Full Circle Equestrian Center

14/07/2025

I always had mine checked when I got teeth floated but can have your vet do that as well.

🐎Trigger warning 🐎
The horse that this bean belonged to, was due to be PTS. The owner had heard of beans but was told my a number of people to ‘leave well alone’ and ‘don’t be like these silly women, obsessed with cleaning horses willies’.

This horses behavioural issues had become so horrendous and every check had been done and nothing could be found. The owner of this horse absolutely thought she was doing the kind thing for a miserable horse, that barely wanted to walk without a rider on, no chance anyone could get on him anymore. He was sad and unhappy and you could see it in his face.
Thankfully her friend was having us out the next week and told her, what has she got to lose but a few quid.

We felt this bean immediately, and the horse knew exactly what we were trying to do. Within less than a minute, this bean was out and you could see an immediate change in the horse. So much so it brought a tear to our eyes.

You can laugh, you can think us sheath cleaners are silly, but at least get your horse checked for beans if you never have. In this case it was literally life or death.

Horse is now very happy and back to his old self 🤍

And before anyone says anything about being a bad horse owner, please understand that some people are made to feel utterly stupid by others for believing that beans are real. Because surprisingly some think they are a myth 😂

08/06/2025

There is a choice. You can provide a divider to separate enough so that the baby cannot get under the mother. You never know what might happen while traveling - even a flat tire can cause a bump or jerk and knock the mother off balance. Using a cattle panel to divide them gives them sight but no danger of getting stepped on.

Dear drivers (especially those not familiar with horses): Please don’t cut in front of a horse trailer just because there’s a big gap. We leave that space on purpose, it’s not that we’re driving slow, it’s because we need a long distance to stop safely.

Horses in the trailer need us to take curves slowly and brake gently so they can stay balanced. Sudden stops or sharp turns can injure them, or even flip the trailer, causing a serious accident.

In the photo, the mare has very little space to move, and her foal is right under her. She’s doing her best to stay still and protect her baby. I can only help her if I drive carefully. Please be patient and give us space. Most people don’t mean harm, they just don’t know.

02/06/2025

This may look laughable but if you go in water like this with a tie down on your horse, y I u may cause it to drown! Good reason to not use those things on trail rides if there's any chance of encountering deep water.

31/05/2025

Have done this with horses in parking lots!

31/05/2025

Have taken in a few horses that had this. Never had a death, just took time to recover.

You may have heard that there is an outbreak of Pigeon Fever right now in northwest Florida… that is true. Here are the facts:

1. Pigeon fever is caused by corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. It most often results in an abscess on the chest (although internal abscesses are possible)
2. It is transmitted via contact with infected horses AND by flies
3. Transmission radius is up to 4 miles (due to the flies)
4. The bacteria is very resistant and can live in the environment under harsh conditions for many months resulting in re-emergence of this disease after a hiatus
5. There was a vaccine previously available. The FDA discontinued the licensing of this vaccine one year ago for a variety of reasons. The goat/sheep vaccine is not protective for horses due to different biotyping of the bacteria.
6. Fly control and biosecurity are the MOST important aspects of managing the disease.
Consider using a fly sheet to protect horses that have not been exposed. If you have an affected horse, have the abscess drained by your veterinarian to prevent oozing onto the ground.
7. Antibiotics are important for some horses but can delay resolution in others.

The good news is that horses with external abscesses have a good prognosis! As always, early intervention can lead to a positive outcome.

25/05/2025

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A HORSE WHISPERER. There never has been and never will be. The idea is an affront to the horse. You can talk and listen to horses all you want, and what you will learn, if you pay close attention, is that they live on open ground way beyond language and that language, no matter how you characterize it, is a poor trope for what horses understand about themselves and about humans. You need to practice only three things, patience, observation and humility, all of which were summed up in the life of an old man who died Tuesday (July 20, 1999) in California, a man named Bill Dorrance.

Dorrance was 93, and until only a few months before his death he still rode and he still roped. He was one of a handful of men, including his brother Tom, who in separate ways have helped redefine relations between the horse and the human. Bill Dorrance saw that subtlety was nearly always a more effective tool than force, but he realized that subtlety was a hard tool to exercise if you believe, as most people do, that you are superior to the horse. There was no dominance in the way Dorrance rode, or in what he taught, only partnership. To the exalted horsemanship of the vaquero -- the Spanish cowboy of 18th-century California -- he brought an exalted humanity, whose highest expression is faith in the willingness of the horse.

There is no codifying what Bill Dorrance knew. Some of it, like how to braid a rawhide lariat, is relatively easy to teach, and some of it, thanks to the individuality of horses and humans, cannot be taught at all, only learned. His legacy is exceedingly complex and, in a sense, self-annulling. It is an internal legacy. The more a horseman says he has learned from Dorrance the less likely he is to have learned anything at all.

That sounds oblique, but it reflects the fact that what you could learn from Dorrance was a manner of learning whose subject was nominally the horse but that extended itself in surprising directions to include dogs, cattle and people. If you learned it, you would know it was nothing to boast about.

There is no mysticism, no magic, in this, only the recognition of kinship with horses. Plenty of people have come across Bill Dorrance and borrowed an insight or two, and some have made a lot of money by popularizing what they seemed to think he knew. But what he knew will never be popular, nor did he ever make much money from it. You cannot sell modesty or undying curiosity. It is hard to put a price on accepting that everything you think you know about horses may change with the very next horse.

From an article by Verlyn Klinkenborg 'Death of a Legendary Horseman' - NY Times July 24, 1999 - http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/24/opinion/editorial-notebook-death-of-a-legendary-horseman.html

Image of Bill is by Steven and Leslie Dorrance - http://www.billdorrance.com/about.htm