I usually go with the Gelly/Jelly or something like that ones from Best Buy. They're about $10 and usually last me a few years.

Can you post a picture of it once you've found one or made one? I've wanted to try to ride in a skirt for years out of curiosity and I've never found one I didn't have to wear pants under and hike up to mid thigh just to get on the horse :glare:. Good luck in your search!

Thats really rude of them :glare:. I hope you get your ponies sold to excellent homes soon! Or you could lease them for the winter and then sell them when the market picks back up come spring and show season?

You're not supposed to, but a lot of people seem to forget that little tidbit of wisdom.

Faith, I've had excellent luck using "Hyalun" on very sore horses. That and MSM took one of my ex racers from barely pasture sound to completely riding sound. MSM is very cheap too, its about $8 for a month and a half's worth of it. Ottakee, :grouphug:

I think my relatives would be insulted if they weren't asked to bring something :001_huh:.

Have you ever been to the Chronicle of the Horse message boards? There's a new boarding horror story just about every week, sometimes multiple a week. Contract = necessary!

Psst, you can get horse books off of amazon.com used for about $2 a piece. Get a few and study up :). Probably the best ones that go in order and cover just about everything are the United States Pony Club books, but even used they're usually $5+. They're aimed at kids, so your kids could study up. Those are the books I recommend to every lesson student I teach, I really, really like them.

Oh GOOD! I hear a lot of "My -insert relative here- had a llama growing up and went on a trail ride on a dude ranch twice, s/he's a very experienced horse person, and I would like to purchase one of your ex race horses" Nope, not kidding :001_huh:. Sounds like you guys have a good grip on reality horse wise then.

I was thinking about all this too, but wasn't sure how to word it. I got my current horse in an interesting situation. Jerk 1 dumped horse at boarding stable, and Jerk 2 at boarding stable didn't feed said horse because the bills weren't paid. So Jerk 2 dumped horse on me because I happened to be the only person at the whole barn who liked the horse. Not a good situation for the horse. Lots of people are dumping horses they can't pay for these days. Its not unheard of to come out to feed in the morning and find an extra horse mysteriously in the pasture... I suggest an IRONCLAD, notarized contract stating things like who is responsible for what, if board is not paid in say 3 months the horse is yours and can be sold at auction (that usually works for getting your board money...), who pays for damaged fencing if the horse chews it up, who is responsible for what, what the horse comes with tack wise, etc. You need to figure out what the horse is ridden in. For example if you took one of my event horses and threw a western saddle up there with a western bridle and a curb bit, you may well wind up hanging from a tree somewhere.

Agreed. There should be some form of board payment. Pasture board around here runs $300 a month. I wouldn't necessarily suggest charging her a lot for board, but stacking hay does suck. So does sloshing around with water buckets through a snow drift, mucking when its 110 or too cold to feel your toes, and waiting around half the day for the farrier to show up.

Define the experience levels? There is a difference between growing up around horses, and growing up caring for and riding horses extensively, kyim? My brother tossed hay to my horses maybe 3 times, and now considers himself an expert. Are you prepared to deal with and reschool the horse if it turns out to have a screw loose or some manners issues? These are huge things, not all horses are nice and family friendly, which I'm sure you already know, but it never hurts to remind people :tongue_smilie:. Also, I would have an iron clad contract with the owner..

Whatever you do, just make sure you nip it in the bud, as it probably won't get any better. My brother was the same way growing up. Now my mother has an 18 year old sassy, snotty little monster on her hands who can't even put his dishes away, but will throw a fit that would put any 2 year old to shame if someone so much as asks him to put his dirty clothes in a basket instead of all over the floor. :glare:

Oh, that reminds me, All Horse Systems Go sounds really cool too.

The United States Pony Club books are awesome. The green one ("D") level is the first one, they build progressively. The visible horse model that someone suggested above is great. Just whatever you do, DO NOT put it in the attic. My mom put mine in the attic by mistake while we were moving and it MELTED together before I finished it. Hm, I'll have a look around amazon and see what I can find, I know I had some books like that when I was her age, but I cannot for the life of me remember what they were called.

I've been trying to figure out this question for ages. I recently got a dress I love, but its shorter than my non dress wearing self would like. I can't figure out if I'm supposed to wear leggings underneath it or not :confused:.

Natures Miracle has worked pretty well for me.

Way to make me even more curious :tongue_smilie:. Now I -really- want to know :lol:.

I know, I'm curiously hinting too :lol:. How do I always miss entertainment?

WI: I live in IL, but I spend more time in WI. 1) I'm very sensitive to the extremes of temperature. I find summer and winter absolutely miserable and painful. -Me too. I live near the WI border and its cold HERE, I don't want to know how cold it gets in northern WI! It also gets very hot here in the summer. In short, yes the weather is bearable, but only about 8 months of the year. 2) We're part of a pretty conservative religion (thankfully, we can be found anywhere in the world though I'm not planning to move to Thailand or Zimbabwe). -Well if you can be found anywhere, then you solved your own issue :D 3) We talk funny. LOL Seriously, though I am working on it, I'm pretty southern. -People in WI tend to be much friendlier than those in say, IL. :| 4) I'm *very* sensitive to expression as is my son. Are people friendly in other places? There is a huge difference in friendliness from TX to VA. I guess I worry about places like Boston and Detroit and Albuquerque. -Yes they are quite friendly.

AVG.

And we english riders get the diva rep? :tongue_smilie:

$200 for earings?? For western? There are western riders who are bigger divas than english riders? My poor barn owner, I finally have something to tease her about for teh hell she's given me for being an english rider all these years :lol:.

While I agree with everything you said, I do have to disagree with the show clothes costs. Because there are so many people like the ones in your last sentence, its very easy to find barely used show clothes for next to nothing. I think my show clothes together cost me about $90, and I've kept the same ones for the better part of a decade now, being as they're used rather infrequently nowadays. :001_smile:

:iagree: