Robinsons Blog

Flies have to be the most annoying part of summer, but they don’t have to put a negative on what would otherwise be the best part of the year. Even if your horse suffers from sweet itch, a good specialist fly rug can ease the irritation enough to let summer be the horse’s favourite time of year too.

When picking a fly rug you should go for something that’s light weight and super airy so your horse doesn’t sweat up underneath it, but one that suits your horse’s specific needs. This might mean that you can’t get away with a cheap basic one and really need to go all out and get an expensive one with more coverage. You can pick a basic fly rug up pretty cheaply to help protect your horse in the field. The majority of these are full neck and the same design as your average full neck turnout rug with cross surcingles and a tail flap. These are fine for basic fly protection on horses that don’t have sweet itch and aren’t too bothered by flies.

For the sensitive types who make more of a fuss over flies and owners who want to protect their horse a bit more, there are rugs with extra protection built in. You can get some with a full belly panel instead of cross surcingles, like on the Masta Mesh Fly Sheet which prevents flies from landing on the horse’s underside and irritating them there. You can also get them with UV protection and even a waterproof top panel such as on the Performance Maxi Flow rug so if there’s a summer shower your horse and his rug don’t get soaked and left soggy.

Then there’s the horse with sweet itch and other skin allergies affected by flies and the sun. These are the hardest to rug properly, they need extra protection from the flies and their itching, and tend to destroy rugs much faster than horses without sweet itch and allergies due to them rubbing against things and ripping the rugs. Horses who have super sensitive skin and burn easily also need a special design of rug.

Ideally you want to make horses with sweet itch comfortable so they’re hardly itchy and don’t feel the need to rub, so preserving your rug. For these cases you can get tightly fitting rugs with complete belly and chest wraps and a full wrap around tail flap such as the Anti Eczema Sheet. A rug like this helps stop any flies getting anywhere near skin that’s easily irritated. This along with good fly spray and careful turnout management can help stop the itching and stop the horse rubbing the rug. The rugs that are most beneficial to these horses tend to cost a bit more too but it’s worth it to keep your horse happy.

Horses that burn easily or have other sun and fly affected skin conditions also need a quality rug like the one mentioned above. This should have UV protection and would ideally be in a darker colour but with good ventilation and wicking properties to make sure he’s comfortable.

Fly fringes are great for the average fly affected horse and some even come with built in ears such as the turnout fly and ear mask to protect two sensitive areas at once.

Full fly masks are good for even more sensitive horses who want more fly protection as there’s no way a fly can get near their eyes. You can also get these designed for riding in such as Net Relief with Ears which the horse has excellent vision through and also ear protection built in. For the horse with sunburn, sweet itch and other conditions, a full fly mask with ears is the best way to go. The Field Relief mask comes with a removable muzzle protector too to protect further against sun burn and has UV protection to look after sensitive skin.

A combination of a good fly rug and mask should keep your horse happy and as irritation free as possible, especially if you think carefully about what he needs and tailor your rug shopping to him.

Its spring and the start of the show season, which for people new to showing can be daunting as you work out what classes your horse can do, how to turn him out and what to wear yourself. This will give a rough guide to what classes there are and a general idea of turnout for both you and your horse.

Mountain and Moorland classes are well known and popular, with any of the nine hairy native type ponies who can be registered fitting into this. Welsh ponies, Dartmoors, Connemara ponies, and Shetlands are welcome in this class. In small local shows, your horse is unlikely to have to be registered, or full bred but it is always advisable to check each particular show’s rules. Most native type horses are kept natural, with a full mane and tail, and no trimming, but some breeds do permit a bit of tidying. If unsure, check out your horse’s breed society website.

There are also show pony classes usually divided by height. The type of horse who can enter this is usually fine built and pretty, normally a native crossed with a finer breed. Trimming of any hairy bits is advisable, so ears, muzzle and heels should all be tidy. The horse should be plaited through its mane and forelock and have a pulled tail.

Another well known class is Cob class. At larger shows these are divided into show cobs and traditional cobs. Show cobs are trimmed up, have their legs clipped and are plaited or more commonly hogged. They should also have their tails pulled and cut straight to just below the hock. Traditional cobs should have as much mane and tail as possible, and have full feather. They shouldn’t really be trimmed but a bit of tidying around the ears and muzzle can create a neater appearance. Both types should be stocky and well built, not too tall and have good manners. Around 15hh is about ideal for a cob class.

Hunter classes can be divided into 4 sections at larger shows, small, lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight, and classed using height as well. At small shows, classes may be combined, and are sometimes generalised to hunter type. For this class, your horse should be smartly turned out, with plaited mane, pulled and straight cut tail and trimmed heels, ears and muzzle. There are also working hunter classes, divided into lightweight and heavyweight and then again by height. The horse is required to jump in these classes, and turnout and type of horse is the same as ridden hunter. You’re also allowed a few blemishes on a working hunter as knocks and scrapes are expected on the hunting field.

Arab classes can be entered by full Arabs, part bred and Anglo Arabs, but are often separated into the different types. Full Arabs should be kept natural, with a full mane and tail. Some people hog the mane from behind the poll a few inches down the neck to emphasize the necks arch but this isn’t essential. Part bred Arabs should be plaited, trimmed and have their tail straight and pulled.

The hack classes are usually entered by thoroughbreds or similar breeds with a tall and elegant stature. They are plaited, trimmed and have the tail pulled and cut straight. These horses should be really well mannered and obedient, as you will be severely marked down for disobedience.

Most other classes overlap with these, for example in a coloured class, you turn your horse out as you should for his breed or type, so a traditional cob would still be natural and a show cob would still be pulled, plaited and trimmed. Equitation classes are the same, as are novelty classes.

Tack

For most classes, a well fitting straight cut saddle is ideal as it allows the shoulder free movement and shows your horse off better. For hunter classes, a working hunter saddle is better. Pick a girth to suit your horse’s colour, so a white girth on greys, brown girth on chestnuts etc. Your tack should ideally be brown but black is ok at local level shows or if it suits your horses colouring better. If you have to use a numnah, make sure it matches your horse and tack and is inconspicuous.

Your bridle should suit your horse’s head and the classes you are showing in. A hunter and cob bridle should have a wide, flat noseband and browband, while a dainty show pony or Arab should have a similarly dainty bridle with rolled noseband and, dependant on your class, a smart ribbon covered decorative browband. Most novice and junior classes require a snaffle bridle, but classes like ridden hunter and cob prefer a double bridle or Pelham. Working hunter allows different bits and martingales, but if it comes down to two horses, the one with more traditional tack will be favoured. Also no change of tack is allowed between the jumping and showing phase of this class apart from the essential removal of any boots your horse is wearing.

For pure Arabs, a rolled Arab slip is correct for in hand with a leather lead. For foals and young stock, a smart head collar or foal slip should be used, or a white webbing halter. Some mountain and moorland types can be shown in a rope halter at any age. Any other types should be shown in a riding bridle with reins or an inhand bridle with a leather coupling and lead. Riding bridles shouldn’t be used with couplings.

Use your tack to the benefit of your horse’s appearance. It goes without saying that it should all be clean and in good condition, but you can also pick specific styles to enhance your horse. For example if your horse has a long back, a long saddle will make this appear shorter, where as a short saddle will only make the back appear even longer. For a horse with a long face, try to choose a suitable wider noseband to shorten his appearance.

Now for you…

A lot of classes overlap with what they want the rider to wear, which is great as it means less rushing about getting changed and less money having to be spent on different outfits.

Ridden Classes

First off are jackets. For a lot of classes, a good quality, well fitting tweed jacket is required. Mountain and moorland, hunter and cob specify this as the only jacket permitted. Hack classes give tweed as a specific for men and an option for women, along with black and blue show jackets, which are more popular and correct. Arab classes give the option of tweed or blue show jackets. Show pony classes specify that a navy jacket must be worn, but most others allow tweed. Classes that overlap such as coloured, lead rein and equitation require you to wear what is right for your horses type so if you take your mountain and moorland in equitation, turn out as if for a m & m class.

Most show classes require you wear a shirt and tie, with some classes allowing stripy shirts but most requiring a plain shirt that complements your jacket. Your tie should also co-ordinate with your jacket, any button hole, browband or hair scrunchie you choose to wear should enhance the overall appearance but not be so eyecatching that it detracts from the horse and rider themselves. Judge’s tend to prefer a neat and tidy, traditional look and disapprove of excess glitter and sparkle that can creep into the showing world.

Jodhpur specifications vary between classes, but a neutral colour like beige is allowed in most classes. Canary is allowed in m & m, hunter, show pony and Arab, and hack allows yellow and cream as well. Cob classes specify that beige must be worn. As a general rule, under 16’s should wear short boots and jodhpur clips and over 16’s should wear long boots and garter straps if the boots have no rear zip. A few classes specify brown to be worn, such as show pony classes but you should wear what suits the rest of your outfit and your horse.

Your hair should be tied back and in a hairnet, this creates a neat and tidy look. Jewellery shouldn’t be worn apart from tie or stock pins and gloves should be worn that tie in with your outfit. Leather show canes matching your outfit and tack add the final touch.

In hand classes

Generally for in hand classes you should wear a tweed jacket or waistcoat, a complementing shirt and tie and if you can, trousers and short boots or shoes. Trousers should be a contrasting colour to your horse so light for a horse with dark legs and dark for a horse with light legs. Riding attire is allowed but looks less professional.

Gloves should be worn, and a cane can be carried.

For any class, ridden or in hand it is recommended you wear a properly fitted, current standard riding hat with a harness. This is preferably blue velvet. You shouldn’t be marked down for being safe over wearing traditional headwear. Beaglers and bowlers are traditional for some classes such as hunter but offer no protection.

These are the basics of what turnout is expected of your and your horse, however there are variations and what is acceptable at local level showing would get you marked down at higher levels.

If you aren’t sure, ask someone you know who is experienced in the show ring, or go and watch before you go and see what is commonly worn. Above all, the main aim is for you and your horse to have fun and maybe even win something, and at a low level turnout isn’t as strict so don’t worry about getting it too perfect.

Worming is a routine procedure on most yards, with many insisting on all horses being wormed at the same time to help ensure chances of worm problems are kept to a minimum. If you don’t keep up to date on worming your horse, using the right wormers for the right times of year this can result in your horse developing a worm burden, which is the name given to a group of parasites living inside and off your horse.

This can cause weight loss and poor body condition, colic and even death in extreme cases. Your horse will not be receiving the complete nutritional value of what he intakes, which can cause deficiencies such as anaemia, as well as being a waste of food and money on your part. This can also cause stunted growth in young animals. With a proper worming routine, these can be easily prevented and ensure your horse is happy and healthy, and gaining all he needs from his food intake.There are 3 different types of parasites in horses that can be controlled, roundworms, tapeworms and bots.

Round worms are most common with many different types, the most common being Small Redworm which burrow into the intestine lining and hatch into adults. If they do hatch out, they then lay eggs to be passed out of the horse in faeces and develop into larvae in the field, to be ingested by another horse. If they don’t hatch into adults and remain encysted on the intestinal lining, they can become so numerous that they block the intake of nutrients through the intestinal wall, causing illness and weight loss. These can then hatch as a mass around the end of winter and cause severe illness and even death.

The most common species of tapeworm is becoming ever more apparent in UK horses. These worms are found in the space between the intestines and do not have a sex, but have separate sections containing eggs which as the eggs mature are detached and passed out in the horses’ droppings, releasing the eggs. These eggs are then digested by a certain type of mite, and eventually by the horse to start the cycle again. These can cause hair loss, severe colic and death.

Bot eggs are seen on the horse before they are ingested, on the forelegs and neck. They look like tiny yellow and cream specks, and either crawl to the horses’ mouth to be ingested when they develop into larvae or are eaten by the horse. These then live in the stomach and are eventually passed out and develop into adults once out of the horse. They can cause stomach ulcers and damage to the mouth.

 Wormer ingredients 

There are several different types of worming drugs for different parasites. No one wormer can control them all so a worming programme incorporating more than one type of wormer through the year is a good idea for better cover. 

What to worm against and when

Main worming times tend to be around spring and autumn or winter. Small red worms should be wormed against around November time. This also ties in with worming against bots, which should be done after the first real frost. A Moxidectin wormer will treat both types of worm. Around February you can worm again for encysted small red worm and this will help prevent a spring outbreak of encysted larvae.

In spring, so around April time and again in autumn, around October is the right time to worm for tapeworms. You can do this with a single dose of a Praziquantel wormer. 

If you use other types of wormer, double doses can be needed, or courses of wormer. If you ask your vet, they should be able to advise on what is best for your horse. Be wary of under dosing your horse, follow weight guidelines carefully and if in doubt, a small overdose is better than under dosing.

Resistance

If you don’t expose the worms with enough drugs to kill them, this can build immunity in them which will be passed on to offspring, creating a resistant line. These can be very hard to treat, and some strains of worm are already resistant to certain types of wormer.

Resistance can also be created when a select few worms are immune to the wormer. The weak parasites are killed off and the ones left to breed are the ones with immunity, creating more immune worms.

Wormers with widespread known resistance are Pyrantel, Fenbendazole and Mebendazole based, so unless advised otherwise by your vet, these may not be ideal to routinely worm with.

If you use worm counts as part of your control programme, you may not need to worm as often as you can see how much of a worm burden your horse has. This means the parasites are less likely to build immunity to wormers as they are exposed to them less often. However these don’t tell you how much larvae your horse is carrying, so encysted red worms and similar remain without you knowing. As these are one of the more dangerous worm burdens, this needs careful thought before being relied on as an accurate worm control method.

Worm control management

If you’re worming the whole yard at the same time for the same parasites, worm management can be easy. There are a few extra things you can do to help as well.

Good grass management is also needed to help prevent the spread of worms, so poo picking the fields at least a few times a week is a must. If you keep on top of it, it’s far easier too. Also making sure that new horses are wormed and kept in for 48 hours after before they go out on the same grass is a good idea to kill any worm burden they may have. Try not to overstock fields as this can increase the worm burden of the land and therefore the amount your horse ingests.

If you can, grazing other livestock on the land and rotating fields with them helps reduce worm burdens as animals like cows and sheep destroy the larvae naturally as they ingest it, cleaning the area for horses. This isn’t always practical but a good idea if you can do it!  Worming correctly can be a bit of an art, so if you’re unsure consult your vet for advice and do plenty of reading up to make sure you’re doing it right.

Any one who looks after and/or rides horses will know that it is harder work than it looks, and can even make you break a sweat in the coldest of winters. But have you ever thought how many calories you actually burn during everyday horse chores and riding? An average horse owner or loaners night is pretty much taken up with yard work and riding. The following shows a guideline night and what you might burn off doing everyday yard work. Any calorie counts mentioned are approximate and based on you being about 10 stone 7 lbs, but can give you a general idea of how strenuous and hard work having horses can actually be!

Getting to the Yard

Even if you drive, this counts as calorie burning!!! Maybe not very many but still a few. When you drive, per half an hour behind the wheel you burn 68 calories. Most of us don’t live that far away from our horses but still, it’s something! If you bike it to the yard at a leisurely pace you can burn 204 calories per half an hour. This is great for your leg muscles which is fab for riding and also warms you up nicely on cold days. You’re even doing something for the planet by biking it, brill! You can use your horsey Hi Viz to make sure you’re seen if it’s going dark, but get the proper bike lights as well.

Doing the Hard Work

When you arrive at the yard, the first thing you might do is muck out.

A skip out won’t burn as many calories obviously, but a full muck out, lifting the whole bed and sweeping out, then laying a new bed can be quite strenuous. You have to put some major effort in and not stand about chatting, but for half an hour of proper strenuous mucking out you can burn 222 calories. For that you could have burned off a snickers bar. Which, if you’re like me, you may eat after mucking out to re-fuel. But still, at least you’ve burnt it off before eating it! Then you have to take your wheel barrow. Depending on how fast you walk, and how many barrows you have to take this could also burn off quite a few calories. Unless you’re so unlucky to have a muck heap a good mile and half away, most of us aren’t going to take half an hour to dump a barrow, but if you did, walking at 2.5 mph (which is slow and leisurely) you burn 102 calories. At 3 mph, moving your barrow you burn 136 calories per half hour and at 3.5mph you burn 153 calories per half hour.

Over a week you probably do spend over half an hour dumping muck (how scary is that!!) so if you make sure you do it with full effort and power walking, you might burn enough calories to count. If you have a few horses or work at a yard where you have to muck out several each day, this can actually really add up.

The same counts apply for carrying hay nets and water, any load under 11.3 kilograms can burn the same calories as taking your barrow does.

After that, if your horse is turned out you can get some exercise catching him. Some horses ruin the calorie burning benefits of catching them by being good, coming when they’re called and standing there waiting to be caught. Others seem to realise that you chasing them around a field for half an hour might be good exercise and so try to make sure they give you a work out before you give them one. Walking on grass (or at this time of year on a muddy swamp like surface) is far harder than just a normal walk on a level and solid surface.

If your horse has been turned out, he’s probably going to be muddy which means he needs a good groom. Even if he hasn’t been out or isn’t mucky, groom anyway as its good for your horse and good for you. If you give them a really good groom, with manes, tails, legs and feet included and a good vigorous curry combing, this can take a good while, and between this and getting the tack out and saddling up, you can burn the equivalent of 3 glasses of wine or a can of coke, which is 238 calories.

To burn that much though it does require a good hour’s worth of work, which not everyone can manage time wise but still, at the weekends when you haven’t been at work or school all day this is possible and your horse will love it too!

Riding

Your’s and your horse’s fitness obviously impacts on the amount you can do during a riding session, but with further work you could get to a level of fitness where you can do the most calorie burning work outs daily. For an hour of just walking, provided it is a good walk and not just a plod, you burn 170 calories. Most horses of a decent level of fitness should be able to manage this easily, although they may break a slight sweat.

For the super fit and healthy horse and rider combination, you can try the ultimate calorie burning workout of non-stop trotting for an hour. This is super hard on both horse and rider though, so it may be better to cut it down to half an hour, and have a really good cool down and stretch at the end of the session. An hour’s trotting burns 442 rider calories, so half an hour burns 221, both of which count as a really good work out.

For this you have burned the equivalent of 14.7 carrots, which is the amount your horse should be treated to for trotting for half an hour!

Finishing Off

After your horse is cooled off, rugged up if needed and fed, you burn your last horse related calories getting home. Assuming you’re going home the same way you got to the yard, you can burn the same calories off again.

So, if you are doing all this for one horse, driving to the yard, doing a full half hour muck out, a half hour super good groom and riding a general work out for an hour, you burn off 793 calories which is enough for a medium McChicken Sandwich meal from McDonalds to reward yourself or a healthy lasagne meal, dessert and a small bottle of fizzy drink which doesn’t even amount to what you burned off so you’re still gaining benefits from your hard work!

This calorie burn total is also assuming your horse is good to be caught, you only take ten minutes to do any lifting jobs such as dumping your barrow and haynets and you do plenty of trot in your ride. If you have to add any extras on, such as grooming for longer, cycling to the farm, taking half an hour to catch your horse and any other extra tasks mentioned, you can burn even more! So the next time people say that horse riding is easy and all you do is sit there, you can tell them straight how much hard work it really is!

Coming out of winter your horse is rarely looking his tidiest, whether he is clipped and stable kept, or natural and grass kept. Clipped horses are growing out and often in an in-between stage due to it being too late in the year to re-clip and tidy their coat up. Unclipped horses tend to be hairy and moulting, with most horses having a few stable, grass or mud stains, even those who have full neck rugs seem to manage to get a bit of muck in there somewhere! It’s still too cold for a bath really, unless you’re lucky and have access to warm water and a wash room, but there are other ways you can make your horse look vaguely presentable even if it isn’t show standard.

If you have a hairy beastie who’s currently moulting like mad, using a shedding blade to take some of this coat away can work wonders for appearance. These lift any loose hair from the coat, and should be used gently on round areas, avoiding bony bits like the spine and point of hip. This can be done on any moulting horse or pony whether they live in or out, but be cautious using it on more sensitive breeds such as thoroughbreds as they grow less coat and may find the process uncomfortable.

After shedding, going over the coat with a rubber curry comb to bring any dust and dirt to the top of the coat then brushing the dust off with a dandy brush can work wonders for giving a coat extra shine. This also gets some of the staining off them without having to bath.

For mucky legs, if they are muddy wait for them to dry before brushing the mud off. Washing wet mud off can make the legs and heels cracked as it removes the protective oils from the legs. If your horse suffers from mud fever, there are barrier creams to help prevent this which means you can stop antagonising the problem by having to wash the mud off daily. Washing legs occasionally shouldn’t do any harm though, but in winter try to do it without shampoo or soap, just cold water and dry them afterwards with a towel. This will make your horse look slightly more presentable and like someone owns him, even if he doesn’t end up with sparkling white socks.

A well kept mane and tail look better too, but regular brushing can easily snap hair which can take up to 2 years to grow back so this isn’t recommended. However, going through manes and tails a few times a week with your fingers or a soft body brush can keep them looking neat without thinning them or damaging the hair. Mane and tail sprays can help keep them detangled and easy to maintain daily as well as shinier and sweet smelling.

Natives and Arabs should be kept with a natural mane and tail and untrimmed, but for other breeds a pulled mane and forelock make your horse look far better presented. To pull a mane quickly and neatly, first you should make sure it is tangle free and lay on the side it will be kept on.

The off side is considered correct, however if your horses mane lies neatly and naturally on the near side, this is ok too. Then take the longer underneath hairs in one hand, starting at the poll, and backcomb the other hairs away from them. Wrap them around the comb and pull them out with a sharp tug. This should be done with thin sections and after exercise so the pores on the neck are open and the hairs come out easier. The mane should be about 4-5 inches long after being pulled. If your horse strongly objects to having his mane and forelock pulled, you can get mane thinning combs which give the effect of a pulled mane without the pulling.

To wash a muddy tail in colder weather, get a bucket of warm water and immerse the tail in it, with an assistant holding your horse if he’s unpredictable or you know he’s going to react badly. After a slosh about in the bucket, hold the tail below the dock and spin the tail in circles to dry it off before brushing it. To clean a muddy mane, using a water brush you can wet it slightly and it will appear cleaner when it’s dry, but you shouldn’t soak it as obviously your horse probably won’t appreciate a freezing cold wet neck! Another handy way to clean up your horse’s appearance is to do a bit of trimming to tidy up small sections. Trimming whiskers can be done but your horse does use these for feel so it may not be fair to trim those who live out. Trimming beards tidies up the horses head and can be done with small quiet clippers so the horse is unlikely to object.

As well as this trimming outer ear hair looks neat, being careful not to trim the inner ear hair as your horse uses this hair for protection. Using scissors or trimmers, you can take the wispy bits down a horse’s leg off, even if he has heavy feather that you want to keep, you can give the leg a much neater look by trimming down the leg so all the hairs lay straight and the same length.

You can also get dry shampoo for horses, which is a fab winter stain remedy, although it won’t work as well as bathing. Usually you just spray this on, rub it into the stain then brush it out a few minutes later and the stain has usually at least faded. Use of this as well as good daily grooming can help to keep your horse vaguely the colour he is supposed to be, far easier with a bay than coloureds and greys though!

Keeping feet picked and oiled not only keeps them healthier and means you can check for any bacterial infections and problems but also means they enhance your horses’ appearance further.

All this grooming, shedding, pulling, washing and product applying not only makes your horse appear neater and looking the best he can coming into spring and summer, but also help you make sure you know your horses body, what’s normal and what’s not.

This can help spot rain scald, mud fever and other infections sooner, as well as help you monitor your horses’ weight and mood. This also means that if you show there is less work to be done to get your horse looking show worthy. It’s also great for bonding, and exercise on your part, grooming is hard work!

Before I talk about our forthcoming store at Basingstoke and our reasons behind the way we do store openings, let me apologise for neglecting to write an entry on here for about three months. Yes, it’s been a busy three months but I like to post something on here about once a month. In my absence, regular blog readers have been in Liz’s very capable hands and I hope you’ve found her articles as interesting as I have.

Anyway, that’s not my real reason for writing this piece. We are now frighteningly close to opening our third store, the 22,000 sq ft Basingstoke store. I’ve been teasing members of our Facebook group with pictures of the building as it has taken shape over the last few months but throughout the whole process, we’ve steadfastly refused to answer the one question we’re asked above all others: When will it be open?

We’ve done this for two main reasons. The first one was simply practicality. Back in October, there was so much work to be done to the place and so much can go wrong in the process, we felt it was foolhardy to saddle ourselves with a needless public deadline that we may struggle to hit. You may have noticed that our estimates started with ‘Early 2010′ (which can mean anytime in a 6 month window) which then progressed to ‘Spring 2010′ (3 months) eventually becoming ‘March 2010′ (one month – obviously).

I can now confirm that all along, we wanted to have been open for at least a week before the Easter weekend – and Easter Sale – started. We chose to keep that bit guarded in case the manure hit the fan and we missed that target. We’d be disappointed of course but at least we wouldn’t look like idiots. I assure you that after three openings in seven years, there are always lots of opportunities for manure to hit the fan – many of them outside our control – so I hope you can appreciate our caution.

The second reason we’ve been coy about opening dates stems from our experience of re-opening our Ashton store in 2003. I’ve blogged about this before but let’s just say we learned a lesson that day about how easily you can lose control of a situation when you’re dealing with high levels of anticipation. That was worrying enough but it involved people and systems that were all tried and tested. With a brand new shop you also have brand new staff using mostly brand new systems.

Of course the egotist in me wants us to hold a Grand Opening but my more sensible side accepts that it’s easy enough for us to create hype but it’s more important really that we create something that people want to come back to again and again long after all the bunting has come down. So, there’s no mad opening ceremonies, no minor celebrities, no ceremonial ribbon-cuttings. They’re nice enough and we’ve done all that sort of thing before – that’s another story for another blog entry – but in the end, they do tend to detract from the point of what you’re really trying to do.

So, it seems we’re on a mission to make this opening as boring and as controlled as we can. I’m aware that all this caution may come across as being a little bit dismissive, a bit everything-would-be-fine-if-it-wasn’t-for-the-flaming-customers, taking you for granted. I hope it doesn’t look like that because nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout all of this very logical approach we do not take lightly the very high level of anticipation and goodwill that so many people seem to have about our opening. I must say that we are very mindful that such genuine interest from so many people doesn’t just happen on its own. It means that we must have done things that are appreciated and that we seem to have inspired some affection. To anyone who has ever said anything positive about our arrival in Hampshire, I really do thank you for your support and for your kind words.

From ‘Day 1′, we just really want everyone who visits to feel like the experience is as impressive as we can make it. That means everything running as smoothly as possible and as close as possible to a manageable number of people to avoid it being anything other than fantastic. Yes, we want everyone to say “Wow” on the way in but it’s more important to us that you’re still saying “Wow” as you leave.

To ensure our staff and our systems are ready, this week, we’ll be holding a number of invitation-only days this week for friends and families of our staff, suppliers and press and local mail order customers.

Once we’ve done that, we’ll be opening for real. We’ll deliberately wait until the weekend is out of the way to ensure things don’t get out of hand. So, here it is, I’m guessing probably the main reason you’re reading this. I’ve left it to the end to give myself the chance to tell you all of the above – and thanks for sticking with this for the last 800-odd words, by the way:

We’ll open to the public at 10am on Monday 22nd March.

I really hope you like it! Whatever your thoughts, please let me know what you think once you’ve been.

Thanks,
Paul.

Horse thefts are rare but harrowing when they happen, fortunately putting some extra measures in place to combat potential thieves is relatively simple and inexpensive.

Making sure your horse is passported and micro chipped is a must, as it is a legal requirement now to have a current passport for equines. From July 2009, if you apply for a passport your horse must be micro chipped as well to provide a permanent link between the horse and his passport. This makes it infinitely harder for thieves to re register horses as the passport must be vet approved and they will check for microchips and linking passports. So even if you got your passport before the mandatory micro chipping, you should get your horse chipped and registered for extra caution. You can also get them micro marked, this is a tiny horse shoe mark on your horse which visibly shows that he is micro chipped, sending a warning to thieves before they even try. 

Saddles can now be micro chipped as well, adding security to them. To show they are protected, a small stamp is added and a D ring tag attached to the saddle to show it has been chipped, deterring thieves.

Yard owners who live on site at the livery yard provide a permanent presence which can be enough to put off opportunist thieves. Added security in the form of CCTV is a highly effective deterrent but can be an expensive option. Fake CCTV cameras can be a good option, they look exactly like real ones but cost loads less, and some even have a flashing red light on them to authenticate them to passers by even more. These can prove a great deterrent, but obviously aren’t going to be as useful as a real camera if anything does get taken. Sensor lights which come on when they sense a movement are good too and if you or the yard owner lives on site, these will alert them to someone outside.

Guard dogs can be a great idea, but for safety purposes, if they are genuinely vicious should be chained and kept away from anything or anyone they could do serious damage to, even thieves. Sometimes, a huge dog making a serious racket can be enough to deter someone, as well as dogs being loose on the yard. The thief doesn’t know they’re softies if they’re barking their heads off at him and trying their best to climb the gate to get to him, even if it is just to say hi!

SOLID yard gates with secure padlocks are obviously the ideal, even though plenty of places don’t seem to have them. A yard gate that’s falling off its hinges and wouldn’t keep anyone out is clearly no good and will need replacing. Again, you need to have a chat with liveries and yard owners if you don’t own where your horse is. Gates are an easy and effective deterrent; a thief is going to find it a bit harder to inconspicuously jump the padlocked gate on a horse than just walk straight off the yard through an open space or unprotected gate.

Whatever you do, don’t padlock your stables though! If anything happened, such as a fire, and you weren’t there with your key to let the horses out there would most likely be a fatality. If you turn your horses out day or night make sure fencing is super secure, something most people do anyway to stop the horses escaping, but make sure it can’t be pulled up easily and be especially aware if your horses field is right near a road. Double fencing, with one solid or wire fence on the outside and electric fencing on the inside makes it harder to just take horses from the field, even better if they’re both electric! Just make sure they’re clearly sign posted as being electricified and read up on law requirements to make sure you’ve complied with them.

Regarding tack, rugs and other possessions, as much as it can be unsightly they should be well marked with your identity in a way that is really hard to get off. There are tales of people having rugs stolen off their horses backs in the field which might have been avoided had those rugs been marked with something to identify them. This can even be made to look quite nice, in the form of embroidery of your horses name which even if unpicked leaves a marked patch and if your horse likes a roll, a clean bit! This is removable identification, but is likely to make people think twice about theft.

Similar things can be done to head collars, numnahs, travel boots and other minor possessions. Grooming brushes and similar things can be personalised with yours and your horses names, making it clear who’s they are.

Obviously, your things should be locked securely up and insured. You can get tack lockers if you don’t have a tack room to padlock, which can be adapted by you to either chain to a wall or bolt to the floor so no one can pick them up and carry them off. If there’s nowhere safe to keep your tack at the yard, make sure you take it home with you as most tack insurance will be void if the tack isn’t kept securely but check your house insurance to see if it covers your tack whilst in the house. It often just takes a phone call to add your valuable equestrian equipment to your home policy.

Overall, common sense is the answer to good yard and horse security. Open gates and poorly fenced fields are an invitation to thieves, as are bits of tack left lying about on the yard and unlocked tack rooms and storage spaces. A lot of thieves won’t bother if they can see plenty of deterrents in place; it’s too much effort and risk. Obviously some still will, but by making it as difficult as possible for them makes them less likely to try and more likely to be caught if they do.

The super cold weather we’re all experiencing at the moment combined with your horse spending more time stabled in winter months, makes for a fun recipe of spooks and sharpness. This can potentially mean when you’re riding accidents may be more likely and you might end up in hairy situations more often than you anticipated!

To help control this behaviour, give your horse as much turnout as you can, if you can’t use a field, try to use the arena so he can still stretch his legs and burn off some energy. Lungeing can be a valuable form of exercise in winter, either before you ride to get rid of any initial sharpness or as an alternative form of exercise when riding isn’t an option. The use of a lungeing training aid can also encourage your horse to work in a correct outline and engage his hindquarters without the hindrance of a rider.

If you are able to ride, you may have to take things slightly slower than usual so use this time to work on your horse’s obedience and impulsion. The best way to do this is with transitions, transitions, transitions. Remember that we are all working to have our horses responding to the lightest possible aids whether that is the leg or hand. Any pace and transition you ride should be springy without being rushed and really forwards from your leg. This helps ensure your horse is listening to you, he will burn more energy and it helps to keep you and him really interested in what you’re doing. Plenty of serpentines, transitions, figures of eight and changes of rein are really good for getting your horse listening and then keeping his attention on his work. As well as this, lateral movements such as leg yield are great for keeping your horses mind on you.

Calmers can make a huge difference to your horse’s winter attitude, with loads on the market such as Global Herbs Super Calm and Mag Calm which are a daily supplement to keep your horse relaxed. These paired with regular exercise can really help to keep your horse chilled out and easier to handle. Most calmers manage to do this without dulling your horse or his personality, and just keep him with a controllable level of energy with more of a willingness to listen to you.

Instant calmers are also available, useful for if your horse gets nervous and stressed about a certain situation, such as going to a show, travelling in a horse box or being clipped. You could even use them if your horse is fine being schooled but gets fizzy when hacking; the instructions usually just say feed a few hours before the calming effect is needed as a one off dosage. These can be really useful and can cost less if your horse only needs a calmer as a one off every so often as it means you don’t have to feed it daily at a maintenance level.

Also make sure your horse’s feed isn’t too sugary and starchy. If you have a poor doer, there are still feeds on the market that aid weight gain without fizzing them up, and gut supplements such as Equine Gold help keep your horse digesting to the best of his ability and therefore getting more nutritional value out of his food, keeping weight on.

To help you stay safe through potential fizzy behaviour, you need to be thinking even more than usual about your safety around your horses which should be to a high standard anyway. If you don’t already use one, back protectors are an excellent investment for riding in, with level 3 of EN13158:2009 and BETA 2000 being the latest and highest standard. Despite common belief that back protectors are uncomfortable, restrictive and stiff, new designs and developed technology means that this is no longer the case and many now cater for various body shapes, with women in particular having protectors designed with the feminine shape in mind. There is no reason not to have one, and they can be life savers in some instances.

They are definitely worthwhile, even if you think you have the most laid back, bomb proof horse in the world who only spooks once a year, horses are still prey animals with survival instincts which don’t take your safety into mind.

Obviously riding hats are a must whilst you are riding and it is illegal in the UK for children under the age of 16 to ride on the road without one. When you are handling horses, though it is unfortunately not often seen, it is advisable to wear a hat, especially when leading your horse about, even more so in the ice and snow or if your horse is highly strung. By making sure your hat is up to standard, checked regularly and replaced if ever dropped, you are also increasing your standard of safety around your horses. Also wear good quality gloves when leading and handling as rope burns hurt and if you have to let your horse go because your bare hands can’t keep hold of him, he could end up in a nasty situation which could have been prevented. Also, when you lunge you should wear a riding hat and gloves as well as tough boots, not trainers or similar, these offer little resistance to a horse accidentally stomping on your feet! 

Even though some of these precautions are time consuming, mean you might have to buy something else new and may seem unnecessary, if they were the life saver in a situation, you would be grateful to have used them. In the same way, if you don’t use them and something happens, you are left with the “what ifs”.

If you follow this advice along with a good bit of common sense, a nice, safe and even pleasant winter with a saner than usual horse is likely, which will hopefully continue to help with the joys of spring until your horses are too hot in summer to be bothered bouncing about. Roll on the sunshine, and in the meantime do everything you can to keep safe and have fun!

The current weather conditions are a nuisance to everyone but to the horse owner they mean an extra headache. Do we allow our horses in the field for a chance to relax and move freely or do we keep them in their warm stables? Many owners understandably choose to keep their horse stabled rather than risk walking them out over the ice rink conditions of a tarmac yard. Fields, too, can be icy or at best rock hard with uneven surfaces that can cause injury and strain on your horse’s legs. How then, do you keep your horse occupied when he is spending a much longer period of time than usual in his stable? For some horses this can become too much and they may start to display bored or stressed behaviour, from just not being able to settle or appearing unhappy in themselves to developing permanent and damaging stable vices.

One answer to this is kitting your stable out with plenty of horse toys and distractions to keep their mind occupied thus keeping bored behaviour at bay.

There are loads of stable toys out there, with one of the simplest sorts being toys which hang from the stable roof, such as the Jolly Apple and Horse Play Stable Ball. The horse knocks the toy with his nose but can’t usually get hold of them, as hard as he might try. This is especially effective with the Jolly Apple as it is also scented so he thinks it could be food and tries his hardest to grab it. Some horses with the right type of personality can get quite enthralled with this type of toy others can find it frustrating so its best to monitor your horse closely when you first introduce this type of toy.

Other good types of stable toys are those which have edible distractions. There aren’t many horses out there whose stomachs don’t rule their heads, so food toys tend to be good for occupying equine minds.

A simple and cheap yet effective stable toy is something like the Best Mate or Likit Holder hanging treat, these have an outer holder which hangs from the roof of the stable or a tie ring and holds the treat. This can keep the food obsessed horse happy for hours and can last for ages depending on how greedy your horse is!

A similar hanging toy is the Likit Boredom Breaker, which is a hanging attachment for your stable, holding 3 likits, 2 small ones and one large one. This means the toy moves around as the horse tries to lick the treats, and as you could have 3 different flavours in there if you wanted to, gives a variety of tastes therefore making him less likely to become disinterested. The Likit Tongue Twister works on a similar theory as the Boredom Breaker. It’s a door or wall attachment which holds 2 little Likits, giving a variety of flavour, and spins round when the horse tries to lick it, making it a difficult task which a horse can easily get enthralled in.

Other stable toys are for use on ground level, which puts the horse into a natural, relaxed grazing position which can help relax the stressy types more than a treat dispenser above the ground. Most of these come in the form of feeders, such as the Snack Ball that you fill with treats which are released as the horse rolls the toy. For more intelligent and highly strung horses this can be an excellent way of keeping them occupied.

For those who are even more clever and can empty the easy rolling ones within half an hour, there are strangely shaped ones available such as the Rock N Roll Ball, Equine Decahedron and Amazing Graze, which are all designed to be more difficult to roll and don’t roll in the direction the horse wants them to. This makes the horse think a bit more, and sometimes have to forage for the treats as he isn’t just picking them up as they fall out right in front of him. These may last longer than ball shaped feeders, but the horse may also become disinterested if he doesn’t have the attention span or patience for them.

Tub licks are also good for boredom breaking, such as Paddock Likit and Five Star Lick, which are a tub that can be put on the floor and your horse can use them as he pleases. Again this encourages a natural and relaxed posture, good for calming horses down and distracting them from boredom or stress inducing factors. They can also have medical benefits such as the Respiratory Stable Lick, so have more advantages than just keeping a stressed horse calm.

For the horse who craves other equine company and needs the feeling of security he gets from being in a herd, the best idea is to keep him where he can see, hear and touch other horses to try and keep him happy. However this is not always possible and some horses even get stressed if they can hear and smell other horses but can’t see them, as in some stable situation where there are full walls separating horses. Stable mirrors are an excellent way of solving this problem and can calm even the most herd dependant animals if they notice their reflection.

For horses with short attention spans and horses who get easily stressed when stabled, a combination of ground feeders, hanging toys and stable mirrors could be the only way to keep them happy until they’re next turned out.

Stable toys are always a good idea for the stabled or partially stabled horse as even if they may seem quite happy in the stable, toys help promote a healthy and busy mind, and can keep horses calm, happy and vice free.

As you’re probably aware, we’ve been rather occupied this week by the effects of our Winter Sale, which started last Tuesday (15th). In recent years, we’ve become better able to harness the power of the internet to ensure that as many people as possible get a fair chance to order the products they want. Even so, this isn’t as straightforward as it sounds – as I shall explain. But first, let me tell you about our very first experience of running a Sale. At retail.

In a store, a Sale is a fairly straightforward, basic, proposition. There, each customer takes up physical space so we can only fit so many people in a shop at once. As this is Britain, a Sale is an invitation to queue patiently but it’s not quite true to say that has always been the case. In days gone by, there have been a few instances of ‘I saw it first’ physical confrontation and what I should euphemistically call ‘jostling’ over some bargain or another.

In the world of mail order, two fundamental problems have always needed to be addressed in order to hold a successful Sale. First, in order to stimulate the calls, we needed to produce a catalogue of some form or other – which immediately creates the potential to increase the problems of the stock-out. Unlike in retail, a picture of a product in a catalogue is a promise on our part that we have it waiting for you. If we then sell out of that product, the catalogue doesn’t remove it from your view and because you can still see it, you still expect (understandably) our promise to be fulfilled. If we can’t deliver on our promise, you feel let down. The lesson we learned was that if we’re going to use catalogues to spark your interest, we also have to accept our obligation not to disappoint you.

We were also for many years lumbered with the wholly unsatisfactory ‘solution’ of the telephone. In those days, our routine for handling Sale demand was simple: we crammed as many people onto the phones as we could. The calls came at us like a tidal wave and we dealt with as many as we could. We knew it was difficult for customers to get through because those who did get through told us so – but because we had no idea of the scale of that problem, it was difficult to think of it as something we could really do anything about.

Of course, the lack of call-handling clarity was the same for customers too so in many ways, very little had changed since the late 70’s and the disappointment I had felt because my calls never got through to ‘Swap Shop’. I saw the answered calls on TV but I never saw the thousands of kids trying to get through. Everything told me my call should get through but I had to work out for myself why it wasn’t happening.

In the first year of our 0870 number, we had access to statistics which showed us just how many calls we didn’t answer – and that number scared us silly. Even when we found that on average, customers make ten attempts each (call, engaged tone, hang up, redial button, engaged tone, hang up, redial button, engaged tone… etc.) it still provided little solace. We all asked ourselves: what must people think of us?

Thankfully, the internet was just about to ride to our rescue. We weren’t able to gear up a call centre big enough to deal with the demands we could only put on it once or twice each year. There are even today loads of companies who offer to ‘contract out our call handling capability’ (answer the phones for us and place the order on our system – for a fee) but whose operators wouldn’t know one end of a horse from another. We needed a proper website to handle the demand we had generated and we got one just at the right time.

Of course, that’s not the end of the story – it’s more like the beginning. Now we have the capability to handle more orders in a day than we ever could, it’s only natural that we attempt to make our Sales bigger and better every year. Every website has a capacity but unlike with a shop, it can usually be increased by buying more servers and other such boxes with twinkly lights to live in our IT room. There are other ways, unglamorous but necessary techniques to ‘optimise’ our site, keeping file sizes to a minimum and sometimes switching off customer service lookups like ‘people who bought this item also bought the following’ as a means of helping the site to deal with as many customers at a time as it can. In a few short years, such considerations have grown in importance from being little more than an afterthought to almost a science in its own right.

Also – and I must acknowledge this point – it would be misleading for me to give the impression that with all our recent technological progress, we now get everything else right all the time. We are not immune today from making mistakes in our product selection, misjudging the quantities to buy and therefore selling out too soon (which is I hope more forgivable) or occasionally not even getting the product here in time (which I agree is less forgivable). With every Sale, we gain more experience and by and large, we use it to do what we can to make the next one better. Whenever we fail to live up to your expectations, please believe me when I say that we are as disappointed as you are. It is of no advantage to us to disappoint customers and it’s always a source of regret.

It may be helpful for me to give you an idea of the scale of the demand we can attract – and must service – these days: You could take every individual who has visited our site in the nine days since Saturday 13th December – the day our Sale reminder email went out – and between them, they would fill Wembley Stadium. Modesty prevents me from quoting specifics but you’re welcome to find out here what kind of number that relates to.

I would defy any other equestrian retailer to come anywhere close to attracting that level of interest in so short a period of time and it’s just as impressive to me because last year, we ‘only’ managed a ‘Millennium Stadium’ figure!

What’s just as important is that we live up to our delivery promises too. For the last two Winter Sales, we’ve stated that we would ensure all orders placed by 7:00pm of the first day of the Sale would be delivered in time for Christmas. Since the Sale began, it’s been great to read comments on our Facebook page and on the chatrooms that show just how much we’ve been able to impress customers with our speed and our service.  As always, I would say to anyone expressing dissatisfaction with us on chatrooms to contact us directly as well – we’ll always do what we can to help.

As I type, I can confirm that all these orders have left our building and should be with you in time for the big day. We have certainly done all we could do to give our couriers enough time to deliver for Christmas – ordinarily. I only hesitate slightly because I’ve just seen more weather warnings for parts of the UK. I very much hope that the wintry weather does not disrupt the delivery services and if it does, that customers accept that this was a factor outside of our control.

Anyway, I hope your Sale experience was a good one. I apologise for the slow running of the site in the first few hours. We think we know why it happened and we’ll do all we can to ensure we can handle that level of traffic better in future. If you ordered last Tuesday, you should have it by now or tomorrow at worst. If you were less than impressed, please let us know by emailing customer.service@robinsons-uk.com but whatever your experience, thank you as ever for your interest in Robinsons and for reading this rather lengthy blog.

From everyone here to everyone out there, have a wonderful Christmas and a happy, horsey, New Year!