If it's frozen where you are (in France we're dealing with frozen water pipes too), then the water in your horses' trough might just well be frozen too. The Horselife blog, written by Steve Wawryk, has some great natural horsemanship and natural horse keeping tips to share.
The latest post is called 'No More Frozen Water Tanks. Your Horses Will Thank You' and is aimed at helping you keep your horses' water trough from freezing over!

If you're struggling with the cold, it's definitely worth taking a look! Brrrrr!

Stephanie Thelan’s horses are about to experience their first Christmas in her Florida-based Paddock Paradise. With a herd of anywhere between six and ten horses, ranging from three to twelve years of age, she has found Paddock Paradise the ideal solution for effective boarding. Read on to find out more about Stephanie’s set up, what she has found works well and what needs tweaking!

How long have you had your Paddock Paradise?

I bought a new property in February and had the first stage of the PP up and running by mid-March of 2009.

Why did you decide to make PP part of your boarding solution for your horses?

With having purchased the new property, only 4.6 acres, I was looking for a solution to keep six to ten horses comfortably without turning my property into a dirt farm.

My property is very long and narrow and originally I was thinking of creating several large paddocks with limited turn out to the pasture. Yet this would have created a lot of dust and still not a lot of movement for the horses. I stumbled across the term “Paddock Paradise” while searching for solutions on Horsecity.com.

View Stephanie’s slideshow below to watch her Paddock Paradise develop - it also includes a diagram of her track layout.

Can you describe the fencing you use and the width of the track?

My perimeter fencing is Redbrand no climb with a board across the top. I wanted a safe, economical fence that was also nice to look at. My interior fencing is Equibraid electric rope with step in fence posts. I had intended to use three strands of rope, but once two were up it was obvious that it was more than enough, especially since it wasn’t there to contain the horses on the property.

My track width varies from 14’-40’. I run as many as eight horses together on the track at one time. My biggest concern was that they could get away from each other should scuffles occur. The long parts of the track are 14’-20’ wide and the dead ends and gathering areas are 30’-40’ wide.


Have you been able to set up areas, for example gravel, water hole, dust bath and so on or are these still a work in progress? If you have set some of them up, what are they and how did you go about creating them?



I am fortunate to have a somewhat varied terrain considering I’m in Florida. My property gradually slopes down from front to back. In the front the footing is mostly sand and at the back it is very similar to wetlands. The footing graduates to a mixture of sand and black dirt to mud at the farthest point. During rainy season there is plenty of standing water.

I hauled in cement washout, which creates a serviceable gravel for driveways. This was put just inside the main gate, extending about 40’. On top of that I added pea gravel, which the horses loved!

They would stand on it happily all the time. It’s been down about four months now and I’m disappointed to say that the pea gravel has worked its way into the cement washout. It's no longer loose and is almost packed firm. If I had to do it again I would probably do as suggested by others and put a road gravel under it and a frame of 4x4s around it.

I have also added a length of palm tree trunk that my neighbors had cut down. The track is very level, flat and uninteresting, but the horses couldn’t care less about this and avoid it.

Ideally we know that hay should be spread around the track, on the ground, to encourage movement and an eat and go scenario. However, in reality this is time consuming and can encourage hay wastage - what solutions have you found for hay feeding?

We constructed two large slow feeders. There are instructions on the Paddock Paradise Wetpaint site as to how I built these. Each can easily hold one to two bales. I have them placed in two different sections of the track. Each night I load up two bales of hay and drive to the very back of the track where I spread about five flakes of hay on the ground.

The salt and minerals are back here as well. One feeder is about one-quarter of the way back up the track toward the front. I fill this, then continue to the other feeder which is on a “branch” of the track about halfway up. Here I fill this feeder as well as throw another four flakes out randomly. Being herd horses, the horses won’t necessarily leave each other to go to the next feeder, so with seven horses around one feeder it is likely someone will miss out. The flakes thrown out guarantee that the horses keep moving within that area and everyone gets a chance to eat.

This hay just about provides enough for a 24 hour period. I do, however (more for my own convenience of keeping horses out of my way), throw out three or four flakes along the track in the morning while doing other chores.

Is hay the main source of food for your horse? And do you manage to supply different types of hay? What else do you feed your horse, if anything?

For a time I was feeding a coastal grass hay as well as an orchard grass/alfalfa mix. This was not a problem to do, I just mixed both hays in the feeder. Now, however, I feed only the orchard/alfalfa mix as the coastal hay has little nutritional value.

I do grain the horses in the evening. For this I purchased feed bags through www.horse.com for about US$8 each. This is one of the best decisions of my life. With a herd ranging from three to 12 years of age, and with different levels of activity, I can feed each horse its needed grain and supplements without any being spilled, stolen by others, chased off their feed, refused and so on. I put the feed bags on, drive out to do my hay, and most are finished with their grain when I get back.

Do you use a salt block and/or a mineral block? If so, are you able to bury these in the ground to encourage pawing behaviour or is that difficult to achieve?

I have both salt and mineral blocks. I buy the 50lb blocks and then let one of the men play at boy. They take a sledge hammer to them and chunk them up. Chunks are placed in a tub and put out back. This way the horses can either lick them or chew them, whichever they like best.

Have you noticed a difference in your horses' condition and hooves as a result of Paddock Paradise?

They do stay more fit. Not overly so, as they are just walking most of the time, but I do not feel the need to lunge anyone before riding to get the extra energy out. I also don’t feel guilty about taking one of the older ones out once a month for a trail ride because they haven’t been stationary between rides.

I had hoped to see improvement in one horse’s hooves especially, but haven’t. My horses don’t have bad feet anyway, but I can’t say I’ve noticed great things about their hooves. The one mare we suspect likely foundered ten or more years ago, and has very sensitive soles, has not changed even with life on the track.

Do you find maintaining Paddock Paradise easier or more difficult than keeping a horse at pasture? Why and can you highlight any particular challenges that you have faced?

I guess the difference in maintenance would be in scooping poop. I probably wouldn’t scoop in a pasture. Now I scoop directly into my Newer Spreader (which I absolutely love) and spread on the pasture inside the track. Otherwise, there is very little maintenance to the track.

Any other thoughts on your Paddock Paradise and what tips would you offer people who are thinking about creating their own?

With wet season here, the most notable thing for me is that the horses walk on the track, packing it down, making it lower than the surrounding ground. Water stands on the track more than the other areas. When the rainy season is over, I plan to haul in fill dirt to raise the track higher than the central pastures.

If I don’t want my horses to stand in one place, I need to provide a reason for them to move around. This includes keeping the hay accessible to them in the back. If I have the time I will walk the track with a bucket of alfalfa cubes tossing them around the track. The horses will travel the track looking for these.

My track is not a continuous loop. It would be except that I split it because I have one aggressive horse that doesn’t play nice. He has a section of the track to himself and the rest of the herd travels the majority of the track. Be sure to make sure they have plenty of room to get out of each other’s way if you have more than a couple of horses.

The PP was an ideal solution for my property. I am thrilled with it and anyone who comes onto the property loves the idea. It is a work in progress and I have more plans for advancement, but the foundation is there and working.

NHR would like to say a big thank you to Stephanie for this fascinating insight into her Paddock Paradise. To read more about Stephanie and her horses you can visit her Spotted T’s Riding Blog.

Anyone that enjoyed The Path of the Horse series will be delighted to hear that a new, free teleseminar series called The Horse as a Teacher is starting on Wednesday 30 September and continues on the following three Wednesdays.
This series features the authors who contributed to The Horse as a Teacher book, including, amongst others, Stormy May, Anna Twinney and Kathy Pike. They will be discussing the impact horses have had on their lives and how horses have inspired them to help others.

Listeners can ask questions and these can be submitted during registration. All calls start at 12pm (PST), 3pm (ET), 8pm (GMT) and 9pm (CET).

To sign up and receive further information you need to go to www.horseconscious.info.

In June 2009 the BLM (Bureau of Land and Management) in the US released plans to destroy wild horses in holding areas as well as those still remaining free on public land. The BLM has cited poor range condition as the reason for removing the horses, but this doesn’t make sense to many of those who have visited Cloud and his herd over the past few years as plentiful snow and rain has produced good range conditions!

A wild palomino stallion, Cloud, has been documented since he was born by Emmy-winning filmmaker Ginger Kathrens. Her knowledge lead to the emergence of The Cloud Foundation (@thecloudfound on Twitter), which is dedicated to the preservation of wild horses on public land. “Human over management is jeopardising their future survival,” says Kathrens on the foundation’s website.

Kathrens’s films and books have firmly planted Cloud’s existence in our collective consciousness and the threat to the wild horses, and to Cloud’s survival, has recently gained much exposure as the BLM carry out their plans. However, it isn’t just the plans that have caused upset, it is the way in which the horses are being rounded up – at the wrong time of year and in such a manner – that has caused the most concern.

Being chased down a 5,000 foot mountain by low-flying helicopters in over 95°F heat caused some mares to colic and many of the horses became lame. An informative and detailed description of the events can be found on author R.T. Fitch’s blog Straight from the Horse’s Heart.

The capture of Cloud’s herd can be viewed here (by R.T. Fitch):

Watch the lame and tired horses after capture and re-release:

Clearly there is much controversy surrounding these captures. NHR has gathered some links from some of the best sources so that you can go straight to the heart of the story.

Cloud the Stallion’s Facebook page
Cloud’s Facebook page now has over 2,000 fans. The links section on this page contains around 30 links from followers sharing and discussing information. To view these links and information click here.

Straight from the Horse’s Heart
An extremely informative and emotive blog from author R.T. Fitch documenting the development of Cloud and the wild horses’ capture. The name of the site is the same as his book – the profits of which go straight to Habitat for Horses (where he sits on the board of directors).

The Cloud Foundation
Non-profit Cloud Foundation is dedicated to preventing the extinction of Cloud’s herd through education, media events and programming, and public involvement. You can donate by clicking on this link here.

Wild Hoofbeats
Site from Carol Walker, photographer and author of ‘Wild Hoofbeats: America’s Vanishing Wild Horses’, has followed the wild horses on Montana’s Pryor Mountain for the last six years and photographs them two to three times a year. If you don’t get goose bumps as she describes Cloud defiantly turning to face the helicopter then we don’t know what will!

You Tube
Click here view countless films from the Cloud organisation and other supporters of the foundation.

What can you do to help?

1. Petition against the removal of Cloud and his herd
The BLM already has 33,000 horses in holding, so to capture more through these ‘gathers’ with market conditions the way there are is irresponsible. The horses are not damaging the range and this petition asks for just 20 of the younger horses to be taken as these will stand the best chance of adoption. By going to the Care2 petition site you can join the fight. The target is 15,000 signatures and currently has just under 12,000.

2. Adopt a wild horse
The National Wild Horse Adoption Day is 26 September and more than 25 locations across the US are hosting wild horse adoptions. For more information, please visit the National Wild Horse Adoption Day site. For information on where the adoptions will be taking place, please click here.

3. Fight for the release of the older horses and reform of the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Programme
Here is contact information as provided by The Cloud Foundation:

White House Switchboard 202-456-1414 (fax: 202-456-2461). Ask for Senior Advisors: Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod. Ask for Michelle Obama too (her office is receiving a large number of calls)

Call your senator’s switchboard 202-224-3121 and ask that they support S1579, The Restore our American Mustang (ROAM) Act

Call the Senate Committee of Natural Resources on 202-224-4971 (fax 202-224-6163) Ask that they push the ROAM Act through immediately, it must go up for a vote soon in the Senate.

'Cloud's Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns'
Watch a clip from Kathrens’s film, which demonstrates the complexities of the wild horses' social group: Cloud persuades his favourite mare to allow his amorous intentions, which prompts a respectful face off with his father (who is also keen on Cloud’s love interest!).

As late summer turns to autumn in Europe, we're only too aware that Bot fly egg season is upon us. There are over 150 species of these hairy flies in the world and they will relish the prospect of laying eggs on your horse’s front legs, cannon bone, knees and sometimes on the throat or nose (depending on what particular bot it is).

Instantly recognisable, as they are yellow dots resembling splashes of paint, it’s important to remove bot eggs as soon as possible to prevent them causing health problems to your horse. When the horse rubs its nose on its leg, the bot eggs find their way into its mouth and then to the intestines.

They can cause lumps on your horse (once the larva has grown and is ready to leave through the skin of your horse), sores, ulcers and colic.

As they rest on the bone, removal can be tricky and is usually easiest with a sharp knife or sandpaper.

Here are five links providing information about bots and how best to remove the eggs from your horse.

How to Get Rid of Fly Eggs on Horses – this is a good basic overview from ehow.com on how to prevent bot flies laying eggs and how to remove the bot eggs if they manage it!

Bots – How to Control Infestations and Remove Bot Fly Eggs – this article on equi-therapy.net offers advice on how to spot signs of bot infestation and tricks to remove the bot eggs from your horse.

Removing Bot Eggs – Jessica Jahiel offers comprehensive advice to reader Karen on some of the best ways to tackle bot egg removal.

Bot Egg Removal – Link to a horse owners’ discussion on HorseForum.com on tried and tested ways of removing bot eggs.

What’s so Bad About Bots – Informative article from Horsetalk explaining why bots are dangerous and what your options for prevention and removal are.

There’s no doubt that it’s a good time to be a manufacturer of slow hay feeders at the moment. As more and more horse owners are moving away from grain towards the idea of feeding their horses continually on hay, hay feeders that slow down feeding are becoming increasingly popular.

Finding the right slow hay feeder for you is challenging. Most natural horse owners with horses outside will need big, covered slow hay feeders that can contain large hay boules and keep dry. Those who have run-in shelters or who have covered hay feeding areas spread around a track or paddock can use smaller hay feeders that do not need to be so concerned with the elements.

The Natural Horse Resource features a good selection of slow hay feeder suppliers on our Links: Suppliers page, but here are a couple more that NHR has recently discovered.

Hayslow
The Hayslow feeder can store up to 15kg of hay and can potentially keep horses busy for up to 16 hours each day. It reportedly took the creators, William Millar and Arash Blookbashi, based in UAE, 150 days of research to come up with this design.

For more information go to http://www.hayslow.com/ or email info@hayslow.com.

Slow Down
The Slow Down was designed by horse lovers Jim and Julie Turner. The feeder tub and plate (which contains holes that the horse pulls hay through) are quickly assembled. It also provides a practical way for soaking hay and draining the water due to a plug at the bottom. Images of the product can be found here.

To see how the Slow Down works, view the film below:

For more information visit http://www.slowdownhayfeeder.com/.

If any NHR readers have had experiences with either of these hay feeders, others that are featured on our site or can recommend hay feeders that we haven’t covered yet, please get in touch: naturalhorseresource@gmail.com.

Tim Ware runs website Equine Wellness Solutions (www.horseperspective.com). It offers information, a free distance consultation service, videos and books to horse owners interested in understanding their horses whether it be from a behavioural, physical or training point of view.

This site has much to offer. There are many excellent resources available in the ‘articles’ section of the site. Topics such as hoof problems, energy therapies, navicular disease, thrush and white line disease are covered.

Tim wants to ‘help people understand horses as horses, as they are instead of how we want them to be or imagine them to be’. He has spent most of his life with horses – owning, competing and working on their feet. He originally trained as a traditional farrier in the US and Europe and this was when he noticed that he was often the only one interested in how horses feel and their resulting behaviour.

He discovered that for most of his peers horses just represented a way to make money. He noticed that while they might be interested in the activity that shoes allowed the horses to perform, such as calf roping, they didn’t care about the horse itself. ‘The horses represented a way to earn a living, or a tool necessary to participate in some activity that interested them. And in some ways, the horses were actually viewed as adversaries, or as necessary evils,’ he says.

He has been accused of embarrassing a colleague because he ‘petted’ a horse while his co-worker insisted on controlling it with a stud chain, causing the horse’s gums to bleed. And tells of a woman who asked if he could help her foundered horse, who was in terrible pain, as she had planned to trail ride with her friends at the weekend – which he says ‘speaks for itself’.

Tim believes his materials provide owners with the tools to look after a horse compassionately, whereas traditional horse care information focuses just on making the horse useful to the owner. ‘The mainstream material, whether from horse care, hoof care (including barefoot hoof care), or horse training, is geared toward making the horse useful, toward providing the horse owner with something. My material is geared toward providing the horse with something – wellness and compassionate use and treatment,’ he says.

Click here to visit the Equine Wellness site or to contact it directly, email info@horseperspective.com.

Elizabeth TeSelle is a barefoot trimmer and trains in dressage. She has been addicted to horses since she met her first pony at the age of two. She lives with her herd at Blue Heron Farm, in Middle Tennesse.
There's 34 acres of land on the property, but as she can't control the hunting on some parts the horses have access to just a few acres - so creating a track has been the perfect solution. Featuring a variety of different terrain, Elizabeth's unique Paddock Paradise has been a work in progress for several years.
Read the interview below to find out more about Elizabeth's current set up and future plans.
How long have you had your Paddock Paradise?
It’s been a work in progress since I moved to my farm in 2003. When I bought the place, there were five small turnout areas, fenced and cross-fenced as traditionally as possible, despite the topographical challenges of the “down-in-a-holler” topography. I immediately removed one dividing fence, connected up two turnout areas with a gate on one side and added a track-like “chute” on the other. This was before I’d even HEARD of Paddock Paradise. But as a barefoot trimmer I wanted as much movement as possible.

A map of Blue Heron Farm.

Once I read Jackson’s book, my mind went crazy with ideas! I’ve been working on the current setup for about two years now.

Why did you decide to make PP part of your boarding solution for your horses?
Horses are animals of movement. Their feet need it; their GI tracts need it; their muscles and joints need it; their MINDS need it. I had been moving this way anyway, but reading Jackson’s book gave me many more ideas, and justification for those ideas.

Can you describe the fencing you use and the width of the track?
I’m fortunate in a way that many people used to conventional boarding wouldn’t understand – my place, being at the bottom of a narrow “holler” between hills, is long and thin, with the road on one side and hills on the other. Due to hunting back in the woods, there is a limit to how far back there I can go, so the turnout areas are long and skinny. The creek, which runs through the property from end to end and the hilly and cliffy areas within the turnouts, combine to create natural “tracks”. For this reason, I haven’t had to actually “track” my turnouts at all.

I’ve considered adding a track to the Brook Pasture (see image below), but honestly, the horses move around so much in the Brook Pasture/Arena Pasture complex, with its natural circuit, that I haven’t found it necessary. I have added sections of fencing in both the Arena Pasture and the Woodlot that direct the horses around and encourage them to stay on the track.

Diagram of Blue Heron Farm's PP track.

My perimeter fencing is woven wire farm fence with a top wire (barbless, of course). I have several creek crossings that require water gates - I make these from stiff “hog panels” threaded onto cable. Chains restrict the swing so the horses can’t push under, but allow enough movement so that creek debris gets through when the creek level is up after a rain storm.

The horses on track.

Have you been able to set up areas: for example, gravel, water hole, dust bath and so on or are these still a work in progress? If you have set some of them up, what are they and how did you go about creating them?
I have accessibility issues regarding gravel, in that there is no way to get a gravel truck into most of my turnout areas. However, there is a large gravelled area in the new Woodlot, and there is natural rock throughout all areas. Again, this is an unexpected positive side effect of being in a holler with poor, rocky soil next to a creek that is completely floored with rock. When I first moved in I used to spend hours picking rocks out of the pasture! I just have to laugh when I think about that now.

My riding arena, which is primarily sand, is accessible to the horses. Although there is no fence around the arena, they naturally track around it and usually only go into the arena when they want to roll or sleep. I find that they stay fairly clean because of this - they enjoy rolling in the sand so much that they don’t bother rolling in the mud as much.

As for water, the horses have access to the creek, of course. As a barefoot trimmer, it bothers me a great deal that most domestic horses never get their feet wet naturally, whereas horses in the wild wet their feet every time they drink! My horses drink only from the creek (which is spring-fed) and, of course, pass through it many times a day to get from one place to the next.

Ideally we know that hay should be spread around the track, on the ground, to encourage movement and an ‘eat and go’ scenario. However, in reality this is time consuming and can encourage hay wastage - what solutions have you found for hay feeding?
Up until recently, I had been spreading hay, flake by flake, around the track, and dealing with the subsequent hay wastage and mess. Here, in Middle Tennessee, it’s muddy all winter long, and by spring it was mud and hay!

I am now using slow feeders for hay, primarily small-mesh hay nets hung low to the ground or on the ground, and positioned around the track. Not only does this ensure that my horses will have hay all the time (rather than hoovering up whatever I give them within a few hours!), but it will save me money and keep the ground cleaner and prevent erosion.

Muching hay from the slow feeder.

The most recent addition to my Paddock Paradise is a separate Woodlot section. The topography of my place prevents my being able to connect the Brook Pasture/Arena Pasture track with the Woodlot, but that’s fine. My plan is to use the Woodlot primarily in winter time. The woods provide shelter (in addition to the run-in at the barn, to which they have access), which the horses will appreciate in winter. By keeping them off the other area, I hope to be able to retain some grass there.

For environmental reasons, I worry about the Brook Pasture becoming a mud pit, and if I can hold some grass there over the winter, I will also hold onto the soil. Having, essentially, two separate Paddock Paradise tracks will provide an important solution to the particular challenges my property presents.

Take a tour around the track on Blue Heron Farm.

Is hay the main source of food for your horse? And do you manage to supply different types of hay? What else do you feed your horse, if anything?
The current horses on my Paddock Paradise are both VERY easy keepers. They get hay (orchard grass), and once a day a very small amount of soaked Timothy Balance (which is grass hay cubes with a little beet pulp) as a vehicle for their magnesium supplements.

When I have had harder keepers, I provided additional calories via beet pulp, black oil sunflower seeds, timothy pellets and added oil or flax when necessary. I avoid grain, which is hard on the feet, the GI tract, and the brain!

See the slow feeder hay nets in action.

Do you use a salt block and/or a mineral block? If so, are you able to bury these in the ground to encourage pawing behaviour or is that difficult to achieve?
I feed free-choice loose minerals and loose salt (offered separately). I’m reluctant to bury the minerals - in part because I worry about sand colic, and in part because the minerals aren’t cheap! Currently I offer minerals and salt in both small bins in the run-in shed and on large, flat rocks out on the track (in good weather only). I’m also adding homemade protected mineral dispensers, which will enable me to put minerals out on the track in all weathers. The more “stuff” out on the track, the better!

Have you noticed a difference in your horses' condition and hooves as a result of Paddock Paradise?
My horses have been out 24/7 for several years, and my conversion of the property to Paddock Paradise has been gradual, so it’s hard to tell. My draft cross mare has amazing feet, due to having been “raised right” and always kept barefoot. My OTTB gelding, who passed away from melanoma last fall, benefited greatly both from going barefoot and from being out 24/7 on the track. As with many things, hoofcare is holistic and it’s hard to say which change benefited him the most - they all coalesced to help make him a real horse on his own four strong feet. However, going to 24/7 turnout, and especially the Paddock Paradise model where movement is encouraged, certainly contributed to his healing.
Watch the horses move on track.

For many of my hoof care clients, whose horses went from being stalled 12 hours a day to life out 24/7 on the track, the improvement has been truly dramatic. Again, here, the improvement was holistic: at the same time the horses got a more natural lifestyle, they also got an improved trim, a better diet and so on. But, in many ways, the most dramatic improvements are seen from lifestyle changes. Horses were simply not meant to stand around on soft bedding. Asking them to do so damages their feet (as well as minds and GI tracts). Giving them back a life of movement and action heals them.

Do you find maintaining Paddock Paradise easier or more difficult than keeping a horse at pasture? Why and can you highlight any particular challenges that you have faced?

Generally, it is easier. I no longer worry about “having” to have a grassy rectangle (difficult to achieve anyway on my property!). It is more time-consuming in some ways, certainly: taking hay out to the slow feeders, especially without an ATV, is a bit of a trek (but thanks to the slow feeders I can do it once a day rather than twice as I had to before). It is certainly much easier than stalling. Keeping the track picked up and the manure restricted to “pile” areas is far less time-consuming that cleaning stalls.

Any other thoughts on your Paddock Paradise and what tips would you offer people who are thinking about creating their own?
Try to think outside the box - the grassy green rectangle box that we’re used to and need to get away from, but even the Paddock Paradise box as well. Jaime Jackson sets out one idea in his book, it is not the only way to do this. My place is a great example of that, and some of my clients are finding that they do not need to track their properties quite as he suggests to get the job done. If your horse is not grossly insulin resistant, you do not need to remove all the grass. Leaving them some grass to snack on (while encouraging them to keep moving past it to other things) is a great option for many situations.

It’s also important to know that any Paddock Paradise is always a work in progress. I have future plans for mine, including either making a track into the woods in the Brook Pasture/Arena Pasture track or possibly (if I can find a way to do this, given topography) connecting it up with the small Alpine Meadow turnout behind the house. I’m always thinking about new ideas and ways to make things better for the horses - and I know I’ll never really be finished.

For me, much of the joy of horse ownership now comes from watching them BE HORSES. For anyone who appreciates that, there is truly nothing like having horses on the track.

Elizabeth's website can be found at: http://www.blue-heron-farm.com/hoofmaiden

To find out more about Elizabeth's Paddock Paradise you can check out her PP page here: http://paddockparadise.wetpaint.com/page/Blue+Heron+Farm and her blog here: http://paddockparadise.wetpaint.com/page/Hoofmaiden+and+Blue+Heron+Farm+Blog.

NHR would like to thank Elizabeth for her brilliant and comprehensive interview on her Paddock Paradise at Blue Heron Farm.

One of our readers has informed us of a beautiful mare, currently based in the UK, who needs to find a natural home.

Maddy is a 15.1hh 6 year old bay Thoroughbred mare. She is home produced and is now ready to start her competitive career. She is a talented young horse with superb paces, an athletic jump and a good gallop. She would be an ideal event prospect, or all PC/RC activities. She's good to hack out alone or in company and is 100% traffic. She's also X/C schooled.

Maddy has excellent manners, is quick to learn and easy to do in all ways. She is an exciting prospect for an experienced and competent rider.


She is regrettably for sale due to lack of finances and time.

Price: £1300 ovno

Telephone: + 44 1608 641179 (Oxfordshire, UK) or +44 7884 083851

Please get in touch if you think Maddy could be the horse for you.

If the Natural Horse Resource can help you in any way with enquiries about this lovely little mare, then please contact us at naturalhorseresource@gmail.com.

Jo Bond runs Bond With Your Horse and is a natural horsemanship trainer based in south-west France. Having trained with both Kelly Marks and Monty Roberts, she is now using her wide ranging experience to create her own method for training horses called Ideal Partner. Frances Penwill-Cook catches up with Jo to find out more.

As I pull onto the driveway, set in the middle of a pretty rural village, I make sure I park up quietly as Jo has already started working with a new horse that is staying for a month of training.

The owner is attentively watching the eyes and ear movements of his caramel-coloured Arab. She is learning - quickly it seems - to control her fear of the plastic bag stick that Jo is touching her with in her 50ft round pen. This mare is beautiful, but on odd occasions has been known to bolt and stop for nothing. Not an easy problem to fix, but it is the sort of challenge that Jo relishes. Having had experience with solving this kind of problem before, she is not daunted by the challenge ahead.

In fact it is her success at giving horses the confidence they need - as well as equipping owners with the skills to help their horse - that has lead her to create her own training methodology called Ideal Partner.

“Ideal Partner is part of the wider Bond With Your Horse vision of creating a bond of trust and respect between us and our horses,” explains Jo. “I feel that by doing this we are able to work towards having our ideal partner. The aim of the Ideal Partner programme is to create a well-mannered horse who is a real pleasure to be with. We invest such a huge amount of time, money and emotional energy into our horses that in return I think we deserve to have a horse with good manners.”

Jo has recently produced some short films to demonstrate the type of training both horse and owner will receive on the training courses. Sana, her own horse who stars in the footage, originally came from the show world. “You can imagine how he reacted the first time I approached him with a plastic bag!” says Jo, going on to explain how the training process that she has taken him through has enabled him to relax and keep his adrenalin levels under control. “This is through both desensitisation and taking control of his feet through lots of ground work,” she says.

The first film, shown below, shows Jo taking Sana through a series of obstacles - in hand and ridden - as well as being wormed.


“The definition of good manners is an entirely personal thing,” says Jo, but in her opinion every horse should be:

· respectful of space (definitely no biting, kicking or barging)
· happy to be touched everywhere, tacked up and tied up
· good for the vet and with foot handling
· able to stand still when asked
· willing to go, turn, stop and back up when ridden
· good to trailer load.

“To help him learn those skills the programme focuses on helping horse people,” she explains. After taking the Ideal Partner programme horse people will be able to:

· understand horse behaviour
· appreciate how a horse learns (and to use that to your advantage)
· work fairly and consistently
· be the leader your horse needs
· reward the good (for example, a head rub)
· give a negative consequence for the bad (for example, more work)
· get control of the horse's feet through ground handling
· desensitise the horse.

“A horse doesn't start with any of these skills that are important to us and so it is our responsibility to help him learn those skills to help him become our ‘ideal partner’,” says Jo.

In the following film clip, Sana demonstrates the benefits of the Ideal Partner programme by dealing with a series of ‘scary’ plastics and trailer loading without any problems.



To kick start the Ideal Partner method, Jo is organising a series of three courses over the summer in south-west France. Here is a summary of each:

1) Eliminate Your Trailer Loading Problems
This course will enable you to take control of your horse’s feet using the Dually halter, obstacles and loading.
Length: 2 days.
Cost: €90 per person (max five people).

2) Ground Handling and Desensitisation
Includes ground handling exercises, taking control of your horse’s feet using the Dually halter, obstacles and plastics.
Length: 3 days.
Cost: €135 per person (max five people).

3) Learn to Long Line
Long lining is an alternative to longeing as it gets you moving with the horse and is a great way to warm you both up before your ride as well as teaching a horse the basic aids.
Length: 3 days.
Cost: €135 per person (max five people).

Before the Ideal Partner course starts, Jo is running a weekend of lectures and demonstrations on how to deal with common problems you have with your horse. Sessions will run from 10am to 12pm and 2pm to 4pm in Sarlat at the Horse Club in Stade de Bonnefond (Route de Bergerac) on 13 and 14 June. There are hotels available in the area for those travelling to the event.

The cost is €25 for the whole weekend or €15 per day and to book this event you can email horseclub@orange.fr or telephone +33 5 53 59 03 06.

To find out more about Jo’s Ideal Partner method and the summer courses - or to book a private training session - you can go to her website at http://www.bondwithyourhorse.com/ or email her at contact@bondwithyourhorse.com.