Ask An Expert

'My thoroughbred is not eating all of his food and has started malting by the handful. He has his teeth checked regularly. Any ideas?' Ensuring that you are providing your horse with a balanced diet - including the correct amounts of vitamins, minerals, proteins and calories is essential if you're aiming to achieve the optimum level of health for your horse. The better health that your horse is in, the better their performance shall be, which is just another reason that you shoul...

My horse keeps bucking me off and avoids being caught in the pasture, what can I do to prevent this?   This is a common problem, but unfortunately, it isn’t one that can be addressed with a quick-fix solution - instead, requiring you to devote time to the issue and approach it with patience and perseverance. There are a variety of actions an owner or handler may be unknowingly doing that can contribute to this issue, so a variety of aspects must be considered when attempting t...

'Do you know where I can find an loan agreement to follow as I want to loan a pony for the winter?'  Many people tend to seek lending options rather than purchase a horse or pony due to the accompanying cost, although many of the same obligations that you would experience with full ownership are the same when lending.  Of course, lending is less permanant than purchasing a horse of your own, and can be a wonderful first step in experiencing what it would be like to own...

'Is it too late to get a foal out of my 17 year-old, 15.1hh Welsh Cob? She is in good health, but I'm not sure whether she's had a foal before?'   The age of a horse is not always an issue when it comes to putting a mare in foal for the first time - however, the fertility of a mare can decline with age. Many of the challenges that would have plagued an older mare can now be readily handled with modern veterinary methods.    Mares that have never had a...