2021 NOTE TO ANYONE NEW READING
Come talk to us on the last page! It's enough to skim a couple of pages there and you can jump right in if you're looking for a friendly group discussion. This journal is part of a group of journals we run more like a social thread than a private journal, and it's populated by interesting characters who think outside the square and who respect other animal species and their needs for expressing natural behaviours like, in the case of horses and other social grazing mammals, free socialising with buddies, trickle grazing, and an ability to explore their environment, which sometimes has to happen with human "backpacks" if you're not incredibly fortunate to have access for wide free-ranging spaces for your horse(s).
My husband and I are lucky that we do. We're on Red Moon Sanctuary, a 62 hectare smallholding comprised of 50 hectares of incredibly biodiverse nature reserve we manage for conservation, and 12 hectares of pasture across which our horses and donkeys free-range along with our small herd of beef cattle, and wildlife like kangaroos and emus. We've been here 10 years (as of 2020) and in that time have owner-built an off-grid strawbale farmhouse in which we host eco-stays (see here and here), which is a fantastic way to meet all sorts of lovely people who care about the planet and the concept of community. ❤
We've also planted shelter belts and rehabilitated our roadsides from invasive weeds back to wildlife habitat, and established a permaculture F&V garden which increasingly feeds us and our guests. And, we've got three retired ex-harness racing horses, one of which I ride and give lessons on, another of which I'd love to saddle train and ride as I did his half-brother (time is an issue), and a 27-year-old who is truly retired, but a total sweetheart.
I grew up across two continents, in three countries; from age 11 I was on a horse breeding and racing farm in Australia because that's what my family chose to do. I personally don't like horse racing, for a number of reasons - most of them to do with industry-standard poor animal management practices and because anything which involves lots of money seems to foster corruption and bring out the worst in people. Also because I find it boring to just race horses around ovals, and prefer disciplines in which there is more communication and camaraderie with the horse - like trail riding, classical dressage (done sensitively), endurance riding (I had an Arabian mare on whom I rode endurance in my teens and 20s) and gymkhanas. In those disciplines, horses can participate well into their 20s, instead of being a use-and-throw-away type item.
When I grew up, I became a biologist/environmental scientist, and later an educator and writer. When we hit 40 we decided to "tree change" to a smallholding, which is where we are now. I've got a keen interest in mental/emotional health from growing up in a difficult family and from seeing similar fallout to my own in friends and in students I was teaching. These days I write about that, and a number of other subjects, on a regular basis. Recreationally, I write here and on an alternative music forum. I also write professional articles for independent magazines when the mood is upon me.
I will be creating an INDEX for this journal soon, because it's so long!
Things like:
Watch this space.
Returning you to historical journal now, from back in 2104 (and please note, when I started this journal I was glossing over my birth family situation because I had not yet started talking frankly about such problems in public - that happened here.)
This is going to be a combination of show-and-tell, reflective journal and place for SB appreciators to hang out. I am a default Standardbred appreciator because my parents started breeding, training and racing them when I was still at school. My father is still training and racing a trio of young horses and at age 75 is, as far as I know, the oldest reinsman still driving in races in Western Australia.
I am in the 40+ social group at HF and, when DH and I recently exchanged farms with my parents for a long weekend to give them a change of scenery for my mother's 75th, and I brought photos back to my group, the idea dawned on me that this might make a nice general thread starter on Standardbreds and other Trotting breeds, their harness and ridden training, converting an OTSB for riding, etc. So here goes, starting just with that, cut-and-paste, and I'll fill in the history with more detail later, and answer any questions that might arise.
____
Here are some photos of the horses at my parents' place, which we took last weekend:
Stable row: Chip, (Frog not looking), Dezba, La Jolie, Rosie, La Cherie.
Shed: Baralu, Torrific Girl, Sunset Coast. (Classic Julian opposite, not in photo.)
Two other horses use walk-in-walk-out night quarters, not photographed here.
My father was around the same age I am now when, 30 years ago, he decided he'd had enough of working in an office fulltime, bought a very inexpensive piece of bush in Australia, and built the stables and shed himself, with one offsider. He taught himself to lay bricks and to do roof framing and cladding. Then he started training and racing trotters. He even bred them at one point, but did much better with horses he bought in or rescued, often horses that needed "fixing" in some way: He said recently that when you breed, you don't know what you're going to get; when you buy, you can see what you're going to get.
This is Chip, along with my Romeo the last of the old generation of horses he brought in to race:
Chip was impulse bought inexpensively at a yearling sale, was small and wasn't particularly famously bred, but Dad just liked the look of him and his nature. I was in my early 20s and said to him, "Did you really need another horse?" and he said, "If he doesn't go you can have him, he's so pretty and a real character." As it turned out, he did go all right: Was my father's most successful horse - won 10 times, including 4 metropolitan races, and placed 19 times. We also rode him. I took him to a 25km short endurance event between metropolitan races once and he breezed home in that as well. He was retired paddock sound with a spinal injury he got from running head-first into a tree when playing. He is now 23.
Koolio, Celeste, Northernstar and 8 others like this.
Blue, Roadyy, NickerMaker71, Eole, tjtalon, Maryland Rider, ellen hays, RegularJoe
Come talk to us on the last page! It's enough to skim a couple of pages there and you can jump right in if you're looking for a friendly group discussion. This journal is part of a group of journals we run more like a social thread than a private journal, and it's populated by interesting characters who think outside the square and who respect other animal species and their needs for expressing natural behaviours like, in the case of horses and other social grazing mammals, free socialising with buddies, trickle grazing, and an ability to explore their environment, which sometimes has to happen with human "backpacks" if you're not incredibly fortunate to have access for wide free-ranging spaces for your horse(s).
My husband and I are lucky that we do. We're on Red Moon Sanctuary, a 62 hectare smallholding comprised of 50 hectares of incredibly biodiverse nature reserve we manage for conservation, and 12 hectares of pasture across which our horses and donkeys free-range along with our small herd of beef cattle, and wildlife like kangaroos and emus. We've been here 10 years (as of 2020) and in that time have owner-built an off-grid strawbale farmhouse in which we host eco-stays (see here and here), which is a fantastic way to meet all sorts of lovely people who care about the planet and the concept of community. ❤
We've also planted shelter belts and rehabilitated our roadsides from invasive weeds back to wildlife habitat, and established a permaculture F&V garden which increasingly feeds us and our guests. And, we've got three retired ex-harness racing horses, one of which I ride and give lessons on, another of which I'd love to saddle train and ride as I did his half-brother (time is an issue), and a 27-year-old who is truly retired, but a total sweetheart.
I grew up across two continents, in three countries; from age 11 I was on a horse breeding and racing farm in Australia because that's what my family chose to do. I personally don't like horse racing, for a number of reasons - most of them to do with industry-standard poor animal management practices and because anything which involves lots of money seems to foster corruption and bring out the worst in people. Also because I find it boring to just race horses around ovals, and prefer disciplines in which there is more communication and camaraderie with the horse - like trail riding, classical dressage (done sensitively), endurance riding (I had an Arabian mare on whom I rode endurance in my teens and 20s) and gymkhanas. In those disciplines, horses can participate well into their 20s, instead of being a use-and-throw-away type item.
When I grew up, I became a biologist/environmental scientist, and later an educator and writer. When we hit 40 we decided to "tree change" to a smallholding, which is where we are now. I've got a keen interest in mental/emotional health from growing up in a difficult family and from seeing similar fallout to my own in friends and in students I was teaching. These days I write about that, and a number of other subjects, on a regular basis. Recreationally, I write here and on an alternative music forum. I also write professional articles for independent magazines when the mood is upon me.
I will be creating an INDEX for this journal soon, because it's so long!
Things like:
- Learning to ride in Europe
- Educating my first horse from scratch - an Arabian yearling bought half-price in the summer of 1983, when I was 11
- Re-educating my current riding horse from harness to saddle in 2009
- Assorted trail rides in the Australian bush, where I took the camera
- Many more reports on gorgeous mountain and coastal hikes because we live in a wonderful natural walking area on the pristine South Coast of Western Australia and love getting out and stretching our legs
- Rehabilitating "institutionalised" horses at Red Moon Sanctuary - here's a link to our last adoptee's first day here with us - he'd spent 17 years since weaning not allowed any social contact with other horses and was kept solitary in the same yard day in, day out
- Various philosophical reflections
- Various mental/emotional health pieces to support fellow survivors of family dysfunction
- Pieces on building our house and managing our farm and nature reserve, which are "re-prints" from magazine articles
Watch this space.
Returning you to historical journal now, from back in 2104 (and please note, when I started this journal I was glossing over my birth family situation because I had not yet started talking frankly about such problems in public - that happened here.)
♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣
This is going to be a combination of show-and-tell, reflective journal and place for SB appreciators to hang out. I am a default Standardbred appreciator because my parents started breeding, training and racing them when I was still at school. My father is still training and racing a trio of young horses and at age 75 is, as far as I know, the oldest reinsman still driving in races in Western Australia.
I am in the 40+ social group at HF and, when DH and I recently exchanged farms with my parents for a long weekend to give them a change of scenery for my mother's 75th, and I brought photos back to my group, the idea dawned on me that this might make a nice general thread starter on Standardbreds and other Trotting breeds, their harness and ridden training, converting an OTSB for riding, etc. So here goes, starting just with that, cut-and-paste, and I'll fill in the history with more detail later, and answer any questions that might arise.
____
Here are some photos of the horses at my parents' place, which we took last weekend:
Stable row: Chip, (Frog not looking), Dezba, La Jolie, Rosie, La Cherie.
Shed: Baralu, Torrific Girl, Sunset Coast. (Classic Julian opposite, not in photo.)
Two other horses use walk-in-walk-out night quarters, not photographed here.
My father was around the same age I am now when, 30 years ago, he decided he'd had enough of working in an office fulltime, bought a very inexpensive piece of bush in Australia, and built the stables and shed himself, with one offsider. He taught himself to lay bricks and to do roof framing and cladding. Then he started training and racing trotters. He even bred them at one point, but did much better with horses he bought in or rescued, often horses that needed "fixing" in some way: He said recently that when you breed, you don't know what you're going to get; when you buy, you can see what you're going to get.
This is Chip, along with my Romeo the last of the old generation of horses he brought in to race:
Chip was impulse bought inexpensively at a yearling sale, was small and wasn't particularly famously bred, but Dad just liked the look of him and his nature. I was in my early 20s and said to him, "Did you really need another horse?" and he said, "If he doesn't go you can have him, he's so pretty and a real character." As it turned out, he did go all right: Was my father's most successful horse - won 10 times, including 4 metropolitan races, and placed 19 times. We also rode him. I took him to a 25km short endurance event between metropolitan races once and he breezed home in that as well. He was retired paddock sound with a spinal injury he got from running head-first into a tree when playing. He is now 23.
Koolio, Celeste, Northernstar and 8 others like this.
Blue, Roadyy, NickerMaker71, Eole, tjtalon, Maryland Rider, ellen hays, RegularJoe