JT Hoof Trimming & Horse Care

Come on down to the Anthill tomorrow night.
Free entry into our Quiz Night, with $100 up for grabs for 1st prize ($50 and $25 for 2nd and 3rd).
Come with a team of join one, I'll look after you 😉

What do farriers do on their day off? We recharge our batteries by pampering our favourite ponies 🥰🤩

Cleaning up some delamintion on King at the Sanctuary in Cooktown today.

I'm Emcee-ing Quiz night at the ANTHILL tomorrow night (every fortnight)
7.30PM start - come a bit earlier to register and get your buzzer.
I've had a request for Dad Jokes, and requests are always answered.....so very warned 😆😂

A beautiful gift from a beautiful client 💙💙
She nailed it!!

During these 35-40 degree days, help keep your horses cool.
Don't scrape, provide mister fans if you can. Lots of clean, cool water as well as shade in a shed/stable/shelter with good airflow.
And don't forget the salt and minerals please guys!! Replenishing essential sodium stores as well as all the needed electrolytes is crucial.

Msg me for more info or ideas on how to help your horse get through wet season in the tropics

While I'm on a roll...meet Tabitha, the last addition to the JT family!
I caught this little Miss in the outdoor Coles loo block. She had a few days at Mareeba Animal Refuge until the council officially surrendered her to them,and then I picked her up and took her home intending to foster to socialise.
But........I will be formally adopting this beautiful little kitten. She dances on my heart strings.

She has gone from ninja moves jumping up walls to get away from me to coming to me for cuddles.
Ahhh she's a good one 💙💙

So, you may ask what have i been busy with (aside from trips and cyclones)?
Well..meet Cinnamon. A 4 month old Jenny brought to me due to a paralysis tick.
After a few days intensive nursing, I'm happy to say she is also up and feeling fine 💙.

My apologies for disappearing from the world of FB for a while! Between trips overseas, some personal issues and wet season wreaking havoc, I've been slightly preoccupied!!
But....I'm back and feeling fine 😀
I'm back to sharing advice, resources and ideas as of now. Anything you would like to know about or see on this page, just give me an ahoy !!
(Picture for attention, nothing like a pony doing his thing 😆)

Guess who is hosting trivia night at the Anthill next Saturday evening?
(Yes, that would be me)
Inviting one and all 😁

A while ago I was able to work on some donkeys that needed some urgent and extensive help, together with Anna's Equine Trimming & Training .
We were sure that a few of the jenny's were pregnant. What a fabulous Christmas present - Welcome to the world little Jasper 😍

TAILGATING is a dumb thing to do.
Tailgating a horse float on the gillies (or kuranda) range is SUICIDAL.
Just because you don't see a horse doesn't mean we don't have a pony,mini or other livestock (sheep, goats, cattle) in there.
WE CAN'T slam on the brakes. WE CAN'T see you if you drive right up our butts.
WE CAN'T save you if you overtake idiotically because you want to get there 3 minutes before we will.
WE WILL DRIVE TO PROTECT OUR LIVESTOCK. They are our precious cargo, members of our family. You are not.

😂😂 so funny, so true

TEN WAYS TO GET IN SHAPE TO OWN A HORSE!
1. Drop a heavy steel object on your foot. Don't pick it up right away. Shout "Get off, stupid! Get off!"
2. Leap out of a moving vehicle and practice "Relaxing into the fall". Roll into a ball, and spring to your feet!
3. Learn to grab your checkbook out of your purse/pocket and write out a $200 check without even looking down.
4. Jog long distances carrying a halter and holding out a carrot. Go ahead and tell the neighbors what you're doing.They might as well know now.
5. Affix a pair of reins to a moving freight train and practice pulling it to a halt. And smile as if you are really having fun.
6. Hone your fibbing skills. "See hon, moving hay bales is fun!" and "I'm glad your lucky performance and multi-million dollar horse won you first place - I'm just thankful that my hard work and actual ability won me second place".
7. Practice dialing your chiropractors number with both arms paralyzed to the shoulder, and one foot anchoring the lead rope of a frisky horse.
8. Borrow the US Army slogan; "Be all that you can be'...( but add) bitten, thrown, kicked, slimed, trampled."
9. Lie face down in the mud in your most expensive riding clothes and repeat to yourself: "This is a learning experience, this is a learning experience ..."
10. Marry Money!
Hahaha, feel free to add any that you can think of in the comments!

I do my best to maintain affordable rates, but at the end of the day if you can't pay to look after your horse (or other animals) correctly, don't own them.
There are plenty of great trail riding businesses and riding schools locally

Had a colic scare today. My older OTT was lying down and seemed just that bit off.....sometimes that's all the warning you will get.
Colic can mild or it can be deadly. Catching it early is crucial
I'm blessed to have a husband at home who watches over our herd when I am away, and is really in tune with how they are within themselves.
With early intervention and monitoring our old man is fine now.
DO NOT be complacent about colic symptoms.
Msg me for any more info

Can anyone relate? When grass is stressed (eg through mowing, frost, drought) and then watered to keep it going, the new growth can be extremely sugary.
Laminitis warning bells should be ringing!!
Message me if you have any questions or would like to learn more

Picture credit: "Six Feat" - find them on FB

It's hard when you have to take a break of any length when you're a horse person. When Dr's say to rest and let the body heal, I have finally - after nearly 40 years of life - fully comprehended this!

Our minds can often multitask quite well, directing the body to perform multiple concurrent tasks. BUT what it cannot do is concentrate its full, tip top power on healing as well as other complex or even simple tasks. Hence.... "REST". Not to be slack, but to let the mind instruct the body how to heal, and use its full force to do it.

For most horsepeople, sitting and "resting" is one of the most frustrating, guilt-enticing actions (or non-actions) that there is. BUT should we not do so we compromise ourselves. We might apportion.....25% to healing and 75% to regular life. Or 50:50. Or even 85% to healing and only 15% to chores......but it really should be 100% healing, shouldn't it? To maximise impact and set ourselves up for success, we NEED to give our bodies and minds time out.

So how can we persuade ourselves to actually follow through on this concept?

1) Remind ourselves of the overused cliche of "put on your own oxygen mask first or you won't be able to breathe and help anyone else". Annoying as it is to hear, it's true.

2) Ask for help! Who is your support network, and what could they do? Maybe cook you some meals or do some shopping. Walk the dog for you. Change bed sheets.
If we TELL our support person(s) the ACTUAL tasks which would help (within their capabilities) it makes it so much easier for then to support you than the vague "whatever I can do, let me know".

If you feel you don't have a support network, don't despair.
a) Often we don't want to burden others with chores WE should be doing - after all, they have busy lives too. But people WANT to help, and they always have right of refusal - "sorry I can't do X, but I can do Y and Z". It makes others feel good to help, but we MUST ask.

b) We also, due to history or personality, location or many other reasons, often feel we can't ask our friends or family to help. So we feel isolated and without support. My advice? Give people a chance! I pushed my family away for over a decade but when I was needing to accept help they were there instantly.

c) If you feel truly isolated and without support, there are professional services that can help - Physically, Mentally and Emotionally. We can turn to medical and allied health practitioners as a first line solution, as well as psychologists, counsellors and more. And on a practical note there are pet sitters, dog walkers, takeaway food deliveries, shopping deliveries or click and collect.

3. Stay engaged with our medical professionals to make a treatment plan which works for you specifically. I'm currently an inpatient and have worked out a medication timetable with my nurses which takes into account my insomnia and general sleeping patterns (for meds due middle of night) as well as my nausea following certain medications (ie. Administer away from mealtimes).

4) There is no point in being upset about these situations. BUT if you are feeling depressed, anxious or otherwise not that great mentally, SEEK HELP. There are so many options available and they can be the game changers.

5) LET YOUR ANIMALS HELP YOU!! Sometimes the best we can do is turn a bucket upside down in the paddock and sit with our horses, ponies, donkeys, sheep, goats, cows, chickens........or dogs, cats and birds......or our friend or neighbours animals. If you are an inpatient there are even qualified therapy dogs who can visit you! They can help so very much, our 4 legged companions. And they want to. LET THEM!!!

If YOU feel like this article resonates with you, and you are struggling with similar issues or would just like to discuss, please send me a DM, I am happy to chat and help with resources as I can. If you are feeling 'down', 'blue' or recognise you are in need of help, please contact your GP, local mental health team or Beyond Blue, or dial 000 if you feel you are a danger to yourself.

(Photo credit: Crystalyn Jones - Art - Photography )

Today, the 1st day of Spring, 7 years ago, our beautiful Angel was born.
Angel had a challenging life. She suffered spinal damage at 2.5yrs, but after over 8 months of in hand rehab and osteo work, she thrived again. She lost her aggression - which she developed out of pain - and was my wonderful sweet tempered girl again.
I started her under saddle - ba****ck pad and halter to be precise - and she helped me learn to ride better with the help of our talented teacher Margot.
Unfortunately she did end up going downhill again, and it was clear I couldn't help resolve her pain this time.
So we chose to let her go. To help her gain her wings.
Fly high, beautiful girl. You taught us so very much and gave us so much joy. We will always have you in our hearts and you are part of everything I do 💖💖

Being corrected sure is hard - but if we never get corrected we never improve, and we keep doing the same (usually) dumb stuff and hinder our horses.
I know i'm at best an average rider - I have a tattoo of my heart horse Irish bucking on my ankle, because of the dumb thing I used to do (micro-managing him), which got me bucked off. I have no doubt I do something else now that could be improved, and I look forward to being corrected.
Be humble. Seek constant betterment, let yourself BE bettered. Remember, it's about the horse.

If we’re coming at our riding and general horsemanship in a healthy way, we’re wanting always to do better. This means improving ourselves while vowing to do less and less (ideally, NO) harm to the horse. This doesn’t necessarily mean being recognized by other horse(wo)men.

This sounds good, until it is time to do the actual learning. I think it was Winston Churchill who first wittily said, “I love the idea of learning; I just hate the being taught!”

What does being a good student really mean?

Becoming ‘teachable’ is a thing, all right. As a riding instructor, as well as an occasional participant in group lessons, it always surprises me the number of grown people who pay good money for instruction, all the while repelling it like water from a duck’s back.

A surprisingly large number of us will take an affirmation from a knowledgeable coach along with a heapin’ helpin’ of self-aggrandizement. We’ll be told that we are doing something well and we’ll answer with how long we’ve been riding, or the latest buckle or show classes we’ve won. Point out an area needing some improvement and we’ll take it as a personal affront. We will literally stop and argue why the teacher or clinician is wrong, or why we persist in doing things ‘our way’.

I’ve decided that the true measure of our willingness to improve is not in how we handle compliments and encouragement, the ‘positive’ things… but in how we handle the more ‘negative’ aspects of learning, such as being corrected, or having to go back to the drawing board. It takes a particularly strong character to be told that what she’s been doing for thirty years can be done better, if only she will let go of her past and get to work on learning something new!

Perhaps it is not the learning that is the challenge, but all the un-learning this entails. There is an art in letting go what we have loved, especially our own beliefs.

So often, we’ll take correction as an insult or outrage. We’ll say that the coach who doesn’t make us feel like a winner is somehow an abusive, or toxic, teacher. This mindset has a huge impact on our own improvement in the saddle and on the ground, as well as how we accept instruction and assimilating new information, in general.

I’ve audited many public clinics, for I won’t ride with someone until I’ve observed his, or her, angle when it comes to teaching horsemanship. I’ve seen riders struggle with taking instruction and I rather suspect they were hoping to pay their tuition, only to be told that they are doing everything right, already. Or that their horse is superb, as is. I know this is one of my fondest fantasies, to be told that there is literally nothing else I can improve upon, though I share this with you in jest. Well, partly. Sort of.

Oh, it’s a humbling thing, to consider that we are likely just average riders, on so-called average horses, lacking any real jaw-dropping talents, between us. This is hard because the stars, those few extraordinary individuals, earn so much recognition for their toil! The rest of us are therefore called to muddle along, doing our best with that which God gave us.

There are worse things, than doing our best at learning how to learn.

I think if I could give any one of us some useful encouragement, it would be this. Stop trying to be extraordinary! Aim to be kind and open to learning about what really matters in horsemanship: staying safe; learning to ‘read’ our horses; enjoying their gifts to the fullest without causing pain or suffering; striving for health and joyfully cheering one another on.

Who knows? You or I may be one of the gifted ones and if so, we’ll have also learned to be a nice person in the process.

Some of the most achieving horse(wo)men are the hardest people to be around. Can you or I be both? Maybe. Maybe not. To our horses and our own families, I daresay being decent—losing our self-pity and self-centredness, ditching the striving rider’s endless drive to be recognized—probably matters more.

Shown here, me and the Hanoverian, Cypress, on his seventh-ever ride. No hard rockin’ Reels, no slow-motion action. Nope, we’re just toolin’ around…

Do not feel forced to speed up the rate of your training, how soon you jump on a young horses back, how hard and fast you ride them, just to get someones approval.
Do you want this person's respect if gaining it will compromise your young horse's training?
Have an open mind and learn from others, but never allow yourself to be forced. Science and best practice and results based methods are always the best, rather than "it's always been done this way", "a young horse needs to be ridden hard or every day", "it's more important to teach a horse to respond to a bit than wait until a proper bit fit is done" and so many more examples.
I am just starting to back my 5yo TB stallion. I will start asking him to have a bit in his mouth, but still use the halter and leads/long reins until he is comfortable. I will put a saddle on him when he is comfy with my ba****ck pad. I'm not "babying" him. He knows the boundaries, he knows acceptable ways of behaving around humans. I am working for longevity and a lifelong partnership, not a quick broke horse who may exhibit dangerous behaviours due to a lack of comfort or understanding

The next time someone tries to mock your skill as a rider and/or trainer based upon how fast you bring up horses, remember this…

Speed does not equate to ethicality, quality or efficacy of training. Being able to accomplish a lot of things quickly does not mean they were done with the horses’ well-being in mind… oftentimes, fast paced training has to have welfare come secondary to human goals.

The fixation on how much someone is able to make their horse do within a certain period of time as a means of measuring skill fails to account for equine well-being.

Not every horse can progress at the same rate. Some horses need more time for the betterment of their mental and/or physical health.

Good trainers won’t weight the skill of riders using arbitrary timelines.

They’ll weight it by looking at the person’s willingness to forego personal goals for equine well-being in addition to their capacity to produce well minded, happy and relaxed horses.

Competing at the upper levels, as far as I’m concerned, is a useless measure of talent if it’s valued above equine welfare. Being able to jump big jumps or do difficult dressage tests should only be viewed as impressive if we don’t sacrifice horses in the pursuit of it.

So, next time someone does this to you, ask yourself this: why would you value the opinion of someone who is CLEARLY putting human-centric accomplishments above what is best for the horse?

Why would you need the approval of someone who would only respect you more if you negated the timeline your horse needs?

Letting horses physically develop valuing their mental state is often a thankless process that people criticize due to the discomfort your value system causes them.

Don’t let the people who don’t get it damage your self esteem.

Be proud of yourself for doing the difficult thing for the benefit of your horse even if others ridicule you for it.

What a great concept. I think the mental grounding aspect as well as the physical would work very well for several of my horses.
I'll def be trying this out soon.

‘The Invisible Box’

This is the name that’s seemed to stick for the way I use a ‘ground tie’ to help get horses back to a baseline relaxation.

It seems to ‘ground’ them once they can keep their feet planted with the belly of the rope on the ground, and we’ll often get huge releases like yawning, shaking out, etc.

I don’t think this is just behavioral.
I think of it as ‘give me distance and get back to grazing,’ each horse and human working on co-regulation with their herd of two…

It’s basically asking a horse to stay in an invisible box and keep their feet still so they can observe the surroundings and, especially, if they’ve dumped any adrenaline, to give them the time to metabolize that and clear it.

It seems to work best if you use a pretty long rope and there’s distance from the handler.
I think this has a lot to do with the fact that crowding generally only happens in the herd when there’s a threat, whereas the herd spreads out to graze when they feel safe.

Ideally, you can keep the belly of the rope on the ground and the horse will stay ‘ground tied’ without you having to remind them.

I use it anytime the horse starts to get elevated, to go back to baseline relaxation.

I’m sure there are good resources out there with other horsemen doing this, they probably just don’t call it the same thing. I’ll have to look.

I use several different techniques to block forward movement to the sides or towards me.

I might shake the rope Parelli-style, which is my least favorite, I might use the end of my rope like a helicopter blade…

My favorite is the flag, because it’s visual and gets their attention without having to be physically aversive.
It’s almost like a visual barrier like a fence if you use it properly, and helps you define the ‘invisible box’ you’re asking them to hang out in.

There has to be enough distance that they don’t feel magnetized into you.

If they’re only a few feet away, they’ll often keep trying to step into you over and over, and you have to do a lot of corrections, whereas if they are at least a horse length away, they don’t do that, and I’m sure this has a lot to do with the crowding/grazing thing.

This is a great thing to practice when we change environments or go to new places, because it establishes a pattern of, when something stresses us, let’s slow down and reground ourselves, not just start mindlessly ‘doing’ things that we can’t retain because we aren’t in a learning frame of mind.

When we do that, we’re just creating a pattern of, “New places stress me, because not only is there all this new stuff, but my human asks me to do things and gets frustrated when I can’t focus.”

Help them slow down enough that they come back to themselves, can stay present, and THEN they can learn.

Invisible box translates to riding, and a lot of other scenarios.

Most of the time, people are just managing a horse that’s not ‘in control of itself,’ co-regulated, instead of training from a place of calmness.

“Don’t just do something, stand there!”

“Use your brain, not just your feet.”

“Don’t let your feet run off with your brain.”

As part of my continuing education for my Equine Assisted Counselling Practice, I will be participating in a certified Mental Health 1st Aid course in Mareeba next week.
What a fantastic opportunity, brought to us by the Chamber of Commerce and our Mareeba Mental Health Champions group, of which I am a part.
If you are interested either in Equine Assisted Counselling or mental health 1st aid, give me a call or message on 0487 927 493, or PM me on this page.

What a great improvement in a short time frame! Anna's Equine Trimming & Training does a great job in Cairns, and though I'm not currently working with glue-ons I can help achieve the same goals with fiberglass hoof casting on the Tablelands.
Open your mind to alternate solutions! Be kind to your horse 💙

Nearly 12 weeks in glue shoes to improve his angles. What a change! He'll be much more comfy with the heels more upright 😁

I hope everyone has a fabulous day today. This is a gorgeous sunrise I caught at the lookout between Mt Carbine and Lakeland this past Monday.
Show me your sunrises!

A beautiful night at JT Farm, photo taken coming in from the paddock

Whether it's their birthday or not. Whether they are young or old.
They require care.
From each other as well as ourselves.
My lead mare didn't come up for dinner tonight so we went to find her. Poor girl is lame, so we have treated her.
But who hangs around to help? Our baby (3yrs old today), helping our oldest mare.
Now that's a community and a herd

For all my vegetarian followers 😂😂

As many may know, I was in Mongolia recently.
What an experience! The horses (ponies) there are still considered primitive. They are not purpose bred such as our horses, and are still closely related to the Pretzwalski horses which come from this region.
I was extremely privileged to be allowed to trim a hoof!! Usually only racehorses have their feet attended to.
But my pony (Tony) was a little sore one arvo and the horse owner kindly allowed me not only to look but to trim the crack that was causing Tony to be sore.
With the use of a pocket knife and a rock, I trimmed out the crack an Tony was sound after. Needless to say the wranglers (horse owners) and I had a massive interpreted conversation following this, regarding so many areas of horse care and training
What an incredible privilege. It honestly was such a humble and honest conversation, which I will never forget.