Debs' Horse World

23/07/2025

This is my morning.
Windscreen so frozen over not even the heater is working...

23/07/2025

110°F - 111°F predicted for parts of USA tomorrow.
Have your animals got a good supply of water?
If it's not covered or continuous flow of cooker water, you can try ice cubes added to the water.
Please,
Do not give your horse cold water after a ride.
Stay safe and undercover of shade.

23/07/2025

I was out extending the paddock today.
Got the boundary done & released the ponies into the new area.
Pushy Indy & sassy decide to rush through, not waiting for a clear path.
There is a tree down.
It's roughly the height of my shoulders, I am 5'6 in boots.
Indy looks at the blocked path & I turn away expecting her to turn around while I move the rest of the inner fence.
Turn back around literally seconds later.
Indy is on the other side, the foal props and then she's up n over, cleared it easily.....
She's Gunna be a real nice xcountry or show jumping pony when she grows up.
She's intelligent, quick on her feet, not scared of anything at all EVER!! & Had basic handling so not to teach her any bad habits.
She is officially owned by another.
Nearly time for her to go to her new home.

22/07/2025

So it ain't coz it's her time "to be in season" ey

For years, horse owners and trainers have often blamed a mare’s misbehavior on her hormones. Kicking at the stall wall? Must be her cycle. Refusing to focus under saddle? Probably "hormonal." But groundbreaking new research from the University of California, Davis, is challenging that long-held belief — and the results may surprise you.

🧪 What They Studied:
Researchers at UC Davis examined 2,914 hormonal profiles from mares who had been referred to their Clinical Endocrinology Laboratory and Equine Reproduction Service. Each case file included concerns around behavior — words like “misbehaving,” “aggressive,” or “difficult” showed up consistently. The scientists wanted to know: Are these behavioral issues really linked to elevated ovarian hormones, like testosterone or estrogen?

📉 What They Found:
Out of all the data, less than 10% of the mares with reported misbehavior actually had elevated hormone levels. In fact, the only pattern that showed a reliable hormonal connection was a very specific kind of stallion-like behavior — things like loud vocalizations, biting, or mounting other horses. But the more common forms of acting out — such as irritability, reluctance to work, or general aggression — showed no significant connection to elevated hormone concentrations.

💡 So What Does This Mean?
It means we may need to stop assuming that hormones are the root of every behavioral quirk a mare displays. The UC Davis team emphasized that these results debunk a major misconception in the horse world — that mares act up because of their ovaries. According to the data, most misbehavior has nothing to do with hormones.

🎯 Why This Matters:
Understanding that behavior isn’t always tied to biology helps owners and veterinarians take a more holistic approach. If a mare is acting out, the cause might be pain, stress, environment, lack of enrichment, or even training confusion — not just her heat cycle. With this new insight, we can better meet our horses' needs and stop unfairly labeling mares based on assumptions.

📌 Takeaway:
Mares aren’t moody — they’re complex individuals. And sometimes, when she’s “acting up,” it’s not about her hormones at all. It's time we listened a little closer and looked a little deeper.

20/07/2025

20/07/2025

Thought this morning ght be handy.
Ya know, fa when ya need quicker release than just a bull clip

16/07/2025

😂😂

16/07/2025

The bit stuff that I teach is often referred to as "bit fitting". I honestly am a little insulted at that notion, because what I teach goes well beyond simple "bit fitting". That's a part of it, but a smaller part than you probably think.

That being said, have you actually measured your horse's mouth, or the bits that you use? The best dancer in the world isn't going to be able to dance comfortably in ill-fitting shoes. A very strong trend I see is that horses' mouths are often wider than we think. It's also fairly common for a bit that was purchased as being 5.25" to be off as much as 1/4".

I'll admit that one of the things I was surprised by in shooting some of our content had to do with narrow bits. I have a large Lusitano gelding whose mouth measures 5.75" wide. I purposefully put several bits on him that were too narrow and filmed it so you could see what too narrow looked like. Much to my surprise and dismay it was far from obvious. The narrow bits didn't look nearly as out of place as I'd have thought. That's scary because a bit being too narrow is the most common problem in terms of bit fitting. So, have you actually measured? Do you know how?

12/07/2025

Would you ride the horse in the first picture? I suppose your answer was no. This is Maserati just a few days prior to his 3rd birthday.
Do you see how high his bum was? His bum was a whooping 5 cm higher than his withers! That´s 2 inches!

This is the age when most youngsters get started and many are even already started and ridden for a whole year!

I think there is so much wrong in the horse industry these days that it is so normal to ride 3 year olds and even 2 year old horses.

Just the idea of sitting on such an imbalanced, immature youngster, makes me cringe.

Makes me feel like violating a child. Why would anyone even consider riding such an immature horse?

I know this is a topic where the waves can go high. But I want to share my point of view anyway because I get asked about it a lot.

Even when Maserati turned 4, his bum was still 3 cm higher than his withers. He had 7 VERY short rides.On 2 of those rides we trotted just a little bit. And then I left him alone for almost a year before he had another few short rides.

Today, I am GLAD I waited and that I gave him time to finish growing and maturing.

Last year when he turned 7 years old, he is finally balanced in growth. He has filled out, the shoulders widened and he finally has some withers.

He was often so clumsy, easily lost balance, dripped over logs in the forest and even over his own feet due to him being so bum high.

Now all of this has improved. He is moving beautifully now with a nice stretch over his top line and engaging his hindquarters.

He starts to look like a well balanced horse. Just look at that second photo. what a difference - and this didn't happen through lots of specific training. No, just let him mature and then rode him for 4 months last year.

The more horses I start, the more I advocate to wait at least until the horse's 4th birthday.

Or, with some horses, even until almost 5 years old. Maserati was still very imbalanced at age 4. So I waited a bit more.

What all horses have in common is how the skeleton matures. No matter how mature the horse looks on the outside - the skeleton might not be mature at all.

Don’t get fooled by muscle development to think “the horse is ready”. Most of that muscle is probably only fat anyways.

Whether its an Arabian, Quarter Horse, Frisian, PRE, Pony, Warmblood or Draft - the skeleton will mature at the same pace.

I am not saying to wait until the horse is 8 and all growth plates are fully closed. But a late start, towards the 4th/5th year and then slow and consistent work, will preserve the horse.

So, if you have a 2 or 3 year old and people start to say "You should start him, he will get too strong in his mind." don't worry.

Give your horse time to grow, time to mature.

You can do so much more than riding your youngster.

In Operation Dream Horse I have a full Roadmap Stage dedicated to the stage between yearling and starting to ride with a total of 9 learning paths so you never run out of inspiration of what to do with a non-ridden youngster.

Such as creating groundwork, Play at liberty. Or teach him long reining. Or creative trail obstacles. Or going on walks, or in hand work.

Build your youngster steady and slow. Build a partnership for life so you can enjoy many many happy years riding your horse later on.

Do you have a youngster? What's your take on this?

P.s.: If you have a youngster and you are interested in the ODH program, you can join the waitlist via this link: https://my.operationdreamhorse.com/join-the-waitlist

Doors for new members are closed right now so I can focus on helping my current members. If you join the waitlist, I will keep you informed when I will accept new members into the program again!