THE CARE AND FEEDING OF INVISIBLE HORSES

There are those of us who consider a stable smell an aphrodisiac  those of us who don’t mind a saddle in the house. Those of us who would rather  be cleaning the saddle than the house. Those of us who are easily identified as equine addicts. And it doesn’t matter what breed of horse we promote; or what  discipline we love. It doesn’t even matter the size of the hole in our bank  account, we are all the same. And we all started out the same with the same breed of horse. The invisible horse, the dream horse, the pretend horse, at least that’s what Morris and I have discovered in our close to a hundred  combined years of equine addiction. (Yikes)

We have met many wonderful horse  people over the years that’ve had their first riding experiences on broomsticks, fence rails, bicycles or tricycles; All the while imagining that they are flying  like Tonto across the parries on a painted pony, or that they are racing for the  winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby, or that...you get the picture. The pretend horse is often our introduction into the very real world of horses; at  least it was for Morris and me. And even though Morris and I have the pleasure  of owning and working with real hoof beat horses we have kept our pretend equine  partners. Our invisible horses are still with us as an integral part of our  horse herd.

We have found though, that invisible horses do need the same  amount of exercising as our other horses, so we make sure that we bring them in  the arena for riding lessons, spacing them in between the riders, not only do they get some conditioning but their presence in the arena helps keep the riders  s a little bit safer. We follow the same practice when we are out on the  trail. It doesn’t cost as much to feed an invisible horse as it does to feed the real hoof beats, but it does take the same amount of effort. When we are  feeding hay we place the feed for the invisible horses in between the feed for  the rest of the herd, it cuts down on horses that have a tendency to run from one pile of hay to the next and cause a disturbance. And even though invisible  horses have no need for farrier or veterinary work, we bring them in the barn  just the same. We tie them in between the horses that are getting worked on. 

Over all of our years in the horse industry we have never witnessed a hoof beat horse striking out at an invisible horse. As far as horses go you can’t beat their disposition, besides they were our very first love in our passion for horses. The very least we can do is to give them the care and consideration that
they deserve.