Breaking Rules, Tack, and Everything Else: My DIY Horseback Hunting Chronicle

[Pony Soldier]

many things we do and how we think is conditioned by our experiences on the trip. Early on while I was working for the gov, we had a long trip into never never land. The return was a long downhill slope. At one point we had a fairly steep, 4 ft slope, with a creek crossing at the bottom of the slope. My bosses horse decided to get a drink when his feet hit the creek. With his head betwwen his feet and the cinch loosening up over the previous four miles, the saddle slid off taking the bridle with it leaving my boss and saddle in the creek in an instant with an astonished look on his face.

At that point, the need for a crupper or britchen was firmly imprinted on my mind if you are going to ride in the mountains. I will never forget the look on my bosses face as he sat on the saddle with the water up to his belly.

All my saddles - riding and pack - have britchen.

 

[rayporter]

going down hill once when the tackberry buckle came loose. the crupper and back cinch saved me.

every thing gets broke to a crupper now. i might not use it but they wont throw a fit if i do.

 

[ShootOkHuntWorse]

I’ll try to take a picture this week but with the lead rope I put it up through the hole by the horn, make a loop with a few twists and then place it over the horn. To get it undone all you do is flip it over the horn and pull the tail back out under the saddle.

 

[yycyak]

Very anticlimactic update:

Shoes
Had the farrier out Tuesday. Asked that the heels on all the shoes get tucked in, no rear overhang, and no front lip on the shoes showing. If it shortens cycles, I don't care - Main thing is I don't want the horses throwing shoes this time of year.

Mare turned out really good. Gelding was okay (I thought) - I wished his heels were tucked in more, but length seemed good so I left it alone.

Thursday afternoon I got a text from one of the guys at the barn letting me know the gelding had lost his front left already. So my Friday day-trip was cancelled (Although with the weather we've been having, it was questionable if I'd have been able to go anyway.) Still not sure if the gelding is over-reaching with his hinds, or if it's the shoes. The pasture isn't exactly mountain country - Not much for rocks to catch edges on...

Anyway, made some calls and was supposed to have a local feed lot cowboy/farrier come Saturday to fix things, but was ghosted. Le sigh. So I'll need to get this sorted this week.

It'll be interesting to see how the mare's shoes do though, because she looked exactly how I wanted.

Hot Vs Cold?
I didn't realize this was controversial, but is there a consensus on the effectiveness of hot-shoeing vs cold? In one circle of people I know, hot-shoeing is The Devil and the lazy way to do it. In another circle, you can't find a farrier that WON'T hot-shoe a horse.

Weather
The weather here has been just awful here. Dumping rain more days than not, so it's made getting out for rides pretty ugly. Rivers stupid high, trails muddy, paddocks are mud pits at the barn... So that's been fun. Ironic because we've dealt with drought for a while, and yet the problem this year is things are too wet to get the grass off the fields now.

***

Sheep season is about a month out, so looking forward to that. Still hoping to get a couple overnight scout trips in (maybe even pack in and cache some cubes) to shake down gear and get my highline and hobbling skillz up to par.

 

[doverpack12]

How long are the hind toes on the gelding? They can knock those back some potentially.
You can go to clipped fronts on the gelding but if he’s stepping on them would likely still loose one at some point.

Wet and sloppy means feet are softer and will loose shoes easier plus they aren’t setting their foot right where they want if they slide.

Hot v cold. Likely a better/higher contact percentage with hot but I let the farrier pick what they are more comfortable with. Not all are setup to do hot and not all horses are ready for hot shoes.