Good point 😭
My assumption was somebody googled "horse bridle", looked at it for five seconds, then closed the tab and fumbled through the model, but there's a chance they didn't even get that far

NOOO NOT THE WEIRD UNINTENTIONAL SIDEPULL THAT WAS BASED ON A SNAFFLE WITH A DROP NOSEBAND

AND THE CLASSIC ANACHRONISTIC WESTERN SADDLE 😭

A goofy photo of a young baby foal with an apricot red coat, snip, and big star. He is looking at me pathetically through a fence.

I just think horses are all trying their best, man

A photo of a dark brown horse in a black sidepull bridle. She is gently looking out on a small open field surrounded by oak trees.

I like it when we feel as if we're one in purpose, no barriers or strife.
No micromanaging or chastising.

We're in a BROKE-broke, rural part of Oklahoma with lots and lots of rodeo horses, especially team roping. It's not uncommon to break and burn, break and burn young horses, dumping the used up horses at auction.

Our primary breeding vets are down in Texas where the care is DRASTICALLY different

They'll get high quality, specialized grain while growing in order to fill any gaps in minerals our hay and pasture has, and eventually get put on a diet balancer with almost everyone else.
We keep round bales in most of our pastures because we realistically just don't have that much land lol

Yeah I'm not into the stalls, we're only using some right now because of baby health issues. (Long story)
I personally see nothing wrong with handling the foals so long as they still get time with other horses, and our two boys are going to wean into an existing gelding herd.

They fatten the horses on cheap, high starch feed to inadvertently hide the lacking muscling, poor growth, and low quality coats. They would think a normal weight weanling is scrawny and weak compared to the overfed ones.

The pastures often aren't maintained either, so they're full of weeds. The hay quality is often cheap and low. A lot of the most "successful", meaning make the most profit and sell the most horses, breeders locally basically run pony puppy mills.

Most of what I've seen locally is leaving broodmares out to pasture with no hoofcare, irregularly thrown cow feed or sweet feed, and most of their direct contact with people is de worming. Foals often don't receive any care or training until either weaning or when started at two.

The imprinting stuff seems goofy as hell tbh LOL
Moreso what I'm thinking of is still a natural herd environment, they just ideally start receiving hoofcare at six weeks, are fed personalized diets, etc. Effectively instantly integrated into the same world their mother is.

Horses aren't "less domesticated" than cats, dogs, or cattle, this idea comes from people INTENTIONALLY leaving them feral.
A couple factors are unhandled horses find pressure even more aversive, creating stronger reactions to less force, and myths about "overly" handled horses being dangerous.

The more I learn about the history behind sciences like sociology and psychology, the more I realize the excuse of "we just didn't know any better then!" doesn't hold up.
People tried to study and teach better, and they got violently buried, metaphorically and sometimes literally.

She looks so discerning LOL

It's interesting both being a
"bitless, doesn't give a shit about the trends in the arena, just wants to climb mountains"
horse person while also being a
"goes into a manic episode braiding and currying and clipping and tail bagging"
horse person both at the same time

Not a lot of overlap there

A photo of a dark brown mare in the rain wearing blue fly boots doing done crazy rearing thing. She has a light mane and tail and is built mostly like a Spanish horse.

Expelling one more demon of procrastination out of my body before chores by horseposting

Beyond dominance theory just being incorrect in horses definitively, it's so myopic and cynical.

It's dreary how horse people desperately hold onto such harmful beliefs BECAUSE THEY'RE REAL when it's like... what, your standard for REALISTIC!! is a fucking Zach Snyder movie?

❤️
Just need to get Skye back in work so I can get some examples of good musculature too!

Horse people stop confusing obedience for love and joy challenge tbh

A photo taken from the side of a dark colored horse hoof. The horse is wearing a blue fly boot. It is freshly trimmed with a big mustang roll on the toe.

A photo of the bottom of the same hoof, showing a very clean sole and frog. It's pretty wet out.

They're just really really good dude

Despite popular consensus, horse diets are not up to vibes and interpretation.

Oats don't soothe their stomachs.

Sweet feed doesn't add anything useful.

"Grain" isn't the useful part of "feeding grain", it's the fortification.

All horses need constant access to forage.

A photo taken from the back of a dark brown horse with a light mane. She's in a rainbow halter and relaxed, walking through the pasture.

The weather is beautiful, and I'm fantasizing about when I had more time 🥲

I'm tired that wasn't very specific, flax is a source of fat

I assumed as much :( As far as replacements for Bloom, there are three amino supplements for protein and lots of cold milled flax supplements like Turtle Mountain Flax and Bluebonnet's Omega+

Unfortunately the Equioxx might be connected because it's still an anti-inflammatory even though it has a lower chance of stomach ulcers.
I also personally had issues with a rescue horse when he was on Bloom, it got weight on him but he just seemed more sore on it

What's her diet like?

The hardest lesson I've learned in the horse world is probably that there are some things that can never be un-fucked. Even more difficult, and I still don't really have answers, is figuring out what all falls into that category and what we can help.

A dark brown mare after the rain in a very very green pasture. She is in the middle of a canter stride with only here front right foot off the ground. Her topline is flexed, pelvis tilted back slightly, and most of the weight on her hind end. She's on the vertical and her golden mane and tail flow on the wind, even while wet.

"gaited horses don't collect like trotting horses!"

i want to say 'i don't know where this comes from!' but i know where it comes from and it's saddleseat where even the tailset is artificial and painful

anyway here's some natural collection from a gaited horse lol

Still thinking about how people pit the idea of science and empathy against each other.
They are both required SIMULTANEOUSLY to create a better world.

When people leap into conversation on what microbes cause equine thrush with "yeast", it irritates the shit out of me because, while I do think fungus plays a role potentially, most of our current research shows the primary pathogen is bacteria AND YEAST IS HUMAN THRUSH.

Horse people LEARN TO READ