Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Horse Breeding: Horseback Riding Lessons Are an Excellent Family Activity

Horse Breeding

Whether or not you and your loved ones have ever taken horseback riding lessons, you should consider incorporating this fun activity into your next family trip by booking a horseback riding adventure for novice or beginning riders.

Where are these lessons offered?

You might pick a location in the United States, or see another country from the back of a horse. Some of the places where you can book horseback adventures are:

- The African continent
- The Asian continent
- The European continent
- Both the South and Central American continents
- New Zealand and Australia

Bundles that include horseback riding

There are numerous horseback riding activity bundles you can purchase, so you are sure to find one that will fit your loved ones' desires and abilities.

Some of these adventures are:

- Learn Western-style riding by visiting an actual ranch
- Take a wagon train
- Ride a horse from one place of lodging to another
- Take lessons or attend classes- Learn either Western or English style riding on the trail
- Take lessons on gaited horses, like the Peruvian Paso, the Icelandic Horse, or the Tennessee Walking Horse.
- Take pack trips, which is riding a horse next to pack animals in a barren land and camping out in the evenings.

You should be able to locate affordable group rates, and you will probably get a horse assigned to you for the entire time you are there. Be aware that these vacation spots typically impose a weight limit, so if this could be a problem, it is important to investigate any weight stipulations prior to paying for a trip in order to prevent disappointment.

Discover the perfect family trip.

Begin investigating your options through these two accommodating websites.

Both http://www.ridingtours.com and hiddentrails.com are very user-friendly and will provide you with many options from which you can select your ideal vacation either in the United States or elsewhere. In addition, they will provide you with some actual footage of their vacation options.

How Advanced are Your Loved Ones' Riding Skills?

You will need to know what is meant by a beginning rider and a novice rider, so you can accurately measure your loved ones' riding abilities as you choose your horseback riding vacation. A beginner does not have very much riding experience and does not know how to make a horse canter or trot. A novice can get on and off the horse on his/her own, can make the horse walk in a controlled manner, can make the horse trot for quite awhile, and can make the horse canter for short distances. No matter which horseback riding adventure you select, your loved ones are going to enjoy being together in a fun, interactive way that involves horses.

Horse Breeding: Taking A Horseback Riding Lesson

Horse Breeding

You love horses but you have never ridden one. You want to take a horseback riding lesson but where do you start to find a place to go to and learn. There are professional riding clinics that can teach you all the skills you need not only to handle horses but also to perfect your riding skills. They can be found by doing a bit of research whether on the internet, your local phone book or a stable near you. .

When you take lessons, you may learn about the different styles of saddles and riding. There is the English and Western saddles for the most part. There are also trick-rider saddles and jockey saddles along with other types, but for first time horseback riding lessons they will start with the most common. Having the right kind of lessons will not only make the sport safer but will also make it more enjoyable.

There are different types of horseback riding lessons to take. Whether you are interested in cross-country, trail, jumping, barrel racing, obstacle, sports riding for hunting pleasures, and hill and mountain riding a horseback riding clinic can teach you all the aspects and techniques. They will also teach you about dressage and the different types of equipment and tack for maintaining your horse, stables and barns. They will teach you the best techniques and tricks for showing your horse and grooming and caring for their coats, hooves and teeth.

If you are looking to just take a horseback riding lesson so you can take vacations and enjoy horses away from home, there are riding clinics that can teach you the basics that you will need to know the get the best experience. Along with camps, vacation destinations and the stable around the corner near home you will be able to educate yourself on equestrian sports or just pleasure riding whenever and wherever you like. If you take a horseback riding lesson for yourself, you can enjoy a vacation camp to learn the tricks of the trade and enjoy the beautiful scenery as well.

Whatever choice you make in taking a horseback riding lesson you will learn and have fun doing it. Shop around and do a bit of research at what different places have to offer. You can go online or talk to a tour specialist. Make a few calls or talk to others. You may find someone who can recommend that special place where you cannot only take riding lessons but also learn about horses, dressage, and equipment and make a vacation of fun from it all. There is something for everyone. You can even plan a honeymoon vacation in an exotic location that the two of you will never forget and learn how to ride too.

Horseback riding is a lot of fun. Whether you are looking to learn so you can buy your own horse or just have some fun this kind of experience will last a lifetime. It is exciting, fun and educational for everyone.

Learn How To Ride A Horse From The Comfort Of Your Home With Our "Beginners Guide To Horseback Riding." Be safe and learn the basics first.



Monday, April 26, 2010

Horse Breeding: The Different Types of Horse Breeds

Horse Breeding

There are as many horse facts as there are breeds of horses and fanciers to raise them. The smallest of horses is called the Fallabella Miniature Horse, and it can be housebroken and kept as an inside pet. Outside of this breed though, a horse is a horse, not an animal like a big dog.

All horses on the Earth today can trace their ancestry to the Arabian horse. These majestic horses used to live with their owners in tents in the desert, and they are still a breed that is hardy and forms close attachments to its people. The Arabian is a hot-blooded horse, though, and when American farmers needed horses to pull plows and not just carts, they needed something bigger.

They learned from what their European cousins had already done, and bred the Arabs with larger horses called cold-bloods or drafters. This not only developed into a bigger horse, facts confirm, but it also calmed the temperament somewhat, since Arabs can be high-strung.

For racing, the best horse, facts state, is the Thoroughbred. This is arguably the fastest horse, unless you're racing a quarter of a mile. The winners in short races like this are usually American Quarter Horses, whose very name comes from the race it was bred to win. Quarter Horses also make great cattle horses, with a cow sense that can tell them what a calf will do, before it does it.

For those who enjoy the beauty of different and unusual colors of horses, there are breeds who carry genes that insure colorful patterns in their young. The American Paint horse and the Pinto Horse both have colorful coat patterns of black, brown, or other colors and white. The Paint horse must have both parents registered as Paints, Quarter Horses or Thoroughbreds. Pinto horses, on the other hand, are any horses with the pinto markings. Their background may be of any breed.

Appaloosas are also colorful. They make have a blanket and spots on their rump, or they may be speckled and spotted all over. There are different patterns of Appaloosas, and they can be very striking. Their patterns include snowflake, blanket, leopard and semi-leopard. In build, both Paints and Appaloosas are built normally like the typical Quarter Horse.

The Morgan Horse, facts say, is another breed that most people agree was founded in this country. He is perfectly suited for hauling carts or small wagons, and he is a hardy breed with sound feet.

The main Draft horses used in the United States are the Clydesdale, the Percheron and the Belgian. Clydesdales are usually bay in color, and are the most well-known draft horse breed, thanks to the Budweiser Clydesdales of St Louis, MO. Percherons can be gray, black or white. They are born black and get lighter as they age. Belgians are usually blond in color, and they are the main work horse for Amish farmers.

The Amish also usually use a special breed for pulling their carts. The Standardbred is generally dark brown, bay or black in color, and they have a choppy trot that it useful for pulling but difficult to ride astride. Amish horses are usually hardy, and you'll rarely see them blanketed, even in the coldest of weather, since they allow them to grow thick winter coats.

Horse Breeding: The Egyptian Arabian Horse

Horse Breeding

The number five is important in the history of the Egyptian Arabian horse. There were five dominant families within the breed, each strain possessing its own characteristics.

AL KHAMSA

About 1635 B.C., Sheik Salaman owned five famous mares that had shown themselves to be fiercely loyal. Legend has it that Al Khamsa, (the five,) were the only mares in Salaman's herd that returned to their master when the battle trumpet blew, although they had not yet slaked their thirst at a desert oasis. From these five mares descended the five types of Arabian horse. They were called Keheilan, Seglawi, Hamdani, Abeyan and Hadban.

THE LEGACY OF THE PASHAS

The Egyptian Arabian made great strides under the patronage of the ruthless founder of modern Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. In addition to being a shrewd politician, he was also a passionate collector of Arabian war horses. After crushing a rebel Saudi tribe in the Nejd desert, he demanded Arabia's most valiant desert horses as a condition of peace. He subsequently built palatial stables for what grew to be a collection of 1100 prized Arabian horses.

Abbas Pasha inherited his grandfather's title, and also his Arabian herd. With a romantic side to his character, Abbas Pasha considered the Arabian horses to be living masterpieces. He sought to emulate the breeding practices of the Bedouins, thereby setting a standard for purity. His emissaries were dispatched to search the desert, whatever hardships and danger they might endure, to procure horses with esteemed pedigrees. A methodical man, he compiled information about his horses' backgrounds into a document known as the Abbas Pasha Manuscripts.

When Abbas Pasha was assassinated in 1854, the herd was auctioned off to buyers from France, Germany, Australia and members of the Egyptian nobility. Ali Pasha Sherif, son of the Governor of Arabia, bought forty horses at auction, and repurchased many that had been sold to others. He established his own herd and by 1873, he had a collection of 400 pure Arabian horses. Most of these were destroyed in the late 1870's by an outbreak of African Horse Sickness. Only the horses he had moved to northern Egypt survived.

OLD EGYPTIANS

In 1889, Ali Pasha Sherif sold Messaoud to Lady Anne Blunt, who exported the horse to England, where he became a legendary sire. When Ali Pasha Sherif died in 1897, Lady Blunt purchased many of the best horses from his herd, dividing them between her Sheykh Obeyd Stud near Cairo, and her Crabbet Park Stud in England. Due to Lady Blunt's success with Messaoud, the reputation of the beautiful Egyptian Arabian horses became legend and attracted buyers from around the world.

Henry Babson first came under the spell of the Arabian horse while working at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. In 1932, he traveled to Egypt and bought seven horses, realizing the dream of owning the beautiful breed. A "Babson Arabian" is a horse with the bloodlines of those original seven. His horses tend to have dark coloration, and one of his Egyptian Arabians became the genetic source for black Arabian horses. Although Babson died in 1970, the breeding operation he established in Grand Detour, Illinois continued until 1999.

Horses descending from this early era are called "Old Egyptians."

NEW EGYPTIANS

Many of the Ali Pasha Sherif horses were sold to wealthy Egyptian nobility. The Egyptian Government recognized the importance of the herds of Abbas Pasha and Ali Pasha Sherif and in 1908, the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) was formed to preserve Egyptian's equine treasures. After the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952, the Egyptian Arabian stud farms were confiscated by the RAS, now called the Egyptian Agricultural Organization, or EAO.

The EAO later sold some of the confiscated horses to modern buyers. Those horses and their descendants are sometimes referred to as "New Egyptians."

BLUE LIST, AL KHAMSA and ASIL ARABIANS

From 1952 until the 1970's, Jane Lewellyn Ott compiled "The Blue Arabian Horse Catalog," or "Blue List," a catalog of horses who traced directly, in every line, to the desert, either from Bedouin Tribes or through Abbas Pasha and Lady Blunt, who purchased exclusively from these sources. An organization called Al Khamsa continued Miss Ott's work and created their own list.

The group Sheykh Obeyd was formed in 1980, in honor of Lady Blunt's Egyptian stables. They use the Al Khamsa standard for their own list of Sheykh Obeyd "Old Egyptian" Arabians. Straight Egyptian Arabians are created by crossing strains which have an undisputedly pure desert heritage. Not every horse on Al Khamsa's list is considered to be a Straight Egyptian Arabian.

In Europe, horses whose bloodlines are traced to the desert are known as Asil Arabians. 'Asil' is the Arabic word for 'pure.'

THE CRABBET ARABIANS

Lady Wentworth inherited the Crabbet Arabian Stud, but did not inherit Lady Anne Blunt's devotion to the Bedouin ideal of desert purity. Under Lady Wentworth's management, the complexion of the Crabbet Arabians was completed changed. Even so, Crabbet Arabians carry pedigrees with a high percentage of Straight Egyptian Arabian blood.

THE EGYPTIAN EVENT

Every June, lovers of the Egyptian Arabian horse make a pilgrimage to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. There the Pyramid Society, which is devoted to the preservation of the purebred Egyptian Arabian horse, conducts the annual Egyptian Event, where breeders of Straight Egyptian Arabians can attend seminars, compete for cash prizes in performance exhibitions, and behold the cream of the crop from the most prestigious breeding farms.

THE EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE

Straight Egyptian Arabians played a starring role in the founding of the Polish, Spanish and Russian Arabian breeding programs. Modern Arabian breeders are rediscovering the value of infusing their bloodlines with Straight Egyptian Arabian blood. Even other breeds are strengthened with the addition of Arabian prepotency. Endurance, refinement, good temper and beauty are the hallmarks of this ancient breed.

In the American show ring, the most successful horses carry Straight Egyptian blood. Although they comprise less than 2% of American-registered Arabians, Straight Egyptian Arabians hold 30% of all National titles.

ENDURANCE OF THE EGYPTIAN ARABIAN HORSE

Purity of breed was an obsession with Bedouin Arabs. The torch of this exquisite equine obsession was passed on to the Pashas, then the Blunts and on to Henry Babson. To dedicated breeders, diluting the purity of the line is as much a sin as it was for the Bedouins. The preservation of these pureblooded equines is the primary goal of today's modern breeders of the Egyptian Arabian horse.