Caring for Horses in True Bluegrass Style

By Lisa Gonzalez

Growing up in rural Kentucky just an hour away from both Louisville and Lexington had plenty of perks. One perk was the annual Kentucky Derby and for any Kentuckian, it’s just about the proudest moment that there is.

The Kentucky Derby was more than showing off some of the best-bred bloodlines that world class trainers worked into shape from the bluegrasses of Kentucky, but it was also a time for all of us to saddle up our own thoroughbreds to be admired.

And for us kids the yearlong preparation meant a crash course in real horse care! Let me tell you that if a man’s home is his castle then his horse’s stable is his pride.

One would think that it’s not so hard to care for a horse … well that is for one that doesn’t live in the heart of the bluegrass where horses are almost worshipped and stables are kept cleaner than a whistle!

There wasn’t a weekend that went by hardly that our family wasn’t cleaning out the barn. We had seven horses at one time, but usually we only had only three or four.

My Daddy started working with horses at High Point Farm just down the road from our tiny community known as East Texas when he was knee high to a grasshopper, the tender of age of five.

Our barn is what we called a shotgun barn because you could shoot straight from one end to the other, the doors opened on each end, and there were lots of windows for our horses. We’d get all of the bedding out of the stalls, remove all the feeding trays and water drools.

And that’s when the hard work started.

We scrubbed all the hay and grain feeders, our feed room was probably the cleanest in the country, and we even cleaned out the little shed where Daddy stored extra hay. Every stall in the barn had to swept, the aisle dirt free, and even the dividers had to be spotless. Once we’d swept everything out, Daddy brought in the vacuum cleaner!

Daddy was proud of his vacuum because it was customized complete with a long hose about thirty feet long connected to the exhaust to make sure all the dirt and dust that was sucked up would find it’s place outside.

Then we would lather the whole place down in suds and water. My brother would climb all the way up to the lighting fixtures with a dust rag to make them shine too.

I honestly believe that our barn was cleaner than our house!

Our horses would run free all morning until after lunchtime. Daddy would wash each horse one by one, us kids would give them a good brushing, and Mom replaced their stalls with fresh bedding, clean food and water trays.

Then we would lead Daddy’s pride back into their sanctuary when all the work was done, and taking care of the horses wasn’t necessarily a job. Those horses were a part of our family, and we all loved them that much.

When I grew up I discovered that most people only do the work that we did every week, just once a year. I also learned that other people’s horses required the attention of a veterinarian quite often, but I can only remember a vet visit three times, two of those times were to assist with a hard birth.

Horses are just as fragile as people are. When it’s cold they need warmth, when it’s humid they too need to be cooled, their beds need to be clean for comfort and hoof health, they need baths to ward off the threat of infection from germs, the food needs to be nutritious and clean to reduce the risk of contamination that can be fatal, and they need cool fresh water too.

When we saddled up our horses on Derby Day, we all rode to the store to place our bets on our favorite contenders. No matter who won the race, we all rode home with pride atop our own winners … our own thoroughbreds! And our horses knew it.

© Doityourself.com 2006