To stable or not to stable

At this time of year horse owners worry about whether their horse should be tucked up warm in its stable or outside in the cold, Eileen Gillen, manager of Belwade Farm, the ILPH's most northerly recovery and rehabilitation centre gives her views.

How many of us as a matter of course always keep the horse stabled during the winter months? Is it because they are in work and clipped out, so that they do not lose condition? Is it because they will poach the ground causing more work and expense for the human to reclaim good grazing for the summer? Or is it because we feel sorry for them, as they cannot come into the house to sit by the fire so we stick them into a box to make us feel better? The important way to look at this situation is by deciding what the horse thinks about it all. They are herd animals who in general are more resilient than we give them credit for. They can adapt to various situations if they are given half a chance to acclimatise to their surroundings. The horse grows a winter coat that we clip off because they will sweat too much when exercised. Good practice, we all think. But how many of us exercise for only one hour a day and then expect the horse to stand in for the other 23 hours? We then wonder why he has started to box walk, weave or kick the door down. Most of us will end up acquiring objects to amuse them while they are standing in their box bored. When all they want is to be outside doing horsy things. If you are worried about turning the horse out in the cold, pick up any equine magazine and you will find rugs to keep an Eskimo warm at -40?C. If you are worried about a tendon pull as it races round the paddock then it was probably waiting to happen due to a weakness there anyway.

I feel strongly about this because we come across too many horses that are not let out at anytime. These are not happy horses. Sometimes you are told that the horse is worth too much to risk. But what is a horse worth who has severe behavioural problems? An example I came across recently was a Thoroughbred stallion. He was put into a barn and when mares came to be covered they were put in with him. He is never let out of this barn and this has been going on for four years. He is in good condition but quite unmanageable.

If it is necessary to keep a horse stabled to control its environment then the following should be done. Ideally, where possible the horse should be in hard work, it should be on controlled rations and the stable should be big enough to accommodate them and have good ventilation. Stabled horses tend to have more ailments than unstabled horses. It is very easy to label a horse as having COPD, when all it really wants is good clean air. To keep the horse sane it should be allowed access to a paddock so it can relax in its natural form. Yards with large number of horses often find turning out horses for an hour a day impractical. One observes that horses in this sort of environment are frequently the ones with the vices!

A final thought. In the winter when it is snowing or raining how often do you see a horse standing outside besides its wonderful field shelter? Yet in summer, on a lovely sunny day they are inside getting away from the flies.