I remember years ago when I came to Florida, long before there was a thought in my head about living here, I met some people, and they took us to a horse show.  It was the middle of winter, but all the horses at the show had summer coats.  My horses up north looked like woolyburgers.  Those horses didn’t look shaved, they just had summer coats.  I wanted one.  You could run your hand on them and they were smooth and silky.  My horse back home had so much hair you couldn’t even find the horse.  You couldn’t find that horse for six months.

Now these horses had several blankets on them when they weren’t tacked up.  But to me it was warm and beautiful out.  Of course at the time I didn’t realize that Florida winters were like our spring or fall back in New Jersey. Actually nicer than our spring and fall.

By the time I started coming to Florida to hunt, my horses were shaved.  So I thought that when I moved here my horses would not get a winter coat.  After all it was warm here.  Almost like summer up in N.J.

It doesn’t work that way.  They grew winter coats and had to be shaved here for hunting too.  Right now my two mares have way too much hair for the 95 degrees we’re having.  It wasn’t until later that I found out that they don’t grow according to the weather, but by the day light hours, or lack there of.

Our mornings are cool, but that sun is still up there in the sky all day on bake.  If we get an afternoon shower it cools things right off and it’s beautiful all evening and night until 9:00 a.m. the next day when things go back to roast.

I don’t think their coats are long enough to shave, but they are thick enough to sweat horribly.  Hosing helps, but the humidity is very high.

The other thing I don’t remember about up north is that they ever stopped sweating.  I know other horses around the country do, but I can’t ever remember the horses I knew doing this.

It’s weird.  The grass down here slows it growing in September and pretty much stops growing in October.  It just doesn’t like the cooler evenings, but someone forgot to tell the horses to stop growing hair until it moves out of the heat wave season.

Show people pile on blankets and keep lights on in their stalls at night to trick the horses brain into thinking it’s not getting closer to winter and that there’s a need for more hair.

The four geldings aren’t growing coats like the girls.  Must be a hormonal thing.  I just feel so bad for the girls.  The boys are sweating just as much, they just look better at it.  Kind of like the buff weight lifters, all shiny.  I used to think that was sweat, but then I found out they just oil their bodies to show off.  Kind of like how we put baby oil around the horses eyes and muzzle to make them stand out more.  Adding more character and to look more sculptured.

I thought men sweat, but ladies glisten.  Someone want to tell my mares that?  They aren’t listening or glistening, they are just plain sweating.