Yup, it’s still summer.  We’re right in the heart of it.  Just like the sirens of mythology, the water calls to us.  The break of the waves on a sandy beach, the calm of the lake that calls your name, you can smell that scent of water as you approach.  I’m not including the pool for a reason.  Why not take your best friend to a beach/lake adventure.  Yes I mean your horse.  It’s a sensation like you’ve never experienced.

Salt water is not good for leather.  If you can go bareback, or with a bareback pad, that is the best.  If you have synthetic tack that is also good, but don’t forget to wash, whatever you use, immediately after your beach party.  If you are using leather, oil it well before, and clean and oil it again after.  As long as your cleaning, don’t forget to hose the salt water off your horse when you get home.

We used to swim with our horses all the time.  Sometimes in a lake and sometime in the Atlantic Ocean off Staten Island, New York or Long Beach Island, New Jersey.  That was always a little unnerving.  They’d get in and start swimming out, towards Europe.  Hello!  I don’t swim.  I failed the YMCA swimming course twice.  I could see us hitting the shipping channel and me hitch hiking a freighter bound for New York.  The lake was always nicer, but you never knew what was down on the bottom, or what type of bottom it was.  Most of the time horses just like to get in, and splash around by the shore.

Toy, my husbands Appendix QH, was always a challenge.  He wouldn’t go into the water, because the waves were breaking and going after him.  So, rocket scientists that we are, we figured if we backed him in, the waves would be breaking in front of him and he’d stay in the water.  Yup, he did.  He turned toward England, and decided he’d get as far away from those waves as possible.  So let’s try the lake.  He was very quiet in the lake.  Just relaxing while our friends horse was trying to get into the idea that this was a good thing.  It was all good until a turtle hit toy in the legs and he leaped into the deep (13 ft.) end.  Bob went off and Toy was using him as traction to get out.  That was another Toy/Bob Emergency Room experience.

Take your horse to the beach.  Be careful, and have a great time.  I don’t think the Life Guards are required to save the horse, just the rider.  Actually where you swim horses doesn’t usually have Life Guards.  P.S – Manure floats.  The nuns at Mt. Loretto, who were in the water, can attest to that fact as the manure balls floated by.  Well we didn’t check which way the tide was going.

If you are going to race your horses on the beach, be sure to run where the sand is wet, otherwise it’s too deep and will blow tendons.

Oh yes.  Don’t forget it’s Shark Week.  Have a nice day!   🙂