Red Gum Equine Services

13/10/2026

As I was trimming Penny's feet during the week I put my hand on her hindquarters at one point and asked her to move over a couple of steps before picking up the foot I was working on. This simple little thing caused me to think back quite a few years to when Bart and I were in our prime.

I was being assessed for my pony club "C" certificate at home by the late Francis Correy whose father was quite a good horseman from all accounts. I brought Bart in from the paddock, tied him up, groomed him, put the saddle and bridle on and as always he was a thorough gentleman. If I needed to reposition him at all I did so with just the lightest touch and minimal objection.

At the end of my assessment Francis smiled, gave Bart a pat and said fondly "My father would say this horse has good manners". It's a comment that still warms my heart to this day. It is such a simple thing that is so often overlooked by so many people. I personally wouldn't have my horses any other way.

📸 the legend himself, Mr Bartholomew aka Bart, just chilling out at the local pony club grounds while I adjusted some jumps. This grand old horse is 31 years old now.

12/10/2026

Love this

When Archie Cox was 12 years old, he rode in a clinic with a well-known horseman and received a piece of advice he still remembers decades later.

“Pay attention.”

“Since that day, I have paid attention,” Cox said during a live recording of The Plaidcast at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

For Cox, paying attention means studying horses, riders, trainers, tack, barns, and horse shows. It means noticing patterns in the horse underneath you and listening when experienced people explain why they do something a certain way. Some of the most useful lessons of Cox’s career came from conversations that were not directed at him at all.

Cox encourages riders to surround themselves with people who are more experienced and to make use of the education available simply by watching them. “You wanna surround yourself with people better,” he said.

At a horse show, that might mean studying riders in the Grand Prix ring or paying attention in the schooling area. At the barn, it could mean watching how an experienced horseman handles a difficult horse, prepares tack, or solves a training problem. The rider does not have to be the person receiving the lesson to learn something from it.

Cox calls those moments “free lessons.”

“You learn from them for free,” he said. The opportunity is everywhere, but only if the rider is curious enough to notice it.

📎 Continue reading this article at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/10/10/pay-attention-might-be-the-most-important-advice-in-riding/
📸 © Heather N. Photography

07/10/2026

Something else I've been playing around with is Equi-Fixt and I must say I am really impressed. Worth checking out and having a packet or two on hand 👌

04/10/2026

Something to consider and another thing to add to the never ending list of things to learn.....

03/10/2026

When it comes to feeding horses think quality over quantity. I didn't always prescribe to this theory but since switching my horses across to CEN Horse Nutrition I'm a huge believer in it 👌 It's crazy how little feed it takes for my horses to look and feel amazing. Sure, quality is not cheap but have a look at the recommended daily intake of feeds. That RDI is the amount required of that particular feed to deliver the nutrition on the bag. Sometimes that RDI can be as high as 7kg to deliver similar nutrition that a more expensive feed does in just 2kgs or less. Suddenly the cheap feed isn't so cheap to feed any more ;)

Onto the horse below. This is a mates mare that is spending a bit of time with me before she goes to her new home (also with a friend of mine). There's just 4 weeks between the first 2 photos and the last 2 photos. I switched her across to a CEN based diet as soon as she arrived and it's certainly agreeing with her. All up she gets roughly 2 - 2.5kgs of feed morning and night plus quality hay and this 17 year old TB mare is picking up condition beautifully 👌

As always North Horse and Co is the place to go for all things CEN 🌿

02/10/2026

How long is a minute?

My mother and I had an interesting conversation years ago. The question that triggered the conversation was simple..... how long is a minute? Most will say 60 seconds and for the literal straightforward answer yes, a minute is 60 seconds however a minute can feel like an eternity or a split second depending on what's going on.

Mum told me of an interesting exercise she participated in at a parent/teacher night not long before one of my older sisters started high school. The teacher had everyone in the hall stand up and, without looking at watches, they were to sit down when they thought a minute had passed. The first person sat down after 30 seconds and the last person sat down after 2 minutes and 40 seconds. Interesting exercise, very very interesting exercise.

After hearing about this exercise I tested myself. I turned on the stopwatch on my phone, turned it over with my finger poised over the stop button ready to tap it when I thought a minute had passed. I made it to 37 seconds 😳 Interesting, very interesting 🤔 This simple exercise had just uncovered one of my weakest points of working with a horse....... the time I think I'm giving them to sit and think and the time I'm actually giving them are evidently two completely different things.

Quite often I hear people say that they worked on something for 5/10/15/25/whatever minutes, or they waited for however many minutes for their horse to respond to them. I sometimes question them as to their certainty on time elapsed because, as I said, how long we think we have done somethinf and how long we actually done that thing for is quite often poles apart. Prime example is that pilates move of planking. Try and plank (if you are unfit to it) for a minute and it will be the longest minute of your life, catch up with friends some place for just a minute and it will be the shortest minute ever.

This is something I constantly work on, especially when I'm working with a horse on my own. In a lesson situation, for me, giving a horse 5 minutes sit and soak time is easy as it gives me time to discuss what we are working on and answer questions.

As much as we should be throwing away the watch when working with a horse we still need to have an awareness of time elapsed to ensure we are giving them every opportunity possible to get things right. Be aware but don't fixate on it.