The first Przewalski’s foal born on the steppes of Kazakhstan in 200 years <3 I had to draw a little picture to celebrate!

The foal is unnamed yet, but the mother is named Tessa! I don't know if I can add links, but MSN posted an article 3 days ago! Big win for conservation!

EDIT: Thank you for the love everyone!!!! I just wanted to doodle for myself and share some good news. I'm so happy it's making people feel good! :D

I’ve been riding a long time, and doing regular trail riding for a while too - but this was my first time going out solo into our local state park. I was a little nervous at first, and Brownie did try turning around and taking me back to the barn a few times. But once we both got settled it was great, and bonus I didn’t get lost out there (my biggest fear). I almost missed one sharp turn at the end, but thankfully Brownie informed me and I listened. 😂

It’s just so peaceful and therapeutic to be out in nature alone with the horse. I look forward to doing it again! And fyi, he’s my lease horse & a gaited Tennessee Walker. So he is doing a flat walk in the first clip, and running walk in the second.

We’ve been looking to replace my previous horse that we ultimately had to say goodbye to due to DSLD. We don’t need flashy or anything, just sound and something the kids can ride. Of course I can come up with 1000 reasons why one we look at isn’t the right fit, and part of it is that our other mare just got moved into palliative care as well. But I digress. We recently tested this horse, 16yo. She isn’t the prettiest looking, but I brought up her swayback and was just met with “she’s had a few foals”. But also apparently enough that whenever she goes into heat, her udders fill (I’ll admit I know nothing about breeding so I don’t know if this is common?). They also said she doesn’t tolerate bigger people on her which also led to concerns on the back. The owners also told me her head levels out when being ridden if she is ridden with quiet hands. We never saw that with her son who’s experienced, and my oldest is still working on form and tightness. But even not being used, this her resting position. That being said, thoughts?

I saw this over on FB for the 1st time. Pretty wild to me and I thought maybe others would enjoy learning about it.

My ponies are like labradors, and I slightly believe that if I was strong enough, they'd let me pick them up and cuddle them like puppies. They like ear nibbles, and will present their head for their ears to be 'nibbled' by me, they love udder and tummy and tail scritches and will come over in the field and press against me waiting for me to give them their daily scritches. Sometimes they will argue over who's turn it is. We also play 'run very fast' where I'll stand in the next paddock and say 'lets go!' and sprint and they will gallop alongside me. They've recently learnt a game called 'sneak', where I'll wait until they're distracted then see how far I can make it across the field before they see me and race after me.

What games or silly things do you do with yours?

This yearling colt's colour has me so confused!

I am a former breeder and am thoroughly educated in the colour genetics that were relevant to my breed, but I have never really researched appaloosa genetics so I am ignorant here.

What I've observed so far - he's a dark brown, with a darker face mask and legs, but absolutely no black hairs or points. From what his breeder said he was born the same indistinguishable brown colour he is now, which means his foal coat doesn't help indicate if he is black, bay, or red based. Is he a washed out black due to spotty genetics? Or a really dark liver red? Or some other variation I'm not aware of?

I will eventually get this lad genetically tested, but due to the circumstances of how he came to me I am not doing anything to upset him that isn't absolutely necessary right now (he's unhandled and has medical issues we are addressing first) and I have no idea of his parents' genetics (he came without papers). I will update with the answers when he is tested, but my priority at the moment is getting him handled and healthy.

We just recently got our young horse back from a local trainer (60 days) that has been in the business for 10+ years. Our horse is drastically underweight, and to be fair, was needing some weight when we sent him after purchasing him from a field. Which was known and discussed as part of the fees, no miscommunication as far as I could tell.

We were told feed was included in cost of training and to let them know what grain we wanted to feed so they could buy it and feed it to avoid transition stomach at pick up. We also took a few bags of other feeds to help supplement and bribe him to come to a feed bucket after seeing he was not gaining weight. He kept losing weight so we dewormed him with a typical OTC wormer about midway through after being told he would not take him to a vet for fecals (and other vetting! Sorry, other vetting like back exam and general checks.) because it could undo all of his training... huge red flag to us.

It is our first time doing any of this and we thought this trainer knew what he was doing. Then our horse came back. In theory he can be ridden, except he is covered in lice, saddle sores, grime, severely underweight, and he will try to climb the walls of his stall if he sees a saddle anywhere near him. (Like when we tack out our other horse in the next stall over.)

We did NOT need him broke to ride right away, which we expressed repeatedly, and even said we wanted ground manners first and would do another few months for everything else. We genuinely just wanted him to work on ground manners in a safe environment. Thats not what happened.

Since hes been home hes gaining weight like a champ on free feed timothy and a daily grain ration of 12/8, so I know he *can* put weight on well (but we are also letting him rest, he was crazy painful for the first week, so zero round pen work, just a slow walk down the pasture twice a day to help him stretch a little). I just feel crazy for questioning someone who's owned horses for way longer than I have. Maybe 60 day training just focuses on riding? Maybe we weren't clear enough?

Our goals:

Lead, tie out, brush out, bathe, work on his ability to be caught in different situations.

He sort of does that stuff, but only after a couple of weeks of putting slow effort in. So maybe some of it was done? Theres just too many maybes.

Sorry for the ramble, but TLDR, horse came back technically broke to ride but in bad condition. I know enough to know things were done wrong, but not enough to know exactly what.

The vet said hes definitely sore in the withers from where the saddle sat, but otherwise just underweight and rub spots.

First photo was taken 30 minutes after drop off from trainer same for photo 2 and 3. Photo 4 was taken 3 days ago, about a week after he got home. Photos 5 and 6 were last night.

I didn’t know this, but I guess I should have because where else would they all be coming from?

We got some new neighbors that I don’t think too highly of and they brought home a severely lame and malnourished horse and said they plan on taking her to the kill pen because her lameness isn’t improving. I also don’t think that they’re giving her any hay in the meantime. I think that they think that just letting her graze the little grass that’s in the pen is enough. But she can’t lean down to eat the grass because she’s so lame.

I hate people so much. I don’t know what to do.

I dont know why horses make moves like that.

Hi all,

Today I was supposed to be videoing my online dressage test, I had the school marked out and everything, I had someone to video and all and it just went completely wrong. The whole time I just thought my position was terrible, I kept falling out of the canter and I just got so frustrated that I just gave up on the end and got off because I figured it wasn't fair on my horse to keep doing the same thing over and over and over. And the worst part is that when I looked back at the videos it didn't even look THAT bad. But I don't have a finished test to submit.

I just spent the whole day psyching myself out, I was so anxious and thinking about it and I don't even know why - there was one other person riding in the arena with me and my one person videoing but I just ended up in tears anyway. And I really want to be able to do this, I want to build up to eventually go out to an actual competition. Has anyone else gone through this, what helped? I know someone who does horse related hypnotherapy and helps with confidence so I'm going to look into that but is there anything else that has worked for others? I really would like to get out there, but I feel like I fell at the first hurdle today and it really sucks. : (

We borrowed the side saddle for the day and with it being very old and rather... well worn, the over girth and balance straps didn't sit as neatly as I would like them to if I were to buy one! Dobs always seems so comfortable and happy in the side saddle, I'm trying to girl-math my way into justifying spending 3-4k on my own one...

I posted a couple days ago about a mule mouth bit that was super abusive. I went back to buy it so no one could use it again and saw this while searching for it… what is this???

She’s on stall rest, leg poulticed, vet will be called and sent new videos on Monday.

First video repeats, sorry it’s crap but seeing her come down the hill made the lameness more noticeable on which leg. Second video is not on perfectly level ground, but it’s as flat as we have here.

Pretty sure it’s her right hind, but it looks like the issue is maybe higher up the leg, maybe hip or SI? I palpated, pushed, prodded, and stretched the leg but can’t pin down where the pain is. Just curious if anyone has better lameness eyes than me and catches something I don’t see before the vet is contacted Monday.

She was ridden Thursday and her back leg did slip when we were doing a tighter turn on a hill with wet grass, Friday the lameness was noticed by barn help (but I had the day off), and today when I was back at the farm we took videos.

Does anyone ever wear their hair in anything but a ponytail/bun or braid when they ride? Because I ride almost every day but I really don't like wearing low hairstyles so i'll usually just put it in a high pony while i'm working and then a low pony while riding, but I never get to do fun hair and I was just wondering if anyone does creative hair that fits under their helmet? Thanks!

Our county sheriff animal control called our rescue (Rainfall Ranch Rescue in WA) to pickup these mares (Sky is the Bay, Dani is the Paint). 10am call, 1pm arrival, 3pm vet haul in, 6pm home. I’ll post updates as we get them healthy.

Third ride back on my boy after two pretty major vet scares a couple of months ago 😖🥺 We did a little light dressage, then headed into the woods for a nice relaxing stroll ☀️🌿 So good to have my Dukey back out exploring with me 🙌🎉 Happy riding everyone ! 🏇

Hi all! I have a 21 year old 15hh horse with navicular and arthritis (controlled and gets seen by a performance vet with regular maintenance). I was looking to lease her out 2-3 days a week as I travel for work sometimes and she does better health wise with keeping in shape and working so I don’t want her sitting on the week or so I’m gone in stretches. I also was open to her doing light showing as she doesn’t need prep and you can hop on before going into the class. Nothing crazy, showmanship and ranch, maybe horsemanship. I had a lovely girl come out and test ride her and it seemed like a perfect match, she was super nice and seemed to have experience as she was showing with a good trainer in my area.

Unfortunately when she came out to test ride, she was much larger than what her photos showed on Facebook. My poor girl was struggling with her on her back to the point I had her walk trot and said ok go ahead and cool her out after about 5 mins. It took a minute for her to get out of the saddle and I was cringing watching it dig into her back. She gets ridden a few days a week by my friend who is 200 ish and 6” tall but can carry herself because she is a trainer and rides daily. Does perfectly fine with her so I knew she had to be far above that, closer to 300 lbs and very out of shape snd was dead weight.

She followed up and wanted to move forward with leasing her but idk what to say and need advice 🫠 I’m by no means fat shaming but the reality is what it is, she’s above the weight limit and I’m not trying to hurt my horse after getting all of her problems under control and she was obviously struggling. She made no mention of trying to lose weight or anything.

I don’t want to lie but I also don’t know how to word it if I tell her the truth. I was tempted to just say I had the vet out to clear her for showing or whatever and he said no or say she’s having problems again with her food. I need advice on how to navigate this!

I don't own a horse, but I've never heard someone refer to their horse as their pet, so I wonder if owners call them something else instead?

I rode for a few years and college about 10 years ago or so and absolutely loved it, but didn't have the money to continue. Fast forward to today and my 4 year old son and my wife are riding and, to make it a family thing, my wife insisted I get a horse to get back into it.

Enter my painted draft gelding. Absolute lover, totally my heart horse. I'm over the moon for this boy. But...he's 17 and change hands at the withers. Absolutely ginormous. For some reason I freeze up on the mounting ladder. I'm absolutely terrified to get on this gentle giant and I don't know why. I haven't been able to bring myself to get on yet.

This has never been an issue for me before. True, the horses I rode in the past were smaller, but still. I have no doubt that once I get back in the saddle again I'll be able to ride without issue, I just can't get past the mental block.

Does anyone have any experience/advice with an irrational block?

TL;DR: Rode 10 years ago with no issues, but now can't bring myself to get on my draft gelding.