re: horse falling asleep

[California Horse Adventures <wendyl@jps.net>]

Carol wrote that her young horse was having problems yawning, falling down, and
rubbing its sweaty head. I am certainly no expert on any of these, but I will
say that I have experienced all these things many times on young horses.
I think that the yawning and head rubbing are things that young horses do 
similar to kids sticking pencils up their nose in kindergarten. Its just
something that happens sometimes especially if they are tired, bored, hot,
inattentive, sweaty, etc. The falling down may be some other kind of problem
but I have seen it very frequently on young horses who are being worked past
the point they are ready for. As in, their muscles and coordination are not
ready for what you are asking. I have never seen it in horses that were
primarily walked on trail their first year. Have seen it quite a bit on horses
that were out trotting around their first few months under saddle.
Hope this helps.
wendy