Welcome to another Monday morning edition of the a-z of plants that really don’t like your horse. Today’s plant is one most will recognize, and it’s a rather broad category of plant. Rhododendrons come in all shapes, sized & colors & they are as beautiful as they are dangerous.

A Little About Rhododendrons

Rhododendron species have a huge list of common names. This is a large evergreen or deciduous shrub/ tree with large, oblong leaves that grow in a spiral arrangement. Flowers are white/ purple/ rose/ red/ yellow/ orange & grow in showy clusters of bell shaped blooms.

How Dangerous Is It?

This plant isn’t often found near grazing areas & is not palatable, it’s generally only a concern during drought conditions. Rhododendron contains Grayanotoxin, which affects skeletal/ cardiac muscle & nerve function.

All parts of this plant are toxic & can be fatal to equines.

What To Look For

You know your animal the best, so you should know when something is amiss. Rhododendron toxicity symptoms occur within a few hours of ingestion & include digestive upset, drooling, loss of appetite, diarrhea, colic, depression, weakness, lack of coordination, stupor, paralysis of the legs & weak heart rate.

Learn More

Be sure to check out the Rhododendron page to learn more about the plant & while you are at it why not check out more toxic plants?

*It should be noted that we’re not veterinarians. This information is written specifically for horses & should be used for reference purposes only. If you think your horse has eaten something toxic call your vet right away.

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Why We Like It

It’s not a super exciting picture, but there is something sweet & tranquil about it. This resting pinto beauty is a Chincoteague pony. The ancestors of these ponies were brought over from Spain during settling of the new world. Their geographical isolation makes them a fairly pure strain of the original Spanish animals. They are left to run wild for most of the year & strictly managed by the local authorities to encourage their success.

Hard to Decide

As always it’s difficult to select a fave, every horse & pony is beautiful. The trick is getting those pretty ponies looking good on film and believe us that is one magical trick! We can’t seem to take our own so we are ecstatic that other people can manage what we can’t – keep snapping away horse lovers!

Show Us Yours!

This is also an opportunity to reach out to our audience, who we know have some images of their own. While we’ve got tons of images to share, we want to share yours too. If you have an image you’d like us to feature on Fridays, let us know – we’d love to see it.

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Chapter 40. Poor Ginger

One day, while our cab and many others were waiting outside one of the parks where music was playing, a shabby old cab drove up beside ours. The horse was an old worn-out chestnut, with an ill-kept coat, and bones that showed plainly through it, the knees knuckled over, and the fore-legs were very unsteady. I had been eating some hay, and the wind rolled a little lock of it that way, and the poor creature put out her long thin neck and picked it up, and then turned and looked about for more. There was a hopeless look in the dull eye that I could not help noticing, and then, as I was thinking where I had seen that horse before, she looked full at me and said, “Black Beauty, is that you?”

It was Ginger! but how changed! The beautifully arched and glossy neck was now straight, and lank, and fallen in; the clean straight legs and delicate fetlocks were swelled; the joints were grown out of shape with hard work; the face, that was once so full of spirit and life, was now full of suffering, and I could tell by the heaving of her sides, and her frequent cough, how bad her breath was.

Our drivers were standing together a little way off, so I sidled up to her a step or two, that we might have a little quiet talk. It was a sad tale that she had to tell.

After a twelvemonth’s run off at Earlshall, she was considered to be fit for work again, and was sold to a gentleman. For a little while she got on very well, but after a longer gallop than usual the old strain returned, and after being rested and doctored she was again sold. In this way she changed hands several times, but always getting lower down.

“And so at last,” said she, “I was bought by a man who keeps a number of cabs and horses, and lets them out. You look well off, and I am glad of it, but I could not tell you what my life has been. When they found out my weakness they said I was not worth what they gave for me, and that I must go into one of the low cabs, and just be used up; that is what they are doing, whipping and working with never one thought of what I suffer — they paid for me, and must get it out of me, they say. The man who hires me now pays a deal of money to the owner every day, and so he has to get it out of me too; and so it’s all the week round and round, with never a Sunday rest.”

I said, “You used to stand up for yourself if you were ill-used.”

“Ah!” she said, “I did once, but it’s no use; men are strongest, and if they are cruel and have no feeling, there is nothing that we can do, but just bear it — bear it on and on to the end. I wish the end was come, I wish I was dead. I have seen dead horses, and I am sure they do not suffer pain; I wish I may drop down dead at my work, and not be sent off to the knackers.”

I was very much troubled, and I put my nose up to hers, but I could say nothing to comfort her. I think she was pleased to see me, for she said, “You are the only friend I ever had.”

Just then her driver came up, and with a tug at her mouth backed her out of the line and drove off, leaving me very sad indeed.

A short time after this a cart with a dead horse in it passed our cab-stand. The head hung out of the cart-tail, the lifeless tongue was slowly dropping with blood; and the sunken eyes! but I can’t speak of them, the sight was too dreadful. It was a chestnut horse with a long, thin neck. I saw a white streak down the forehead. I believe it was Ginger; I hoped it was, for then her troubles would be over. Oh! if men were more merciful they would shoot us before we came to such misery.

Chapter 41

Be sure to check out Chapter 39 if you haven’t already and stay tuned for chapter 41 next week. You can find all published chapters on the Black Beauty page.

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Welcome to another cheerful edition of the a-z of plants that don’t like your horse. Today’s plant is one most will recognize, they are spectacularly pretty – especially in the autumn. Luckily Red Maple Trees are fairly easy for horse owners to recognize & avoid.

A Little About Red Maple Trees

Acer rubrum is also called Red Maple Tree. This is a medium tree with green leaves that have bright red stems, in fall leaves go bright red. Bark is smooth & gray on young trees & dark on older trees. Flowers are red.

How Dangerous Is It?

While horses won’t generally eat trees, this one is particularly dangerous after storms knock leaves within reach of grazers. Two pounds of leaves can kill a full-grown horse, so it’s highly dangerous & horses should be kept well away at all times. Red Maple contains an unknown toxic component that does damage to red blood cells.

The wilted leaves of this plant are toxic & can be fatal to equines.

What To Look For

You know your animal the best, so you should know when something is amiss. Red Maple Tree toxicity symptoms include darkening of mucous membranes, weakness, loss of appetite, central nervous system depression, dark, discolored urine, shallow breathing, high pulse, dehydration & abortion in pregnant mares.

Learn More

Be sure to check out the Red Maple Tree page to learn more about the plant & while you are at it why not check out more toxic plants?

*It should be noted that we’re not veterinarians. This information is written specifically for horses & should be used for reference purposes only. If you think your horse has eaten something toxic call your vet right away.

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Why We Like It

There is just something really cute about a close up of a horse nose, especially one with a bright lovely white blaze. This is another soft horse nose that we just want to cover with kisses! We also really have a thing for shots that convey the equine personality, which is a lot more refined & humorous than non-horse people will ever understand.

Hard to Decide

As always it’s difficult to select a fave, every horse & pony is beautiful. The trick is getting those pretty ponies looking good on film and believe us that is one magical trick! We can’t seem to take our own so we are ecstatic that other people can manage what we can’t – keep snapping away horse lovers!

Show Us Yours!

This is also an opportunity to reach out to our audience, who we know have some images of their own. While we’ve got tons of images to share, we want to share yours too. If you have an image you’d like us to feature on Fridays, let us know – we’d love to see it.

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Thanks to an amazing reader from the Netherlands who did some translating, we’ve finally got some more information about the handsome Zeeland horse (or Zeeuwse Trekpaard).

The Real Deal

We are happy as we can be to have updated information about this amazing old breed from their native country & equally as happy to have found some truly fabulous images of the breed itself. Be sure to check out the Zeeland page for more information about them & while you are there why not meet another breed or two?

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Chapter 39. Speedy Sam

I should say that for a cab-horse I was very well off indeed; my driver was my owner, and it was his interest to treat me well and not overwork me, even had he not been so good a man as he was; but there were a great many horses which belonged to the large cab-owners, who let them out to their drivers for so much money a day. As the horses did not belong to these men the only thing they thought of was how to get their money out of them, first, to pay the master, and then to provide for their own living; and a dreadful time some of these horses had of it. Of course, I understood but little, but it was often talked over on the stand, and the governor, who was a kind-hearted man and fond of horses, would sometimes speak up if one came in very much jaded or ill-used.

One day a shabby, miserable-looking driver, who went by the name of “Seedy Sam”, brought in his horse looking dreadfully beat, and the governor said:

“You and your horse look more fit for the police station than for this rank.”

The man flung his tattered rug over the horse, turned full round upon the Governor and said in a voice that sounded almost desperate:

“If the police have any business with the matter it ought to be with the masters who charge us so much, or with the fares that are fixed so low. If a man has to pay eighteen shillings a day for the use of a cab and two horses, as many of us have to do in the season, and must make that up before we earn a penny for ourselves I say ’tis more than hard work; nine shillings a day to get out of each horse before you begin to get your own living. You know that’s true, and if the horses don’t work we must starve, and I and my children have known what that is before now. I’ve six of ‘em, and only one earns anything; I am on the stand fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and I haven’t had a Sunday these ten or twelve weeks; you know Skinner never gives a day if he can help it, and if I don’t work hard, tell me who does! I want a warm coat and a mackintosh, but with so many to feed how can a man get it? I had to pledge my clock a week ago to pay Skinner, and I shall never see it again.”

Some of the other drivers stood round nodding their heads and saying he was right. The man went on:

“You that have your own horses and cabs, or drive for good masters, have a chance of getting on and a chance of doing right; I haven’t. We can’t charge more than sixpence a mile after the first, within the four-mile radius. This very morning I had to go a clear six miles and only took three shillings. I could not get a return fare, and had to come all the way back; there’s twelve miles for the horse and three shillings for me. After that I had a three-mile fare, and there were bags and boxes enough to have brought in a good many twopences if they had been put outside; but you know how people do; all that could be piled up inside on the front seat were put in and three heavy boxes went on the top. That was sixpence, and the fare one and sixpence; then I got a return for a shilling. Now that makes eighteen miles for the horse and six shillings for me; there’s three shillings still for that horse to earn and nine shillings for the afternoon horse before I touch a penny. Of course, it is not always so bad as that, but you know it often is, and I say ’tis a mockery to tell a man that he must not overwork his horse, for when a beast is downright tired there’s nothing but the whip that will keep his legs a-going; you can’t help yourself — you must put your wife and children before the horse; the masters must look to that, we can’t. I don’t ill-use my horse for the sake of it; none of you can say I do. There’s wrong lays somewhere — never a day’s rest, never a quiet hour with the wife and children. I often feel like an old man, though I’m only forty-five. You know how quick some of the gentry are to suspect us of cheating and overcharging; why, they stand with their purses in their hands counting it over to a penny and looking at us as if we were pickpockets. I wish some of ‘em had got to sit on my box sixteen hours a day and get a living out of it and eighteen shillings beside, and that in all weathers; they would not be so uncommon particular never to give us a sixpence over or to cram all the luggage inside. Of course, some of ‘em tip us pretty handsome now and then, or else we could not live; but you can’t depend upon that.”

The men who stood round much approved this speech, and one of them said, “It is desperate hard, and if a man sometimes does what is wrong it is no wonder, and if he gets a dram too much who’s to blow him up?”

Jerry had taken no part in this conversation, but I never saw his face look so sad before. The governor had stood with both his hands in his pockets; now he took his handkerchief out of his hat and wiped his forehead.

“You’ve beaten me, Sam,” he said, “for it’s all true, and I won’t cast it up to you any more about the police; it was the look in that horse’s eye that came over me. It is hard lines for man and it is hard lines for beast, and who’s to mend it I don’t know: but anyway you might tell the poor beast that you were sorry to take it out of him in that way. Sometimes a kind word is all we can give ‘em, poor brutes, and ’tis wonderful what they do understand.”

A few mornings after this talk a new man came on the stand with Sam’s cab.

“Halloo!” said one, “what’s up with Seedy Sam?”

“He’s ill in bed,” said the man; “he was taken last night in the yard, and could scarcely crawl home. His wife sent a boy this morning to say his father was in a high fever and could not get out, so I’m here instead.”

The next morning the same man came again.

“How is Sam?” inquired the governor.

“He’s gone,” said the man.

“What, gone? You don’t mean to say he’s dead?”

“Just snuffed out,” said the other; “he died at four o’clock this morning; all yesterday he was raving — raving about Skinner, and having no Sundays. `I never had a Sunday’s rest,’ these were his last words.”

No one spoke for a while, and then the governor said, “I’ll tell you what, mates, this is a warning for us.”

Chapter 40

Be sure to check out Chapter 38 if you haven’t already and stay tuned for chapter 40 next week. You can find all published chapters on the Black Beauty page.

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