Flying Hooves at Bloem

11/08/2019

Notice:
Flying Hooves at Bloem has been hacked and is therefore closed.
Please visit our new page:
Flying Hooves Bloemfontein

26/07/2019

3

Lavender

Benefits of lavender at stables

Flies absolutely hate it, they hate the smell off lavender and eucalyptus (both are already added in the AHFS Fly Spray and Fly ointment). Grow lavender plants outside your stables, in pots around the yard, hang fresh bunches of lavender up and burning lavender oil are just a few ways that you can use lavender to keep the flies away while keeping your yard smelling beautiful.

11/07/2019

Na aandete bederfie- bedel...

30/06/2019

Sondagmiddag pret! @ Bloemfontein, Free State

29/06/2019

Flying hooves... what a sight!!!

18/05/2019

06/05/2019

I had to steal this & share. Things that we tend to forget.

‘Am I a good rider?’ She asked, pensively,
sat upon her 14.2 cob, covered in poo stains that she couldn’t quite get out before her lesson, that she had persuaded her mum to buy a year ago for just £400. (It wasn’t wanted anymore)
‘Why do you ask that?’ Her instructor replied,
for she knew how this young girl felt,
her eyes often lingered somewhere inbetween her horses ears or the other side of the school when teaching.
‘Because I want to be one’
Her instructor pondered on this for a good few minutes, whilst reassuring the nervous cob in front, and then said,
‘A good rider is not someone who buys flashy horses and competes every Saturday and makes it to the top within a year.
A good rider is not who jumps the highest jumps or owns the fastest horse.
A good rider isn’t made just because they’ve been riding since they were 3.
A good rider is not someone who can move their forward horse forward...
no
A good rider is that pony clubber you see fall off every time she gets on something new, yet still gets back on with a smile on her face,
A good rider is that girl who cries in the tack room because of how her horse behaved and how hard it’s been to cope watching everyone else be successful, but to her it seems like she is the only one failing, yet still rewards her horse with a treat and a smile because at least he was better than last time,
A good rider is the boy with the angel horse, yet doesn’t claim any of its successes for himself
“‘It was all him’”, he would say, “‘I just sat to it’”
A good rider listens
A good rider is soft
A good rider makes sure the horse is always happy,
As a matter of fact, a good rider often has nothing to do with the riding,
If you love it, and you try, and you try again, even when you fall off and it was your fault, even when people point because your seat isn’t quite as deep as they’d prefer,
if you never give up,
That’s what makes a good rider’

Written by Daisy Henderson
Instagram: -to-mischief

29/04/2019

Making memories....

27/04/2019

Massive Bloem Show Specials @ Horse Box Bfn
Lots of parking available. 😁

12/04/2019

Very interesting read:
KARIN’S TUESDAY TIP

THE FRONTAL LOBE OF THE HORSE’S BRAIN IS NEARLY NON-EXISTENT.

How does this apply to schooling/training? Frontal lobes are involved in higher mental functions such as reasoning. This means that horses cannot reason or plan to be naughty. They cannot be blamed for bad behaviour or poor performance. They cannot recognise future consequences. Horses simply react to the situation. They learn through conditioning and memory.

I see and hear so many riders anthropomorphalise their horses instead of finding better training tools. Phrases such as, ‘he just likes to be difficult’ or ‘this pony is so naughty’ or ‘he understands or knows what I want, but won’t do it’, or ‘he moves his hindquarters at every halt just to irritate me’. Horses do not know what we want unless we explain it in a manner that they can understand immediately.

A few months ago a rider told me how her horse ‘just does not want to co-operate’. It started with overt flight behaviour and then became a subtle ‘snatchy’ movement of the nose. I asked her whether it could be due to discomfort. She answered, ‘no, she is just naughty’. It turned out that the horse was suffering from laminitis and was in severe discomfort! It made me want to cry.

At the moment I am training a young horse from scratch. I also used phrases such as, ‘she has a short fuse’ and ‘she challenges me every step of the way’. Then I realised that everything I was doing on this horse was completely new to her. I realised how frightening that must be for an animal with no reasoning ability. She was actually trying hard to understand me, but when new instructions were a tad confusing, she showed me in no uncertain terms that she did not understand it. The horse’s reactions to learning new skills all depends on personality. This particular horse is extremely sensitive and an introvert. Utopia, my older horse, is less sensitive and a complete extrovert. She can deal with much more pressure than the youngster. The message for me is that I must train each horse with the kind of pressure which they can deal with. Each horse has a different tolerance for pressure. Us riders have to be adaptable to each horse’s ability to deal with pressure. Personally I find that most behavioural problems stem from confusion, discomfort and too much pressure.

30/01/2019

Happiness!