I’m back from Spring Break Hands and Hearts for Horses fans, and we have all been hard at work! That means your friendly “NEIGH”borhood horse blogger, i.e. me, is back with another entry of our blog!

Blog Reminders:

Remember, I have been hiding clues to my secret horsey identity in each week’s blog entry, so if you haven’t checked out our first two blog posts, go back and read them and search for the clues! I have included the link to each post below for easy access!

Week 1: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-3-11-itsallfunandgames

Week 2: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-3-18-showyourspirit

Week 3: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-3-25-sayinggoodbyetoadearfriend

Week 4: https://handsandheartsforhorses.com/neighborhood-horse-blogger/2024-4-3-springbreakedition

Tune in each week for another clue! REMEMBER, if you think you know which horse I am, shoot us a message or email Stephanie at stephanie@handsandheartsforhorses.com ! Don’t spoil the mystery for our other followers by posting your guess publicly! Can you piece together the clues and figure out which horse I am? Because I’ll never tell, well not until enough of you have guessed my secret! Once enough correct guesses have come in I’ll post a summary of the clues that should have led you to guess my identity and we will do a big reveal! A couple people have been closing in on my identity, so the big reveal may be soon!

The first person to guess my identity correctly will win a Hands and Hearts for Horses sticker and a piece of pretty Hands and Hearts for Horses themed jewelry created by our very own boss lady (or as the humans call her executive director) Susie’s own mom! So, tune in for those clues and get those guesses in! One guess per person, per week please!

STRONG AS A HORSE!!

I’ve always heard the saying “strong as a horse”, but I always wonder what exactly that means? I mean I know that some of my herd members are stronger than me and I’m stronger than some of them! However, how is our strength measured? And what does that mean for our jobs at Hands and Hearts for Horses?

A lot of you may have been noticing instructors weighing our riders before their rides in the last few weeks, and it turns out this is all to protect us horses!! Who would have thought? Apparently, while the yearly paperwork riders submit has the weight of the riders on it, that is sometimes an estimate or the last known weight of the rider, and since people can change a LOT over the course of a year, the humans want to make sure that we have an accurate rider weight on file. Some of you may wonder why that matters so much?

Well, apparently, we horses are strong enough to say people are “strong as a horse”, but that doesn’t mean we can carry any weight, we have our limits too! The human staff here use a very specific formula to calculate exactly how much weight each of us horses at the barn can carry for a lesson! This is to protect us from overexerting ourselves or injuring ourselves during our work. I don’t know about you, but that seems SUPER important to me, we horses want to work long careers at Hands and Hearts for Horses, and we can’t do that if we don’t take good care of ourselves!

I checked in with our humans to get a good breakdown on this formula, and how exactly they figure out who we can carry safely. Well, they apparently adopted a formula that another therapeutic riding center Equest in Dallas, Texas came up with. I have broken down the parts of the formula below!

Step 1: The humans take each of us horse’s tape weight. What is a tape weight, I imagine a lot of you are wondering? Well, the humans wrap a weight tape around us, and read off the figures where the end of the tape overlaps the numbered section, and then they know how much we weigh!

TAPE WEIGHT

Unfortunately most places don’t have a scale big enough for horses to step on! So that is why we are weighed using a tape!

Step 2: The humans calculate our raw carrying weight next! This is equal to 20% of our tape weight.

Step 3: Next the humans subtract any age handicaps from the raw carrying weight. For horses 15-20 years of age they subtract 20 lbs from the raw carrying weight and for horses 20 and older they subtract 40 lbs from the raw carrying weight.

Step 4: The humans subtract any handicaps based on issues in each horse’s medical or soundness history or even based on how the horse can mentally handle carrying, some horses tend to have more behavioral problems with riders who weigh more, and we want to make sure the horses are happy and safe! This amount is determined by our experienced veterinarians, our equine manager, and our instructors. This typically ranges between about 10-50 additional lbs being subtracted.

Step 5: Finally, the humans subtract an additional 20 lbs from the carrying weight of EVERY single horse for carrying unbalanced riders. EVERY rider in our program is considered unbalanced in this formula, essentially this is a THERAPEUTIC RIDING HANDICAP. The resulting amount is the FINAL CARRYING WEIGHT of the horse. This is the weight that we horses can carry safely and comfortably for the riders and ourselves, which will help extend the amount of time we can function in our roles at Hands and Hearts for Horses.

**“The best things come in small packages!”**

Some of our strongest horses come in the smallest packages!

And now loyal Hands and Hearts for Horses readers, I am going to give you the BIGGEST clue to my identity yet! I’m going to go through the formula above and help calculate my carrying weight! For those of you familiar with our program this could potentially give you quite a few hints as which horse I am! So, are you all ready for this?

Step 1: My most recent tape weight came in at 1250 lbs!!!

Step 2: 20% of 1250 lbs is 250 lbs.

Step 3: As I’ve already revealed, I am an OLDER horse so my age handicap is -40 lbs. Which leaves 210 lbs.

Step 4: Due to needing hock and stifle injections I have a medical/soundness handicap of another -40lbs. Which leaves 170 lbs.

Step 5: The unbalanced rider handicap is another -20 lbs, which leaves me with a final carrying weight of 150 lbs.

Well, there you have it readers! I can only carry riders who weigh 150 lbs or less! Sticking within my weight ranges over the years has helped me work at Hands and Hearts for Horses for many years happily and comfortably.

Let me know if you have figured out my identity based off of the clues! And look out for the big reveal which MAY be next week. In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for more happenings around the barn!

‘Til next time!

XOXO Your friendly “NEIGH”borhood Horse Blogger!

STRONG AS A HORSE!! - BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN

HANDS & HEARTS FOR HORSES