MyHoofPrints

Feed storage leads, please!

2010-01-04T12:14:46-08:00

More and more it seems that each and every horse at our barn needs its own custom feed. We have searched and searched for large (must hold a 50-pound bag of concentrates or more), stackable (three-high), easily-accessible (lid is angled and hinges to the side), affordable (in the neighborhood of $50), strong, rodent-proof containers that will help us neaten up the feed room. We are on the verge of building our own, but stop us, please! E-mail us at: prstables@frii.com

High school students can letter in riding!

2010-01-02T14:40:47-08:00

In a move that counters many schools’ refusal to acknowledge equestrian disciplines as true sports, the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) has launched a program allowing high school students to letter in riding.

“The equestrian athlete dedicates as much, if not more, time preparing for competition as does any other athlete in a high school program,” said the USEF press release. The letter program, which is also open to home-schoolers, recognizes “the unique and often challenging human-to-animal connection … required of a successful equestrian athlete/equine combination.”

Requirements for lettering include USEF membership, 100 hours of riding and participation at two USEF competitions or five competitions at shows “affiliated with, or sanctioned by a horse show association.” Riders must complete a log documenting riding hours and competition results. Click here for complete application materials.

Current Seniors can enroll by January 29, 2010, and complete the requirements by May 31, 2010. For more information, contact Lauren Fahey via email at lfahey@usef.org

Good job, USEF! (OK, all you high-schoolers: Opportunity is knocking. Be sure to answer the door!)

Vet 'miracle' on short list for NBC's Hometown Heroes

2009-12-30T15:23:59-08:00

FORT COLLINS, Colorado -- Colorado State University teaching hospital veterinarians who saved two eggs from a mare killed more than a year ago in a nearby tornado -- and produced two healthy foals from surrogate mothers -- will be NBC's "Hometown Heroes" if they get enough votes.
Dr. Pat McCue, director of the Equine Reproduction Laboratory, and other reproduction experts at CSU pulled off the local "miracle" as a way to help the community of nearby Windsor recover emotionally from the devastating May 2008 tornado, according to a CSU press release. If the veterinarians win the award (and we hope they do!), the $10,000 in prize money will go toward helping critically ill newborn foals and educational programs about new foals. Click here and then look for the words "Pat McCue" under "Hometown Heroes" to cast your vote!
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NEWS FLASH! ... and if you have not already done it, take our opinion survey on the Larimer County Horse Facilities rules. (The survey does not collect personal data.) Results will be published before the next meeting!

All I need to know I learned from my tractor

2009-12-30T14:03:07-08:00

Loose horses embrace moving tractors.
If at first you don’t make the grade, try, try, again -- faster and faster.
Power steering, four-wheel drive, enclosed cabs, heaters, bucket seats, and stereos will only make you soft.
For drop-dead control, drop the bucket. (Gates and fences can be rebuilt.)
Regular oil feedings are as important as knowing the oil hole from the hydraulic-fluid or say, the fuel hole.
Gravity is a powerful force -- especially going downhill backwards on ice, in the dark.
Make more than one copy of the tractor key.
Red farm diesel spilled on fresh snow gives the place that festive touch.
Black smoke and spewing, yellow liquid are bad.
Uncooperative tractor parts respond well to hammers.
A plugged-in tractor is a happy tractor.
Plow Job #1: The rescue truck.
Based on my 950's long life and ability to multi-task, John Deere was probably a woman.

Not quite Hallmark

2009-12-22T13:47:37-08:00

One of my most vivid memories is the Cold War drill in which we dropped to the floor and crouched under our school desks while the air raid siren blew. I was never quite sure how the drill would protect me. I suppose rescuers would get the seating chart, dig through the cave-in, and find me beautifully pressed by the desk into the floor.

Back then we visited my grandparents in Hardin, Montana at Christmas. The grandparents had heeded our cry for horses and given us Shetland ponies. The ponies in turn, served as prime bait for repeat grandchildren visits.

We couldn’t horse around much in Hardin then, due to icy roads, so we rode the lanes of my grandfather’s military surplus yard. Our ponies’ barn and the military junk made up part of his bulk-oil plant’s oddly balanced ecosystem.

Once, when it was time to leave for home, my sister and I hid, hoping we would never be found.

We rode Nugget and Mohawk into a giant bomb shell. There inside the bomb, astride our stubby mounts, we watched snow gently drift to the ground and listened to our parents shout for us.

The snow, the bomb shell tableau, the moment of our discovery, my parents’ disgust: Not quite a Hallmark Christmas card, but a Christmas never forgotten.

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'Christmas past' gobbles up Thanksgiving

2009-12-16T11:59:46-08:00

Just before the mashed potatoes needed to get started this Thanksgiving, my daughter’s phone jingled with a text message: “Leslie fell off Duke (names changed to protect the innocent) and they can’t find him on the trail.”
Another client on Leslie’s emergency list had sent the message, and was out searching for the missing horse. Had “Christmas past” returned on Thanksgiving?
We raced out of the house, my daughter running to get bridles, me grabbing my erstwhile pocket halter, and slipping on my Mucks (the world’s best bad-weather, cold-weather, wet-weather boot).
Dell, my gelding, who has no plans to become a heroic movie star, backed away when he saw me coming with the pocket halter dangling off my shoulder. He sensed were having a crisis, and thought he was it. A couple of seconds later, Dell grudgingly lowered his head, and allowed himself to be bridled. I ran with him trotting alongside, to our personal gate to the bike trail.
My daughter waited at the gate, and as soon as I unlocked it, she gave me a leg up. (At 16.2 hands, Dell is one of the tallest Morgans around!)
We cantered down the Poudre River bike trail and soon found the husband of our client leading Duke. Someone on the trail had found the horse, riderless. The husband did not know where Leslie was.
We cantered down the trail another quarter of a mile, and discovered Leslie, limping, but walking, thank goodness.
Everybody gathered and headed back to the stable as an equestrian caravan, Duke in the middle.
The story: Duke spooked and spun when a fisherman, kitted out from a horse’s perspective in odd-shaped, threatening, dangling gear, approached on the trail. Duke reared and Leslie leaned forward to keep Duke from falling over backwards. When Duke hit the ground and spun, Leslie was still in the forward mode, and fell off. The poor fisherman felt terrible.
Leslie’s pride and her hip took a hit in the fall. Otherwise she was unhurt, thanks no doubt, to the fact that she was wearing a helmet. Also, luckily, Leslie had thought to ride with A) her husband as a buddy, albeit on foot, and B) with her cell phone.
Since then Leslie has considered the possibility of a bridle tag for Duke that reads: If found call: xxx-xxx-xxxx. (Good idea!)
And if anybody is up there listening – we are done with the historic holiday shenanigans, thank you!

Jax joins 'Winning Bet' team

2009-12-14T11:00:35-08:00

Congratulations to Jax Stores, the newest member of the Winning Bet team! You can now find Winning Bet, the exciting story of 15-year-old Emma Duncan’s dare to bet on herself and her horse, at Jax Ranch & Home, Fort Collins (1000 N. Hwy. 287; 970-484-2221), and Jax Outdoor Gear Ranch & Home (950 E. Eisenhower, Loveland; 970-776-4540), Loveland.
Winning Bet features a colorful cast of characters, a touch of romance, a mystery, and lots of horse show action. Get it now as the perfect gift for the horse lover on your list! (Winning Bet -- ISBN #: 0-615-32165-8, paperback, 200 pgs., suggested retail, $12.95.) Retailers, contact the Ingram Book Company to make Winning Bet part of your operation.
'Winning Bet' first copy raises $100 for charity
Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble take on 'Winning Bet'

Horse operations: Don't throw the baby out with the bath water

2009-12-13T04:51:55-08:00

FORT COLLINS, Colorado – It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
The working group in charge of developing new rules for horse stables and Larimer County staff have partnered up, vowing to work together to solve the horse facility problem. The solution could take at least another six months.
On the table will be the working group’s vision for a plan that horse businesses can swallow, and county staff’s technical expertise and vision for business regulations. The goal: A conceptual model that will survive to a final vote by county commissioners.
NEWS FLASH! Planning commissioner Kathay Rennels resigns

(Take our survey on the issue. Click the "survey" button!)

If you count the livestock restrictions battle of 2006, what to do with horses is nearly a four-year-old problem. If you count cattle and dairy cows, some would argue that the conflict between livestock owners and the county has been around a lot longer than that.
After 10 months of three-hour-long meetings, the working group, made up of a cross section of volunteers appointed by county commissioners, thought it had achieved a plan and a spirit of compromise from even the bitterest opponents of new regulations for horse stables.
But when it came to a vote, in spite of ardent testimony in favor of the proposed rules for equestrian operations, and few speaking against the proposal, planning commissioners quashed the plan, and tabled their vote November 18.
Planning commissioners cited lack of enforceability, lack of attention to neighbors, lack of punishment, and lack of specifics in their reasons for tabling a vote on rules for horse operations.
“I was very, very disheartened with the planning commission,” said working group member Wendy Chase at a follow-up meeting November 30th. “That they would just table it. Think of the people that have been waiting … 10 months now. There are people that are out there waiting to apply, not apply, or move out of the county.”
“I’m not sure that they’re even on board for the whole concept,” said working group member Jill Cook. “If they’re not on board, who cares about the details?”
“I think we wasted our time presenting this to the planning commissioners,” said working group member Trisha Swift. “I was under the impression we would be answering to the county commissioners, not presenting to the planning commission. They don’t know horses.”
Working group members also urged that two members, Sonja Craighead and Lisa Oppenheimer, who drafted an alternative proposal, the so-called “minority report”, and those who have not regularly attended meetings be expelled from the group. Members took exception to accusations made during the public comment period at the November 18 planning commission meeting by Dave Craighead, husband of Sonja, that they were participating in the workin group unethically because most of them operate non-compliant stables. (Having a compliant stable was not a qulification for being on the working group.)
“For the record, I am not in violation of any Larimer county code that I know of,” said Chase.
“If we don’t agree with them 100 percent, they’ll come out with another minority report,” said working group member Barry Feldman. “It needs to be real clear that they are no longer officially part of this group.”
After members had time to vent, at the suggestion of Linda Hoffman, director of the county rural land use center, the working group put aside its frustrations and agreed to team up with county staff to come up with a revised proposal.
“All hope is not lost,” said Feldman. “I know from talking to a couple of commissioners that they understand more than the planning commissioners do.”
The “problem” is deciding what to do with horse facilities -- and getting stakeholders to agree. The county launched the horse facilities “study” because of about 25 complaints over several years by neighbors of horse properties, most of which were not boarding stables.
The project morphed into new rules for horse operations only, with the goal to develop a fair plan that would survive predicted population growth and development.
“You’ve got vision. We’ve got rules, standards, and what the community thinks,” said county planning department staff member Matt Lafferty, who cited lack of communication with county staff as the reason the working group’s proposal flopped.
One major issue is whether horse operations should have the money-saving land use privileges granted to agricultural operations. Culturally, most horse people believe they fall under the broad, protective umbrella of the “Code of the West” (http://www.co.larimer.co.us/planning/planning/code_of_the_west/index.htm) described by former county commissioner John Clarke. Technically, while the county typically turned a blind eye unless there was a complaint, horse businesses actually fell under a costly set of rules designed for commercial businesses.
At the next meeting December 14, the working group and county staff will also look at:

Adding some sort of public input to the process at all levels
Toughening a proposed scalable system that would determine a horse operation’s level of review
A horse operation’s proximity to urbanization
Applicable land use standards
A resource stewardship plan
Horse trailer storage
The threshold for equestrian events
Applicability of building codes and traffic fees
The transition program for existing horse operations

Working group members acknowledged they lacked the technical expertise of planning department employees. “We want to be as much a tool to you as we want you to be a tool with us,” said Lafferty.
“What we want to do in this group is allow a healthy horse industry in Larimer county,” said working group member Kathy Doesken. “It would be real travesty if the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.”
The working group/county staff’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, December 14, Larimer County Courthouse Offices Building, Lake Estes Conference Room, 3rd Floor, 200 W. Oak Street.
Previous Hoofprints stories on this issue

Death toll revised: 43 horses died in fire

2009-12-07T11:06:13-08:00

Authorities have revised the death toll down to 43 horses in Saturday’s racetrack barn fire in Lebanon, Ohio, that also killed two people. The cause of the fire in Barn 16 of the Warren County fairgrounds remains unknown, but investigators have ruled out criminal intent. Two handlers, Ronnie Williams and James Edwards, were also killed in the blaze. According to All Headline News (http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017189995), the barn was made of wood, but encased in metal. In a CNN video (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/12/05/ohio.horse.barn.fire/), fire officials said the barn roof had collapsed by the time they arrived on the scene.

55 horses die in barn fire

2009-12-05T08:11:35-08:00

LEBANON, Ohio – As many as 55 horses and two people may have perished in a pre-dawn racetrack barn fire this morning, according to CNN news. Firefighters are battling slick conditions in below-freezing temperatures as they try to use water to put out the fire. Our hearts go out to the people and our equine friends as this situation unfolds.
NBC reports two people missing, 80 horses dead.