all my dead-broke ponies.  My attention now is on bringing one back into work who’d had a few years off to have foals in hopes of creating my next working partner.  I clarified that I knew there’s no such thing as dead-broke, and he quickly assured me he knew what I meant.  He realized recently that all his horses who knew their job in their sleep were nineteen years old or older, so going out to work right now meant going out to train.  We agreed that it isn’t so much about the physical work for which they need training.  Instead they need mental work; they need to be reminded about the mindset of working safely and reliably.

I decided that to bring my pony back into work we would commence with ridden work before revisiting harness work.  It was the right choice since it quickly exposed that indeed it is her mind that most needs attention.  Something about motherhood convinced her that she knows best, and I suppose that is true where the safety of her foals was concerned.  In fact that was indeed the assignment I had given her.  Now, though, I have had to explain to her that in our working relationship, I will have a say. 

I received a gift of a small book from a Fell Pony friend.  Reading it, I had been entertained through the first 80 pages, but I suspected at some point I would get even more out of it.  Sure enough, the author eventually came around to talking about mental work.  The key, he says, to working with animals is to engage with them mentally not just physically.  More importantly, that mental engagement should be one of equal footing, not superior to inferior as we humans often do to the animals in our lives.  We must recognize that they are aware of our thoughts at some level, and the more honestly we recognize that and utilize our thoughts in our relationship, the more profound the relationship becomes.

I have no problem with this concept of engaging with animals on equal terms mentally.  I have spent the better part of the last two decades seeing more of my animals than of people, so it has been fairly easy to establish communication with them.  I do have a long way to go, though.  And my mare reminds me daily on our rides both where I am now and what is possible if I keep training myself.  Two or three times each day on our rides, she catches me thinking something and she alters her movement to reflect my thought, whether changing gait or line of travel away from ice or, worse, finding something more interesting to do since my mind has wandered.  When I realize what she has done, I collect my thoughts and reengage in the task at hand and endeavor to keep my mind on what we’re doing.  That she is so tuned into my thoughts is a reminder of how much potential there is in our relationship if I were to be as aware as she is.

My master teamster friend said he was headed out to feed hay to his cattle with a gelding put to the hay sled.  The gelding knew where to stop for him to fork off the hay and when to start up again, obviously fit mentally for that job.  I was headed out, in contrast, to do a chore related to my breeding program.  My master teamster friend kindly acknowledged the challenge of actively breeding while also trying to put horses to work regularly; there are rarely enough hours in the day for both.  For sure, I may not get training done as quickly as I might if putting my ponies to work were my only job, but my motto is that if I just show up each day, in time we make visible progress.  And showing up daily is the most important thing right now for the mental work we need to do.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can read more musings like this one in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

It would be dishonest to say I watched the entire movie.  But when I learned that Pit Pony existed, it was immediately on my must-see list.  While the movie features Sable Island Ponies being used in underground coal mines in Nova Scotia, the movie nonetheless had several Fell Pony connections for m

My Welsh/Shetland cross put to a manure sled

One of those connections was a DNA study done about ten years ago by Dr. Gus Cothran that included both Sable Island and Fell ponies. The study investigated the genetic diversity of the various equine populations in or related to native Canadian breeds.  The study found, for the Sable Island equines, that they were more related to Nordic pony breeds than Mountain and Moorland breeds and that the Sable Island equines were highly inbred.

The Wikipedia entry calls them Sable Island horses.  Other than having the height of a pony (13-14 hands), they are considered to have a horse phenotype (physical form and structure, behavior, etc.) Their history certainly suggests that their origin is in horse breeds; their short stature is due to adverse environmental conditions.  Haflingers are another pony-like breed that are often said to have a horse phenotype, though in my experience, there is sufficient diversity in that breed that allows some individuals to be more pony-like and others more horse-like.  The equines in the movie looked to me to be more on the pony end of the spectrum, but of course it is unlikely any of them were Sable Island equines since the Sable Island population is feral so unlikely to be available for use on a movie set.

The reason that I couldn’t watch all of the movie also has a Fell Pony connection.  In fact, I started the movie one night and had to shut it off and come back to it another night when I had the strength to finish watching it.  A recurring theme in the movie brought back to me a story that my friend Joe Langcake told me about a family he knew from his days delivering milk with a Fell Pony pulling a milk float (cart).  The father of the family worked in a mine whose shafts went down then out under the North Sea.  After a mine explosion (I would guess in the 1930s), the father didn’t come home.  The tunnel in which the explosion occurred was bricked shut immediately after the explosion to keep the remainder of the mine safe.  A few weeks later the brick wall was taken down, and the father of the family was found on the other side, deceased, and had left a note.  He apparently had been able to escape from the rubble but found his exit to safety blocked by the brick wall.  Perhaps it was Joe’s telling, but that story will be with me forever.

Joe also told me many stories of training small unregistered Fell Ponies as pit ponies when he was a boy.  Then I learned a different angle connecting Fells to pit ponies in Roy B. Charlton’s book A Lifetime with Ponies.   Charlton tells of how his Fell Ponies were crossed with Shetland and Welsh ponies to create the perfect sized pony for the pits.  My first pony was a Shetland/Welsh cross with an incredible work ethic that I crossed on my Fells, so I have had firsthand experience with what working with a pit pony might have been like.  I completely understand the love that so many miners had for their ponies, a feeling well conveyed in the Pit Pony movie.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

A related story called “Colorado Pit Pony” can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

Between April 1860 and October 1861, the Pony Express carried 35,000 pieces of mail by horseback between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California.  The service halved the time it took for mail to be carried between those cities by stagecoach at that time.  I didn’t know until this holiday season that mail is still carried on the Pony Express route each year.  I learned about the Pony Express Christmas Card Ride when friends received a Christmas card stamped with that information.

The National Pony Express Association (NPEA) organizes a re-ride annually, alternating westbound and eastbound.  The envelope my friends received was carried from Douglas to Glendo in Wyoming.  An acquaintance of theirs is a devoted member of the NPEA and participated in this year’s re-ride and sent the card.

I had always assumed that the ‘pony’ in Pony Express was more colloquial than accurate, but I was wrong.  The height of the 400 horses purchased for the original service averaged 14.2h in height.  On the eastern end of the route Morgans and Thoroughbreds were commonly stocked, while on the western end mustangs were more typical.

Riders had to weigh 125 pounds or less.  Each rider traveled about 75 miles, with horses averaging 15 miles each.  Riders switched horses at stations along the route at distances depending on terrain.  The service was terminated when telegraph service made it obsolete.

Despite being relatively short-lived, the Pony Express has an out-sized place in American western lore.  As one example, the newsletter of the Fell Pony Society of North America is called the Fell Pony Express.  And I have named my own trips to the mailbox similarly.  I admire the horsemen and women who support the NPEA and make re-rides happen so that I get to see an envelope carried on the historic route!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

When I made the decision to move to a place where the ponies would run on a very large pasture, I wondered how it would change our relationship.  Previously, for nine months of the year, they lived at home in paddocks where they saw me multiple times a day. They regularly greeted me at the fence when I came outside, usually to feed them.  The other three months of the year, they ran on a large pasture in a willow bottom with a river.  While they didn’t meet me at the fence on a regular basis, they did usually come when I called.  I wondered, when they are able to extensively graze all through the winter on a much larger pasture, would they still be interested in my company?

We have been in this new place just three months, but I have an answer to my question so far.  Before when at pasture, I only was with them twice a day briefly.  Here, I live at the foot of their pasture, so they hear my comings and goings easily.  And more often than not, when I show up at the barn to do morning chores, my ponies are at the gate, waiting to greet me when I arrive.  Other times of the day I sometimes see them at a distance, so I know they aren’t always at the gate and I know they aren’t always within view of the barn.  It is humbling to think they think enough of me to come in to be with me as often as they do.

The evening of this Christmas Eve, I was pondering that it is the first such holiday night that I have spent alone (by choice; I could have gone out).  Yet I have received emails and messages and texts from friends and family sending their love and care, so I haven’t been alone in that regard.  And tonight at dark when I went to the barn to feed the ponies in the paddocks there, my mares - who could have been elsewhere on that huge pasture - were at the gate.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

When I was studying electrical engineering in college, about halfway through my course work, I got stuck.  In his lectures and in his text book, I could not understand what my electronics professor was saying.  Since that class was pretty fundamental to earning my degree, this was near-crisis stuff.  I spent hours holed up in the library studying my notes, re-reading the text, and watching and rewatching recordings of lectures.  Slowly the subject matter began to make sense.  I had to look at things at the most basic level. I had to look at how electrons move.  How electrons move determines how circuits work and then computers and phones and other devices and then the apps that run on them.

While electrical engineering is no longer a regular part of my days, the movement of electrons is ever-present.  When an electron moves, energy moves, and when many electrons move together, energy fields are formed and transformed.  Not much surprises me anymore where energy fields are concerned. They are around me in infinite ways, including in my ponies and other living things and even in the landscape where we live.

These two were at the fence in front of my house after sensing electrons in motion.

So I wasn’t really surprised by what I found when I emerged from my house late in the day. It was, nonetheless, incredibly touching.  I’d had an emotional melt-down after receiving a few emails, and tears flowed as I contemplated them while cleaning house.  The first being I encountered when I went out the door was my dog, and it was clear she wanted to be with me. She always does when I am upset; I often call her and others like her that I have owned my emotional barometers.  Outside, two of my ponies were at the fence as close to the house as they could get, and a third called to me immediately.  Then a barn cat that has adopted me came to me from her hiding place.  How did they all know that I was upset?  Their knowing has happened enough times now that I no longer consider it a coincidence.

Emotions are energy in motion.  The amazing thing about energy in motion is that it can travel long distances and it can do so nearly instantaneously.  My animal companions had sensed a shift in my energy field.  Not only that, but they chose to respond.  It was humbling that they made that choice.  Of course I began to feel better.  And I remembered with gratitude those long hours of study about how electrons move.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More stories like this one can be found in my book The Partnered Pony: What’s Possible, Practical, and Powerful with Small Equines, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.

The headline caught my attention because as a breeder I work with foals regularly.  The headline said foals need a break every once in a while from training.  I pride myself on paying close attention to how my foals react to training, noting what they understand and don’t and what they find stressful and don’t.  I looked forward to learning what the research behind the headline said.

Researchers in Australia and New Zealand worked with twenty Thoroughbred foals 8 weeks of age and younger.  They found that the foals exhibited stress responses more often when they were worked daily versus when they were given a day off every two days. (1)  This finding made me cock my head with surprise.  This pattern wasn’t one I’d ever witnessed when working with the more than two dozen foals that I’ve shared life with, so I needed to learn more.

The research was specifically about halter and leading training, and the stress response that was noted was biting the handlers.  “[Foals] under 8 weeks of age showed a remarkable increase in biting during the fourth consecutive day of training….  Study foals that were older than 8 weeks did not show an increase in biting behavior, even on the fourth consecutive day of training.”  This information still wasn’t within my range of experience working with pony foals.

Then I found something I personally found alarming.  The training sessions for these youngsters were up to 25 minutes long.  Really?  In my opinion, you would ruin a Fell Pony foal’s mind working with them for that long at that age.  I usually wait until they are two year olds before I ask for that prolonged focus on a regular basis.  No wonder, in my opinion, the handlers were getting bit.  Before my foals are a year old, if I work with them for more than five minutes at a time, it’s unusual unless I’m trimming hooves.  It just isn’t necessary nor productive, in my opinion.  And I’m not alone. I have colleagues who train ponies who use similar approaches. It’s no wonder, from my perspective, that the researchers found the foals needed a break from that training regimen. 

I agree that foals need breaks from training.  For instance, once mine have basic leading, yielding, and foot handling skills, usually by about 3 weeks of age, I quit working them daily until they are 3 months old.  I might occasionally give them a quick refresher, but I haven’t found it necessary nor productive to continue daily work.  Repetition has its place, but it can also be overdone with ponies, in my experience.  I do agree that as foals get older, they can handle longer and more frequent training sessions.

I also found the use by the researchers of biting behavior as indicative of a stress response to be potentially problematic.  I agree that biting can occur as a stress response, but I’ve also experienced it as a playful act.  It is common for foals to bite each other when they are frisky or when they’re being aggressive with a herd mate.  And foals may also respond to being scratched by people in favorite places by returning the grooming favor by nibbling as they would with another pony unless trained to do otherwise.  The article I read was a summary of the research, so I wasn’t able to review the research in depth to understand how these nuances in biting behavior were addressed.

I have never worked with a Thoroughbred, much less a foal of that breed, so I don’t know whether they can handle longer training sessions at younger ages than ponies can.  However, this research is important for all of us who train foals.  It reminds us to make sure we pay attention to stress responses in our charges, no matter how they manifest, and that we time our training sessions to keep stress to a minimum. 

1. Lesté-Lasserre, Christa.  “Researchers: Young Foals in Halter Training Need Frequent Days Off,” thehorse.com, article #181488, 11/14/19.

Calista messing with the gate, again!

I seem to go through phases with my ponies where gates are a topic of conversation, as in I close them and a pony opens them, repeatedly, for several days, until I figure out how to solve the problem.  Most of the time I figure out which pony is the culprit, sometimes indirectly, sometimes by direct observation. 

I seem to have conquered the current spate of gate conversations, but only after having my four youngsters out on the ranch road once and in a paddock where they weren’t supposed to be twice more.  I even watched one of the weanlings go up a pile of dirt and jump the remaining three feet of fence to gain freedom (her mother was the attraction, weaning the problem to be solved!)  Calista was the gate opener, breaking two different hasps until I got one she couldn’t foil (at least so far!)

Madie has also been demonstrating her gate opening prowess.  She’s in a paddock with a heavy wooden gate.  It swings nicely on its hinges and falls shut but must then be latched.  One day while I was haltering Madie’s paddock mate away from the gate, which I had not latched, I heard the gate fall shut.  I turned around and watched Madie push the gate open with her nose and let it fall shut then push it open again and let it fall shut.  She was clearly demonstrating for my benefit that she understood how the gate worked.  It was so hilarious that I shot video of Madie’s routine!

Madie demonstrating her gate-opening prowess

The intelligence and sense of humor of my ponies I find endlessly entertaining.  It’s probably not something everyone enjoys, but they make my days more interesting, and for that I’m thankful!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019

More entertaining stories about ponies can be found in my book The Partnered Pony, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.