Tuscany Hollow Stables

It’s a beautiful day for a horse show!!! ☀️😎

We hope to see everyone on Saturday, August 24th for our Combined Test and Dressage Show. Come out and enjoy good feedback from well qualified dressage judges, flowing show jumping courses over pretty jumps, great prizes from some awesome sponsors and a fun show environment!

https://fb.me/e/zTi8p6mmB

Red Fern invited us to come school their new cross country course a couple of weeks ago and we had a blast! Thanks for having us out, we will definitely be back! ♥️

We LOVE seeing a busy cross country course🥰 If you are looking to school, train, or just have some fun, our course is perfect for you! You do not want to miss out! Be sure to join us and purchase your passes at the link below!

https://go.theflybook.com/book/1409/ListView/0 #/base/1409/82e44011-5a66-4988-bb43-903a180e9d03/listview

Save our Date!
Tuscany Hollow Combined Test and Dressage Ride a Test August 24, 2024. Great way to get your last prep in for AEC or just have a fun time with your friends and horses.

Tuscany Hollow Stables Combined Test and Dressage Show Tuscany Hollow Stables CT & Dressage Show August 24, 2024

Happy Kentucky Derby 150! Tex and Woody hope everyone gets to sport their hats, cash some tickets and have a great day! 🐴🏇🌹♥️

Happy Derby Week from Tap and all of the other thoroughbreds at Tuscany Hollow!
🌹🏇🥃♥️🐴
PC:

Happy First Day of Spring!!! 🌸☀️🌿🌼

Congratulations to Katie Rowe on her purchase of “Cut To The Chase”! We are excited about their new partnership and look forward to a fun 2024 show season and beyond for them. Welcome to Tuscany Hollow, Chase! 🩷

We love our Excel Feeds!

It’s another Saturday 📚🤔🐴

Did you know that horses are called “hindgut fermenters”?

Horses are called hindgut fermenters because the digestion of structural carbohydrates occurs in the large colon.

Why is this important to horse owners?

The majority of a horse’s diet should be composed of long-stem forage, either in the form of fresh pasture or hay. This forage is a great source of structural carbohydrates, also known as fiber. The breakdown of fibers into energy is performed by microorganisms living in the large colon - also known as the hindgut! Something as simple as changing the type of hay or grain can change the microbial populations, therefore all feed changes should be done slowly, typically 7-10 days. Keeping your horses hindgut happy is vital to their performance, which is why at Excel Equine Feeds we offer multiple high fiber feeds and add pre/probiotics to every feed we make.

Our high fiber feeds are: Trifiber, Senior Plus, Senior HF, Natur-Alfa oat, Carbolyte, Animate, and Mare Cube 🐴

Cruising into the weekend… 💨

We can’t wait to jump our new cross country jumps. Thanks Rauch Equestrian for the beautiful creations!

Between the MSEDA Banquet and the Year End 42 Fleur De Lis Awards, there are quite a few new shiny ribbons at the barn! Congratulations to all of our clients on a successful 2023. 💜💙

Who has ribbon envy and motivation for the 2024 season?

It was a warm, sunny day for an early February Poles Day. We mixed and matched some groups and everyone got to try some different patterns and exercises. Thanks to all that participated! ☀️

We are looking forward to our next Poles Day, this Saturday. We’ve got some fun footwork exercises to set up and the forecast looks amazing! 🤩

We are ready for this weather to warm up, but in the meantime, here are some fun facts about horses and cold weather.

FUN FACT FRIDAY! Are you familiar with the many adaptations that help your horse stay warm during the cold winter months?

🌾 Hindgut digestion of hay produces the most heat, acting as a small furnace inside of the horse. This is why free choice, good quality hay is so important in the winter.

💪 Horses have a huge muscle mass and muscle activity produces heat. This includes running and playing and even shivering if their body temperature starts to drop. It is important to remember that these activities also will result in a bigger caloric demand so free choice hay and in some cases, grain, is often needed.

🧥 To blanket or not to blanket is a constant debate but either way, as it starts to get cold your horse will grow a thicker coat. If you decide to leave your horse unblanketed you may notice that they look “fluffy”. This is due to a phenomenon called piloerection where the hair stands up to better trap air within. Two layers of the coat also help with warmth. The inner layer is softer and has air pockets to create an insulating layer. The outer layer is coarse and has oils that keep moisture from penetrating the insulating layer and keep the horse warm.

⚖️ Wild horses go into the winter heavier than ideal and the fat serves as an extra layer of insulation. However, if a horse is going to be kept heavily blanketed and in a barn during the cold weather months this is unnecessary and can lead to obesity related issues.

🦵Their distal limbs (below the knees and hocks) are made of mostly bones and tendons, tissues that are resistant to the cold temperatures.

🦶The hooves have an alternative route of blood circulation through larger vessels that can be used in low temperatures. This is why horses can stand in snow without detrimental effects.

👃A horse’s nose has a robust blood supply and is rounded so that it is less susceptible to frostbite than a human’s nose.
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Courtesy of the AAEP Horse Owner Education Committee

It may have been cold outside but we had a barn full of warm conversations today as we had Jenny Salyers, Animal Communicator come by for a barn party! Many of the Tuscany Hollow critters, past and present, had a lot to say to their owners and friends. It was quite fun and a lot if affirmations for all! 💜💙

Happy Birthday to all of our Thoroughbreds!! 🌹

We wrapped up the year with a very fun and educational poles day for our students! Everyone had very successful rides while braving the cold and rain. Look out for a few more of these events leading up to show season (weather depending).

Makes us look forward to 2024 and the season ahead for all. 💙💜

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from everyone at Tuscany Hollow! 🎅🏼🎄🎁

Annual Tuscany Hollow Christmas party. We laughed, drank all the wine, had enough food to feed Simpsonville, and celebrated each others successes.
Horses are hard but with a barn family like this, we can accomplish anything together.

Here’s to smashing goals in 2023 and looking forward to seeing what 2024 has in store for the THS crew. 💜💙

Last week was a busy week! It’s time to officially welcome Alexis to the program here at Tuscany Hollow and to congratulate Laura Jones on her purchase of Lucy!

Alexis comes to us from Alyssa Plewacki who evented her through training level. She is a Dutch Harness/ Warmblood mare and we are excited to have her in the program for some of our more experienced students.

Lucy has been with us for a little while and Laura leased her for one year to the day of becoming her owner. We are so happy to have Lucy and Laura continue to grow in their partnership here at THS.

💙💜

One of our favorite outings each year is the Hunter Pace! It’s always so fun and we are thankful that Dinwiddie and Irene Lampton have us all out to their beautiful farm. We are looking forward to hunting in the future with The Hardscuffle Hounds!!!

We love our sponsors! 💛

Today we are out at the show 🙌🐴 come and find us for a chance to be featured in our next reel! 🎉

Thank you to everyone who came out to support our show on Saturday. Here is the link to our show photos!!!

Tuscany Hollow CT/DR May 2023 Patton Pics,Tuscany Hollow CT/DR May 2023,

Always a good reminder. 😊

Progress isn’t linear.
Steps “backwards” are not 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 backwards... filling in holes is real progress.

We often have to try harder movements to see what’s not working… you think your horse bends around your leg well in circles and shoulder in, but you try haunches in and realize you lose the bend through the ribcage, and the horse over bends in the base of the neck. Then you go back to the circle and pay more attention to getting ribcage bend, and keeping the base of the neck stable. You try it in a shoulder in and realize the same thing is happening.
You used to do an okay circle (with a little too much bend at the base of the neck that you were unaware of), a ”neck in” that you thought was a shoulder in, and a poor attempt at haunches in. Now you are working on better circles, and recognize your issues in shoulder in, which you are about to fix, and soon will have the missing ingredient for haunches in…. That’s absolutely progress!! It may feel like you went from working on haunches in to going back to 20m circles, but that’s what progress looks like.

Just wait until you are trying to do multiple flying changes in a straight line… you’ll learn you don’t have a quality canter, at all, and spend months doing walk to canter transitions trying to fix 10 things you never even knew were things before!! Forget single flying changes, lateral work, or even circles… you’ll be picking apart your ability to just walk to canter on a straight line, and recognizing all sorts of atrocities you’ve been doing your whole life abd never noticed before!!!!
That’s progress (huge progress actually!)

Some of the year end awards earned by from the 2022 42 Fleur De Lis Series. The awards went out this week. We love the because it’s great for building confidence and goal setting. On to 2023!!!

The THS Event Team starts our season this weekend with the Covered Bridge Combined Test at Stone Place. We have 8 going so it should be a chilly, busy and fun day! Go 💜💙

Paisley and Lucy are excited for the start of Daylight Savings! Tonight was the last sunset before 7:00 until fall. Yay for longer days and more time to ride in the sunshine!