This is because haylage has to be carefully prepared, carefully wrapped and stored if it is going to be fed to horses. If the wrapper has any cuts, rips, exposure to outside environmental contamination it can and does spoil easily for horse use. Very easily contaminated with botulinum toxin. Cows can eat a lot of things that will make a horse sick and or kill it.
Haylage is not worth the risk when hay plentiful.
Hi! Here’s another question:
Is pleasure riding the same as trail riding?
I tried googling it, but I was still confused!
It is confusing. Some people trail ride for pleasure, but you don’t have to ride on trails to enjoy riding.
IMHO, pleasure riding is sort of a catch-all term to distinguish riders who compete from those that don’t and are riding for pure entertainment. There are very capable and competent riders who chose not to compete for any number of reasons, so it shouldn’t be used to gauge a person’s riding ability. Riders who take lessons but don’t compete are fall somewhere in between and sometimes counted among the pleasure riders and sometimes with the “serious” riders.
It is true that a lot of pleasure riders do a considerable amount of their riding on the trails - it is far more enjoyable on a nice day than wandering around an arena.
To add to the confusion there are Pleasure divisions in most shows - breed, hunter, western, saddle seat all have different Pleasure classes in which to compete! In these the horse is judged on his/her suitability to be a pleasurable mount: calm, obedient to the aids, comfortable to ride.
And there are competitive trail riders, both in and out of the arena.
I for one find neither pleasurable :lol::lol:
My ex-brother in law called the barn “horse kennels” and asked if the people brought the horses in for the day like doggie day care or if they had to stay longer.
There’s all sorts of levels of trail riding too. Short groomed trails, gnarly back country trails in the mountains, horse camping, long pack treks. A lot of competitive arena riders aren’t comfortable doing a lot of that. So while trail riding and pleasure riding are probably synonymous to some degree, back country trail riding is something else.
I tend to make a basic distinction between recreational and competitive riding. Recreational riders might go in a few low key shows each year but aren’t on a primarily competitive program. Recreational riders might just bloop around the arena and not feel comfortable on the trails, or they might be doing 5 day pack trips in the Rockies ponying a pack mule. Or anything in between.
Here’s something that absolutely stumped me when I returned to riding.
I knew Western saddle, jump saddle, dressage saddle. But what was a close contact saddle? The modern jump saddles I was seeing were built up with knee rolls and thigh blocks and sqishy seats, just like the dressage saddles. I went for a while thinking it must refer to old pancake flat saddles until I realized they weren’t made anymore, and close contact was just a synonym for jump saddle.
Regarding the term for a chunk of hay… Has anyone ever heard it called a “fleek”? That was the accepted pronunciation among my parents’ horsey friends growing up, but I don’t think I’ve heard it lately. Is it maybe a regional thing?
Thanks for all the comments! I am somewhat green as well and this is very helpful
Going for a hack as opposed to trail riding. To me going for a hack was working roads and cross country at various gates. We always had some walks, trots and canter depending on the footing. Whereas trail riding to me was just walking on the trails.
I suppose trail riding was more of a western term and hacking was done by riding English at least here in Canada.
That brings me to a question why was it called “English” as most riding other than using a Western or stock saddle was the same in other European countries.
People certainly walk trot and canter on trail rides. Depends on the terrain.
Trail riding can also mean 45 minutes on a groomed trail at a poky walk or three days packing into the back country, or fitting up for endurance rides.
I bet there are folks in England who hack out for a dopey walk for 45 minutes just like some trail riders here.
English versus Western is clearly a North American distinction. In England I imagine 
everyone was in a jump saddle or historically a side saddle of course.
Maybe that is their accent when saying flake.
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