Ok, young hunter trainers

[Salty]

I was told a long time ago to never say always or never.

I have three equines, none of whom can tolerate grass. They have two acres of hilly, wooded dirt with a run-in shed which can be reconfigured into a shed and two stalls. They spend a lot of time hanging around in the shed and the rest of the time exploring the two acres. It works for them.

I had a Thoroughbred who needed a small individual pasture and a run-in shed. She didn’t tolerate being stalled, and other horses always beat her up. This is what worked for her.

I had another one who insisted on being in during the day and out on grass at night. It worked for him.

The stud manager at Three Chimneys said that his job was that of an interpreter. He listens to what the horses want and provides it. That’s my goal.

[pompeiii]

My boys are turned out 12 hours/day (rain or shine) on what’s mostly a dirt lot with free choice hay. They have some grass (when it’s rich, they get 1-3 hours as my mini can’t handle more) and now get more because they’d rather eat hay in the run in (heat, bugs, and dried up/eaten down grass). Is it ideal? No, but it works. My mini wears his muzzle year round when turned out unless temps are arctic and my thoroughbred does better on hay than grass. Maybe super rich grass would be different, but…

My senior would have been thrilled to stay out 24/7 when he was alive (he lived out from 5-22 and we stall 12/12 the last 4 years of his life) but my current 2 love stall time. For my mini, he gets out of his muzzle and my thoroughbred can eat as slowly as he wants and gets his alfalfa. Plus they’re both huge stall nappers.

At the end of the day, this works for us, but it’s far from ideal to lots of folks.

[Mander]

I think most of us latch our pasture gates too…

[Tha_Ridge]

Cruel!

[konik]

Just curious, How common is it for large A/AA show barns provide group turnout in a large pastures for 8 hrs or more? Do places like this exist?
I find that most places I’ve encountered in Midwest and some east coast provide limited turn out in individual paddocks , even if they have nice grass pastures… it’s usually “too wet, too cold, too hot, too buggy, horses want to come in early , etc” and the max they get is 2-3 hours outside or an hour on a eurowalker if they stay in …
What’s everyone’s experience?

[trubandloki]

I don’t know any large show barns of any type that have enough land to do large group in large area all day turn out.

So, that leaves most places with smaller turn out in either small groups or individual turn out (because show horses frequently have four shoes on, and most people do not want Dobbin getting kicked by a back shoe) for shorter times so everyone gets some time out.

[FLeventer]

On your tack collection, I used to buy items from it on the HGS forums when you’d sell pieces. That was 10 plus years ago and it was impressive then.

On the horse keeping side, in an ideal world horses would be outside in lush pastures that were fly free and no one would run and there would be no accidents. Is that feasible when land prices are through the roof and boarding barns are closing/selling land. When land prices are absurd at the moment and 10 acres in some places are climbing in the millions, it isn’t always possible.

So you do the best you can. Can a horse have a good life in a paddock with hay? Yes. Can it also have a good life on 40 acres of grass? Yes.

I understand that people want to protect their investments, their lively hood. Horses need time to be horses though. They need to walk around. Even a paddock is something. Some turnout is needed to let them roll and just chill away from the stall.

[WavyRider]

And then there’s owners like me, who have to limit or completely forgo grass turnout due to a history of laminitis/founder/metabolic disorder! Finding a BIG dry lot has been its own challenge.

[Foitin]

The three A/AA barns I’m most familiar with in the mid-Atlantic, including mine, provide turnout in individual grass paddocks or fields until the horse goes to the gate, starts running around, or 4 hours. One of my horses goes out in a huge field all by himself. The other two in something smaller. They are not turned out in the rain or frozen ground. This may not be the norm, because there is no norm, though threads like this and several others at the moment are based entirely on this idea, which is very troll-y, in my view. I am of the point of view that most people bothering to post on here in good faith are doing as best as they can for their horses.

[endlessclimb]

Very uncommon.

I’ve had to have multiple conversations that it is A-OK for my horses to be out in the rain, on “dry lots”. I get not wanting to tear up pastures, but it’s already a mud pit or mud proof, put their butts outside no matter the weather.

[Peggy]

Same here. Fortunately we live in Southern California where grass is far less common (and pretty much should be IMHO bc of a limited supply of reliable water).

And, yes, mine lives out 24/7 in a large paddock with access to hay in a slow feeder. But that’s not easy to find, especially if you don’t want to do a lot of driving to see your horse.

[trakehners]

The big H/J show barns in my area only turnout for a handful of hours, if that, and at one in particular no one goes out on Mondays unless their owners come to turn them out for a couple of hours themselves because that’s the barn staff’s day off. It isn’t an issue of space either - I honestly can’t think of a single barn around here that doesn’t have enough physical pasture to provide proper turnout, because in our metro area you can drive 45 minutes out of downtown and basically be in the middle of nowhere.

I board with a 5* eventer and all the horses are turned out in groups for at least 8 hours per day in large pastures with the exception of the one gelding who requires solo turnout because he beats everyone else up otherwise, and my horse (who is currently on solo turnout because he’s rehabbing from a suspensory injury and likes to play a little too much when he’s with his friends). My horse will be back in one of the gelding groups once he’s fully recovered. The horses come in for 6-8 hours during the worst of the heat (and bugs) in the summer because the barn is cooler and has great airflow (they usually use this as an opportunity to nap), and they’re in overnight in the winter, but my trainer tries to keep everyone out as much as possible barring inclement weather. Knowing the difference in my horse’s psychological state when he gets turnout versus when he doesn’t, I couldn’t imagine trying to keep him at a barn that wouldn’t give him that time most days, especially around here where we have grass and plenty of open space.

[outside_leg]

I’m at an A show barn. Our horses go out overnight in the summer in individual grass paddocks or pairs (for the ones that get along/don’t have hind shoes). There are a few that can’t handle that long, so they go out in the day for as long as they can manage. In the winter, we rotate on the dry lots. It depends on the weather and how many horses we have at home, but they all get around 4 hours of turnout. It’s not perfect, but far preferable to a lot of the other barns around here that flat out don’t have turnout or put them outside for maybe an hour.

[Alterration]

A. I find the targeting of young hunter trainers odd. This has been the way things have been for a good while, ever since horses became super-pricey.

B. I find the judging of people in our community pretty repulsive. Out and out abuse? Sure, judge that, but I really despise the “everyone who isn’t me on the internet is a horse abuser” thing.

My horses get turnout. 12+ hours, but they also have their stalls with fans, which they do express their preference to come into when the bugs are bad or it’s too hot or whatever. I have two horses on property who don’t get along with other horses to the point of causing severe injuries, so they are on their own, but across the fence from the rest of the herd. Lots of hay bags scattered about, and lots to do…but there’s still one guy who wants to come in the minute he sees a person (he was raised in a stall with an indoor attached to it, and he still thinks the outside is very crude), and another who sometimes doesn’t want to go out, and I have to sort of fool him into going outside every once in awhile by going out a different door. I know he’d be upset if he were in and everyone else were out, so I have no idea why we have to have this discussion every few days. Our stalls don’t have solid walls between them, and the horses can interact through the mesh. They can also hang their heads out and visit with anyone walking by. I made my stalls bigger (11x21) so that they can move around pretty freely inside, and they have free choice hay whenever they are in there - they literally never run out.

All that to say, horses need movement and socialization. I’m not sure that turnout as we normally envision it is the only way to do that. I think if you construct barns in such a way that the horses have choices, as well as buddies, a horse can be very happy. Movement can be artificial - my horses move far more when being worked than when hanging out in the field. Enrichment is important, but it doesn’t have to be idealistic, we can be creative here. Zoos do fabulous things with hanging enrichment, which I think could be emulated for horses.

Anyway, I’m tired of the judgey mcjudger-pants way people are in the equine community nowadays. I think it’s hurting us overall.

[risuenaVT]

Not sure if the barn I’m at qualifies as a large A/AA show barn, mostly because I don’t own or show at this point, but they do at least dabble in A/AA shows. But they seem to be pretty willing to adapt turnout as necessary to their horses. They don’t do 24/7 turnout but do seem to try to do at least 8hrs (though yes all bets are off if it’s rainy or muddy). And while they do have a preference for one or two horse in each field, they do have a couple of fields that they can open the gates in between to make a larger space and have put four or five horses in there at a time. I haven’t seen many barns willing to adjust like that before (of course a lot of barns don’t have fields or paddocks that are set up like that either).

[onlyTBmares]

An interesting anecdote. I had a horse 15 years ago that was purchased out of a 40 acre field with 20 or so other geldings obviously happy as a clam. I kept him there as I brought him into work. Then I moved towns (super small town you can’t imagine the lack of options) and he temporarily had to move to a barn with no turnout other than a small round pen and a larger indoor round pen. He was honestly quite happy and I spent a ton of time there, trail riding in addition to working in the arena and he started turning into a useful animal. Eventually a spot opened up at the other local facility that had turnout and an indoor and other things I needed. We did a slow introduction and put him out in the maybe 10 acre grass field with the other geldings, there was probably 6 of them. He just never adjusted out there. After months and months he was losing so much weight not eating grass or hay just weaving at the gate we gave up and put him in a small dry lot with another gelding. Happy as a clam, shared a fence line with the group, came into a stall at night and we just never tried again. I would have rather had him in the big field with grass but we did what worked.

[mmeqcenter]

Personally, I’m not so concerned with the grass part as I am with the turnout part. My mare is out 24/7 in a small-ish dry lot with an alfalfa block available 24/7. It’s a small farm with a small number of horses, so she has one turnout buddy. She’s quite happy where she is. Would she be, and has she been, happier in a 10-acre field with 20 friends? Sure. But she’s fine for where we are right now. She’s also eight billion times happier than she would be sitting in a stall for 20 hours a day, going out for only four hours, even if that four hours were in a 10-acre field with 20 friends.

I’m well aware each horse is different, and I understand geographical limitations. What I have a problem with, is people building 30-stall barns on five acre lots. And justifying the build because otherwise horse owners would have to drive further to see their horse. So drive further. Why is your drive time more important than your horse’s mental and physical health?

And farms with acres and acres of turnout that doesn’t get used solely so that it remains all pretty and green and magazine-perfect.

And farms that don’t plan their business structure or farm layout to have dry lots so they can turn out even in winter, in areas like Ohio where you get snow and ice and mud for six months of the year. So they keep the horses locked in 12’x12’ (or smaller) boxes for six months straight.
Some might let them out in the indoor arena for 30 minutes once a week. Woohoo.

As an industry, we have an awful lot of horse-keeping practices that have everything to do with human convenience, and nothing to do with the health of the horse. It’s not a coincidence that we have an increase in the number of horses with issues like kissing spine and ulcers, and why so many competition horses (even at the lower levels) require so much maintenance (like monthly injections) to be sound.

[quietann]

@mmeqcenter

What I have a problem with, is people building 30-stall barns on five acre lots.

It’s very hard to make any sort of profit without some sort of “balance” like this – yet local zoning may not allow that density of horses.

[mmeqcenter]

Ah, yes, the other spectacular argument.

Sounds like it’s not actually a viable business plan, then.

[trubandloki]

@mmeqcenter

My mare is out 24/7 in a small-ish dry lot with an alfalfa block available 24/7

This is probably a stupid question because the answer is likely just a terminology thing - what do you mean by alfalfa block?