This isn’t directly endurance related, but could be,
and I wanted to check with all of you smart people. Over Easter I was
visiting friends who wanted to show me their daughter’s horse. We
went to the lovely facility, very close to their house. Walked in and I
was stunned by the odor of urine. Barns don’t usually smell of
that. Later when I talked to my (grown) daughter who was with me she said
it made her light headed. I thought maybe they hadn’t cleaned the stalls,
since it was Easter, but a quick check showed they must have – not much
manure. There were some shavings – not much over rubber mats.
Next I noticed that the horses seemed rather rambunctious and unhappy in their
stalls. Never quite felt that energy all through a barn before. So it
may just be they aren’t getting enough turnout, and not using enough
shavings. But my daughter suggested it might be a feeding issue that led
to both the urine smell and the unhappy energy of the horses. Dr.
Garlinghouse, what do you think? Feed or other issues? Anyway, I’ll
be seeing my friends, and was wondering if I should mention something – I
guess that is a whole other issue – but I didn’t want to just point
out problems without possible solutions, so if any of you have ideas, please
let me know.
