Horse Books to Read: “Nobody’s Horses”

Filled with history and heroism, adventure and rivalry, and, ultimately, the alliances between horses and people, Nobody’s Horses will stir the emotions and imagination of horse lovers, humanitarians, and anyone who loves an uplifting tale of second chances.

Descended from the greatest horses of the American West, the wild horses living on the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico were national treasures and living legends.

But in 1994, after years of suffering through periodic droughts, food shortages, and all the dangers accompanying life on a military weapons–testing site, scores of horses suddenly died. And almost two thousand more were in such dire straits that they were unlikely to survive.

Large-animal veterinarian Don Höglund was called in to organize and lead a team of dedicated cowboys, soldiers, and other professionals in removing the surviving horses and their offspring to safety.

Nobody’s Horses tells the dramatic story of these noble animals’ celebrated history, their defiant survival, and their incredible rescue.

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Link: University of Nebraska Press

Link: Amazon Books

Attention Horses! Turn Off The Radio!

No more tranquil music for horses
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A woman who plays classical music to her horses to keep them calm has been told she must pay for a public performance license.

Rosemary Greenway has been playing passages of opera and orchestral symphonies on the radio to the animals at her stables for more than 20 years, convinced that it helps soothe them.

But at the Malthouse Equestrian Centre in Bushton, Wiltshire, England there will be no more music, and perhaps some very nervous horses now residing there.

Because her stables employ more than two people, she received a telephone call from the Performing Right Society which has been targeting stables as part of a drive to get commercial premises to pay for the music played around the barn.

In defense, a spokeswoman for the society said: “Of course, we don’t ask people to pay for music played to animals. “Mrs Greenway was only asked to pay for music played for staff, like any other workplace.”

The radio is now turned off except for Sunday when there are no staff at the stable yard.

It has long been thought that music helps to calm anxious animals.

Last year a study at Belfast Zoo found evidence that playing Elgar, Puccini and Beethoven to elephants helped reduce stress related behaviours such as swaying, pacing and tossing their trunks.

Perhaps the Malthouse Equestrian Centre might consider purchasing some soothing CDs to calm any horses that have become anxious over this “no radio” ruling.

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Link: Have A Spooky Horse?  Try Tchaikovsky!