03/17/2025
Everyone who rides with me knows how I feel about this. Nobody gets to skip out on grooming, tacking up and taking care of their horse or pony. If you don’t know how to do it, we’ll teach you. It’s part of the lesson. Nobody gets to opt to “ride only”.
If you can’t take care of a horse, or be willing to learn to do so, should you really be riding one?
There’s only one right answer to this question.
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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭
Once upon a time, in a land before TikTok tutorials and matchy-matchy saddle pads, horse people actually knew how to take care of horses. Shocking, I know. Kids like me didn’t just rock up to the yard, hop on, and swan off afterward like some equestrian diva. No, we earned our time in the saddle mucking out stables that smelled like something out of a horror movie, filling haynets that somehow managed to tangle themselves around our legs, and lugging water buckets that felt heavier than our actual bodies.
And Friday nights? That was Pony Club night in Ireland, an unmissable ritual. First, the riding lesson, where we pushed ourselves to perfect our position or attempted (and often failed) to keep our ponies from launching us into orbit over a cross-pole. Then, the real fun stable management. If you thought you were leaving without knowing how to spot colic, wrap a bandage properly, or pick out hooves without losing a finger, you were sorely mistaken.
But now? Stable management is disappearing faster than your horse’s dignity when it spots a plastic bag.
𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐌𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭
These days, many young riders don’t spend hours at the yard learning the ins and outs of horse care. They arrive, their pony is miraculously tacked up and ready, they ride for an hour, and off they go probably to post a reel of their perfect canter transition. And look, I get it. Times have changed. Insurance policies have made it harder for kids to hang around stables, and busy modern life means people want things quick and easy.
But here’s the problem: a horse isn’t an Instagram prop. 𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙖 1,000-𝙥𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙞𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚. And without that old-school, hands-on education, we’re seeing the consequences. Horses suffering from preventable colic, riders unable to recognize when their tack doesn’t fit, people feeding their cob the same as a Thoroughbred and wondering why it’s suddenly the size of a small elephant.
And the worst part? People are accepting standards of care that would have been unheard of years ago.
I hear owners justifying no turnout like it’s normal. “Oh, my yard doesn’t turn out in winter.” “My horse copes fine without it.” No, they don’t. Horses are designed to move. Keeping them in a box 24/7, walking them for 20 minutes on a horse walker, and thinking that’s a substitute for actual turnout? That’s not horsemanship, it’s convenience. And it’s a ticking time bomb for their physical and mental health.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝
It’s not just kids, either. There is now an entire generation of adult horse owners who don’t actually know how to look after their horses properly. People who have spent years on riding school horses, never mucked out a stable, never bandaged a leg, never had to nurse a horse through an illness, suddenly finding themselves with their first horse and no idea what they’re doing. And instead of admitting they need help, many of them turn to social media (sometimes it’s ok, but not posts like is this colic?) for advice rather than a vet, a farrier, or an experienced horse person.
It’s terrifying. These are the same people who will argue in Facebook groups about whether their horse is “just lazy” instead of recognizing pain, who think a horse standing in a stable 24/7 is fine because ‘he doesn’t seem unhappy’, and who will spend more on a glittery saddle pad than on a proper equine dentist. Owning a horse should come with more than just a financial commitment, it should come with a commitment to education. But right now, there are too many owners who simply don’t know what they don’t know.
𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬
So, what’s the solution? We need to bring back the grit. Pony Clubs, riding schools, livery yards everyone needs to make stable management a non-negotiable part of equestrian life again. Not a boring add-on. Not an optional extra. An essential, just like knowing which end of the horse kicks.
And for those of us who lived through the ‘earn your saddle time’ era? It’s on us to pass that knowledge down. Teach the young ones how to tell the difference between a horse that’s playing up and a horse and a horse that’s in pain. Show them that grooming is not just a way to make your horse shiny for pictures it’s how you check for cuts, lumps, or signs of discomfort. Explain why turnout isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.
𝐀 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞
I miss those Friday nights at Pony Club. The smell of damp hay, the constant background noise of ponies trying to eat things they shouldn’t, the feeling of pride when you finally got your plaits neat enough that your instructor didn’t sigh in disappointment.
We need to bring that back, not just for nostalgia’s sake, but for the horses. Because if we don’t, we’re going to end up with a generation of riders who can execute a perfect flying change but don’t know what to do when their horse colics at 2 a.m. And that? That’s the kind of horror story no equestrian wants to live through.
Sunny and the farmer spec gate 😂
