Re: RC: clipping

[DreamWeaver <karen@chaton.gardnerville.nv.us>]

At 01:07 AM 03/16/2000 -0500, Eenergonzillen@aol.com wrote:
>Okay..horses grow long coats to keep warm in the winter, right???

Yep.

>well, if you cut all of that off, they have nothing to keep warm
>with....right???

Nope.  They have us to take care of them :).

>But, you can put a blanket on them...right???

Yep.  On and off, every day......it is a lot of effort.  The horses have 
absolutely no respect for their blankets either, so where the horse was 
covered in mud, now the blanket is.  But at least I can ride them and not 
spend till dark scraping all the mud off.  This makes me selfish and lazy, 
but the horses actually benefit (or so I'd like to think) by having more 
regular exercise.

>But what if you take the blanket off???   They would freeze their cabooses
>off....right???

I only take the blanket off if the weather is decent.  Besides, mine have 
enough body fat in the winter they could stand to shiver some of it off 
(just kidding, well, sort of......)

>I just don't see the point of clipping a horse..  I mean, personally, I think
>they look much nicer when their coats are all slick and shiny.

Slick and shiny with mud?

I don't have to clip mine, but it makes them a lot more comfortable when 
they are living at elevation in the Sierras and are asked to go to Southern 
California/Nevada to compete in winter/spring in 70+ degree weather 
(against horses that don't have winter coats).  That's not exactly what 
nature intended either.  I don't body clip until the days are getting 
longer and they are already well into shedding - and do it always at least 
2 weeks before the ride so they have some growth before the actual ride 
(though we do keep going on conditioning rides).

>I know that during the winter they get all fluffy and not so sleek...but who
>cares...

Are you talking about us Renee, or our horses? <bg>

k