We sorted saddle pads into five levels, from plain cotton to therapeutic and correction systems, and checked each against the published pressure research and manufacturer specs. Material matters more than price, wool has the strongest evidence, and the top tier is mostly manufacturer claims.
Advertising disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, this site may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Hoof & Honest was not paid by any brand named here, and no brand was given advance sight of this article. On a standard girth, the pressure does not land where…
In 2019, a team from the University of Helsinki looked inside the mouths of 261 trotting horses minutes after they had finished a race. Using nothing more than a bright light and a gloved hand, they found acute lesions in the bit area of 219 of them, 84 percent. Sixty-three percent of all the horses…
Two saddles can hang side by side on a tack store wall, both carrying the Billy Cook name, and only one of them came out of the shop in Sulphur, Oklahoma where Billy Cook spent his last decades. The other traces back to a 1980s foreclosure that cost him the exclusive rights to his own…
A heavyweight turnout blanket spends about five months of the year on a horse’s back, and underneath it is a coat that stopped working sometime in October. Hair only insulates when it can stand up and trap a layer of air against the skin. Flattened under nylon, it is just hair. Michigan State University Extension…
Advertising disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, this site may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Hoof & Honest was not paid by any brand named here, and no brand was given advance sight of this article. A Lister Star runs a 45-watt motor. The manufacturer prints…
In January 2012, the last saddle Pancho Villa ever owned sold at the High Noon Western Americana Auction in Mesa, Arizona for $718,000 — a world record at the time, against a presale estimate of $150,000 to $250,000. Three years later, a saddle ridden by the Crown Prince of Dubai at the 2014 World Equestrian…
Two veterinary researchers bought twenty-five commercial supplements and tested what was inside them. Two matched their labels. We put twelve common equine supplements through four questions — is there a horse study, is the dose stated, is it already in the diet, and can you test for it — and only five passed.
Advertising disclosure: this article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, this site may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Hoof & Honest was not paid by any brand named here, and no brand was given advance sight of this article. Swiss Galoppers will tell you their sole lasts about two…
The cough is the last thing to arrive. By the time a horse coughs twice at the start of every ride, and everyone at the barn has quietly agreed that it is just something he does, the process underneath it has been running for years. In severe equine asthma the airway walls thicken, smooth muscle…