There's more than one way to skin a horse...

[Scuba_Jenny]

Wow! Finally a thread about divers who love horses! I used to work with the racing thourghobreds. Tough job. I rode 10 hours a day, first in the mornings exercising the horses then afternoons (and nights if night racing) ponying horses to the starting gate. I had my own horse for a few years. Gave it all up about 11 years ago. I miss riding, but not the racetrack. Probably haven't ridden 5 hours since then. I got stuck traning a the new arrivals to the racetrack ways of ponying, so I rode a lot of animals. Some were really good, some would get ya killed if you weren't paying attention.
Pic is of me quite a few years ago on my horse on Christmas Day.

 

[TSandM]

Looks like a polo pony -- fit and fast!

 

[Cacia]

Some pony pics. Sweet Dreams, and Flash. Canadian Thoroughbred and a Quarterhorse Appendix....I think we can do without my Western Pleasure outfits.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Pics from my childhood Smoke is the mare, Apache is the paint gelding and is Smoke's son. We didn't know she was pregnant when we bought her and neither did the owner supposedly. They had found her out of her pen one day but didn't know she had been down the road visiting the neighbor's quarter horse paint stallion. The rearing pic is one of my high school senior pictures as is the bucking pic (wasn't expecting him to buck, we wanted him to rear).
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Snowbear]

I never could get used to those Appy tails... or should I say.... LACK of tails :11:

 

[Snowbear]

Speaking of tails, come mosquito season I always feel sorry for Kate the Percheron mare with the docked tail. So I steal some hair from each of the other horses' long tails and braid them into what's left of hers. Because the stub is so short, I have to be careful not to make it too heavy or it doesn't work right and gets.... um... let's just say unclean :11:

 

[Ber Rabbit]

My farrier called it a club She didn't swish flies she swatted them and you didn't want to be in range when that tail made impact. He got it upside the head on more than one occasion LOL! The bare spots on her hips are where she would beat the hair off with her tail, bottom of the tail would be one big callous by the end of summer. We did competitive trail rides and I had to make sure they didn't use red livestock paint to put her numbers on after the year they docked me points for her tail "bleeding". They didn't even realize that most of her red numbers had been wiped off--by her tail. GEEZ!
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[MikeFerrara]

My farrier called it a club She didn't swish flies she swatted them and you didn't want to be in range when that tail made impact. He got it upside the head on more than one occasion LOL! The bare spots on her hips are where she would beat the hair off with her tail, bottom of the tail would be one big callous by the end of summer. We did competitive trail rides and I had to make sure they didn't use red livestock paint to put her numbers on after the year they docked me points for her tail "bleeding". They didn't even realize that most of her red numbers had been wiped off--by her tail. GEEZ!
Ber :lilbunny:

This thread reminds me that I need to get outside and feed the monsters. We have 2 and it's my day to do the honors. My wife is the real rider in the family but I shoe them for a living these days.

Talk about clubs, some of the saddlebreds with LONG tails that are wrapped up when not showing have about a 10 pound club that can just about knock you over when they hit you with it. Worse yet are the horses with just the right length tail that when they swish it they slash you right in the eyeballs you're bent over working on a front foot.

 

[TSandM]

Well, in my mare's opinion, Mike, you deserve a good slash to the eyeballs for pounding on her feet with a hammer She was unshod until she was nine, and has never come to terms with the hammering part of the process.

 

[Cacia]

oh, yea, Western Pleasure tails....we would spend hours combing them out, putting conditioner in them and bagging them up overnight!

Ber, like your pose!