BLANKETS AND RUGS

This subject is about the increasingly huge market for rugs, blankets and what looks like duvets for horses. The magazines and horse retailers have more types and makes of these than anything else, just look in some catalogues that do internet sales also, rugs and blankets take up almost a quarter of the book. Such a vast array they surely can find what you need? There are light rugs, heavy rugs, 420 denier nylon outers, 10oz of polyester filling, stable rugs, paddock rugs, jute rugs, turnout rugs, high neck extensions, summer turnouts, winter turnouts, mac's, coolers, fleece coolers, light and heavy summer sheets, towling rugs, anti-sweat rugs, cotton sheets, exercise sheets, lycra hoods, lycra neck covers etc etc etc. Is your mind spinning when you just look at them, do you know what's good for your horse, what will be right for him? NO RUG AT ALL is what he'd tell you!

There are so many people out there trying to sell you something and relying on your human nature of wanting to do the best for your horse that you end up buying things you probably don't need. I mean the catalogues sell them so surely we must need them, right?

The thing is that horses evolved to take care of themselves more efficiently and better than humans could ever do in the outdoors. Their blood systems change towards Winter and their coats change dramatically to be able to cope with the drop in temperature.

Let your horse be outside all day, every day, it's what's best for him. His coat will start to thicken up, the oils of his coat will begin to work to keep rain from his skin and shouldn't be overly groomed. His mane and tail should be long to keep his neck and back quarters warm, feathers should be left to keep water off the heels and in general he should be left alone to be a horse. What we can do is give him good quality forage (hay or haylage) to keep him in good condition, give him some sort of shelter in case he wants to use it (trees are usually better than a man made shelter), plenty of ice free water, succulents for treats and not to be overly used as to encourage us to clip him and therefore having to rug him up.

All rugs really do is weaken our horses immune system and make them suseptable to colds and chills. If your horse gets aclimatised to the cold gradually in the usual way then their systems adjust with the changing weather, they enjoy the wind in their hair and rain just runs off their coats. If you put a rug on them, when you take it off to go riding or to groom, they feel the cold twice as much, as they are now used to being warm. After a while the thick coats that would have grown to keep them cosy will start to fall out in an articificial moult and then you HAVE to rug them because you've ruined the coats natural climate control and they'll freeze. Horses left to their own devices often have no problems dealing with the cold, it's the wet and cold that they have trouble with and rugging to stop chills is good. What we need to do is take rugging on a daily basis, don't over rug and let the horse be a horse for as long as possible in the Winter and rug when necessary. But don't put human thoughts onto the horse, cold for a horse that is healthy with a good Winter coat is not a problem.

I've so often seen horses rugged up when it's mild, supposedly to stop them getting muddy so they can be ridden, just human convenience. We clip them so we can ride them out heavily and then have to rug them. Can't we just let them have some Winter time off and maybe ride them at a slower pace so they don't sweat?

The worst thing we do to our horses is humanize them, we need to let them be what they are. We spend too much time tidying them up to suit our image of the perfect horse. We buy one type of horse and try to make it into another sort. What we should be doing is buying the horse we love and keeping him that way.