Cooling in the heat

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <gabbani@starnet.com.eg>]

Been reading the posts about cooling with intense interest. We currently
have days that are hitting 40 C (can't do the math anymore, been living in
metricland too long...suffice it to say that's too damn hot) by day and
cooling to mid 30's in the evenings with a breeze. Usually summers are our
slow time, obviously, but if we have horses that we are working for
endurance, they have to get out and worked anyway. We don't have turnout
here so the alternative is boxes...Yuck. Land is outrageously expensive if
it's for sale and the big space is owned by the army or the antiquities
department.

So, if we wait til about 5:30 or 6 pm and ride at dusk and in the dark, we
can canter the horses (usually not in the dark) but the second they stop
moving they are sweating like mad. Solution? What usually we've done is to
cut back to slow work and showers after, but are there alternatives? Tom?
You've done the Gulf. We don't have the swimming pools and airconditioned
boxes. Just hoses and people willing to stand there with them. Would love
some input on what we can reasonably do with our horses in the heat. They
get really bored.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
gabbani@starnet.com.eg