The Tack Room - A City of Horses

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I have brought the country to the city with a hot stable, the sweet smell of straw and molasses, and horse ownership in a concrete forest. This is horses in Sydney’s CBD, so welcome to The Tack Room...

The Wonder of Horses - The Tack Room

Retiring from Orble

August 2nd 2007 04:07

All good things come to an end I guess. I'd like to add this little post to say I will no longer be writing The Tack Room any longer. I have enjoyed my experiences with Orble very much, the discipline of writing regularly, the fun in writing about horses at my will! And thank you to all my fellow Orble writers who have visited, commented and voted. You guys are a wonderful set-up, and I wish you all very well with your blogs.

The Tack Room, unfortunatey, could not come with me but is bound up in Orble terms and conditions. So, I imagine that it will become available for any writer to claim it. Whoever volunteers, be nice!

For anyone who would like to continue reading about horses, you might visit my website at The Horse Company www.thehorseco.com where the subject is the same as here only much more elaborate.

So to all and sunder, a very good luck and a very big thank you to the Orble team for their impressive customer service and the opportunity to enjoy The Tack Room so much....

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Posted By: Jess - Category: The Wonder of Horses

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Are the Faces of Fortune Changing for Horses?

April 29th 2007 16:00

Anna Sewell, author of Black Beauty

It all started with a novel that became a classic, or at least that’s what they say. Not that there weren’t good horse people in the centuries before this one but there were obvious bad ones. So when Anna Sewell released Black Beauty in 1879, she single-handed altered the fate of every horse to come.

It’s been a long time since 1879 and we’d like to think that much has changed for horses and we’d be correct. It has. It would be hard to find a team driving under the bearing rein, even harder to look the other way on an emaciated thoroughbred. Such things that would have been seen on the streets we shared with horses are now either few or behind closed doors.

Yet I can’t help but feel that these doors are everywhere, and disguised. Many, many years ago I witnessed a horse wearing a roller with side reins for hours each day in what his owner deemed an acceptable and effective aid to ‘fixing’ the horse’s head into the correct outline – a lesson in how to forever disengage the quarters! In Bathurst last winter I had an eye-opening introduction to the cutting horse circuit – hobbling – proving that old habits, even the disgraceful ones, die hard. And racehorses… well, they are dying harder every day with faster track times over shorter distances, un-natural living conditions and all the associated risks they endure because they were born a thoroughbred.

During the last weekend of March I joined over a thousand others at the Horsley Park to listen to Pat Parelli. His methods in natural horsemanship have penetrated millions of riders and owners around the world - truly a phenomenon. And while the Parelli package is laced with money generating marketing strategies his message is sacred. He is sending saddleries into recession with his emphasis on minimalism. So, Parelli and Monty Roberts and others like them have demonstrated there is no need for the bearing rein and any good rider will tell you that a horse will come into a contact with the

Draw reins

correct engagement regardless of tack, but people still, for example, buy draw reins.

Any sport engineered by aesthetics will bear question marks, so showing would be no different. It annoys me to see show horses with four and five rugs on in the warm Australian autumn, with full hoods and tail bandages as owners endeavour to prevent winter coats from growing. In my part of Sydney riding school horses are granted ten days off a year, and work seven days of every remaining week. At an Irish horse fair several years ago I watched my friend sell her wonderful 24 year old gelding Tom to naïve owners under the auspice that he was 14. I still wonder how he fared with another lifetime of work through years that should have been punctuated by retirement.

If only every horse human relationship were this perfect...*

I like to think that the movement of horses from industry and necessity to optional pleasure has been successful, and in the last 60 years it has. In the UK alone there are 6 million registered riders, a healthily fantastic magazine industry dedicated to them and very spirited, very successful welfare organizations protecting them. Australia is not so motivated, though its riders are no less devoted. And while the world is smaller thanks to technology, its secrets are still easily disguised.

In Spain this month it came to international light that fighting bulls are taunted to gore a tied, blindfolded horse to death in preparation for the evening battle with the matador (‘battle’ in that the thousands in the stands share agreement that the bull has no chance). The UK-based International League for the Protection of Horses (ILPH) had no idea of this practice and has taken the case to the EU. I have a feeling that there are many closets around the world that are like this one – full.

It is unfortunate that we must write and read about these things. It would be nice to say that horses are held in the highest stead today, as high as the horse who wins a good race and his people are pleased. It would be nicer if his people stayed pleased with him for the remainder of his life, but it is a sad reality that when it comes to horses the word commodity rings true. Anna Sewell, they say, started it, and thank god that she did because I am sure things are better for horses today, but were she immortal she would have plenty left to do.

Author's note:
I choose to keep the issues on The Tack Room relatively positive. The world is full of negative press because negative press makes money and the more sensational the better, so I put weight behind positive press. This post however comes in the footsteps of the previous post on the unnecessary death of another wonderful 3yo racehorse and the chilling but absolutely truthful post on Nickoftime's Sanity Corner that I stress any concerned animal lover should not only look at, but read with concentration.

Additional detail on this post's information can be found at various sites, including:
The International League for the Protection of Horses
Pat and Linda Parelli
Nickoftime's Sanity Corner (viewers are advised that the contents of this page are incredibly upsetting)
The British Horse Society

*Photo of horse woman silhouette entitled "Horse and woman..." by Salih Güler[

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The Great Horse Books

April 14th 2007 17:09

Equestrian books gather creases and dust in the lives of most riders. Like shoes you simply cannot have too many. Each delivers new evidence of your need for horses; each reiterates that your horse is your life. There are thousands of books available for each equestrian discipline across the horse world, but a rider should know what she is seeking. Jump technique or lateral work instructionals abound, as do the volumes that followed the natural horsemanship revolution.

But there are a few very special books that feed and nourish the horse tragic, so here is a select group that may parallel your life

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