In The Saddle | Horse Searchers Blog

Are you finding it tough to afford your horse at the moment? If you are then worry not, you aren’t alone. As the recession drags on more and more people are finding it tough to be able to pay for stable costs, hay, tack and other items that are vital for your horse welfare. There are now an increased number of requests to the National Equine Welfare Council for help with their horse bills.

Many horse owners have been hit harder than most and to try and save they are cutting back on everything but the most crucial items and so we are seeing more horses being advertised for sale.

“The horse’s long-term welfare should be the paramount concern when it comes to re-homing and these leaflets will be a valuable information source for anyone who is struggling” says Nicolas De Brauwere, Chairman of the National Equine Welfare Council and Senior Welfare Veterinary Surgeon at Redwings Horse Sanctuary.

Rebecca Evans, Vice Chairman of the National Equine Welfare Council and Welfare Manager at The Horse Trust says, “In the current financial climate, charities cannot justify the cost of duplicating effort. It makes more sense for NEWC members to work together in order to reduce costs and I think in this case two excellent documents have been produced.”

Hundreds of horses have been saved from Canadian forest fires which are currently raging west of Kelowna, British Columbia, which has driven more than 11,000 people from their homes. The fire which started on Saturday 18 July has spread like…. wildfire to now cover 300 hectares of agricultural land. It’s because of the size and ferociousness of the blaze that so many horse owners have been caught out.

Volunteers worked into the night with some 30 to 40 trailers and horseboxes from around the region being driven into the fire area to evacuate horses and livestock.

Rescue organisations have been overwhelmed with displaced animals, and although most of the evacuated horses are staying at three area foster centres, the farms desperately need donations of hay and food to ensure adequate supplies.

Allow me to be a geek for a second (even though I have spent my whole adult life as one) – we have just added a rather smashing new feature to our listings – all new horse adverts are now not only published on our site but on the horsesearchers twitter as well.

Traditional horse-drawn carriages have been banned from Killarney National Park because the drivers have refused to fit their horses with ‘nappies’.

The traditional vehicles, known as jaunting cars, carry tourists around 15km internal roads around one of the finest national parks in the Emerald Isles. The Irish National Parks and Wildlife Service banned the jaunting cars on Tuesday (14 July) from entering the park until dung-catching devices are fitted.

“An unfortunate consequence of such a high volume of horses frequenting the park is that the roadways are consistently fouled with horse dung and has for a long time, been a concern on environmental, health and safety, aesthetic and tourism grounds,” said statement from the NPWS.

The NPWS commented that the drivers showed an unwillingness to co-operate with the service and as such they had been forced to take action.

However the 66 drivers have all commented that the wearing of so called horse nappies un-ballenced the horse and put the passengers at risk.

“This is devastating. This is a national disgrace and we are very, very upset over it,” he said.

“We’re going to lose contracts and Killarney is going to lose money because tourists won’t bother coming.”

But the NPWS said it had been in talks with the drivers since 2007 over how to tackle the dung issue. It added veterinary experts had been consulted and that the proposed dung receptacle had undergone a number of tests.

“Although the dung catcher is attached to the car and not to the horse, jarveys have repeatedly signalled their complete opposition to the new devices but have never demonstrated where they perceive the problems to lie,” said the NPWS.

“But it [the dung-catcher] is in widespread usage internationally, from Vienna to Vancouver. It is clear, therefore, that these devices do work and are safe to use.

“The NPWS emphasizes its desire to avoid conflict and has acted in a fair and reasonable manner but has been compelled to take this action as a very last resort”

The NPWS added it is happy for the jarveys to continue to use this park but that they must own up to their responsibilities.

[Source HorseAndHound & Image by Darkmavis ].

The problem with first impressions is that you only get chance to make one so we better make this a good one; no pressure then.

First on behalf of everyone at HorseSearchers.co.uk let me say hello and welcome to the Horse Searchers Blog – “In The Saddle”. Our little place to post equestrian news and gossip, to rant and to ramble. For those of you not in the know HorseSearchers.co.uk offers a quick, clever and constantly updated horse search, with hundreds of thousands of horses for sale and ponies for sale. It has lots of useful info, too, on all aspects of the equestrian sector.

Where our resources section will continue to concentrate on how to guides and top tips, we are hoping the blog will be a great forum for you, our great customers to interact with us, to let us know what we are doing right and what we could improve on. Think of this as a place to hear all the HorseSearchers.co.uk gossip first.

This month you might have noticed that we have had something of a redesign on the site and this is already proving to be a roaring success, with more adverts placed this month than in any other in our history. We have received some awesome feedback on the new layout based on all the suggested improvements that we received in our Searchers Survey.

So what’s new around here?

Well for a start this blog. You said that seeing a company as personal and getting some insight into them was very important when choosing who to advertise your horse with.

Next up you told us that they layout of images and data should be more important that actual description and we jiggled things about to create a more information efficient layout (I hate terms like that).

Finally you told us that you wanted greater exposure of featured advert and we responded in kind with site wide exposure for all featured adverts.

So what’s next to be developed?

Keeping HorseSearchers reputation as the leading horses for sale website, we are going creating a couple of new packages to be giving you the option to upload video (or link to your youtube videos) and both will be available in regular and Video+ (video and featured status) but don’t worry for those who are simply looking to sell their horse, we have no plans to charge for our budget listings.

Oh and don’t forget to keep up with the latest gossip via our Twitter and YouTube pages.

Who Are We?

In The Saddle: Horse related reflections, ramblings and occasional ravings from the HorseSearchers.co.uk editorial team.

HorseSearchers.co.uk offers a quick, clever and constantly updated horse search, with hundreds of thousands of horses for sale and ponies for sale. It has lots of useful info, too, on all aspects of the equestrian sector.

If you have any questions regarding this blog, please email us at: editorial@horsesearchers.co.uk.

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