I learned something from one of the vets I use.  This is really fascinating.  A friend of mine has a really high maintenance Irish hunter.  Fox had a tough start in life.  He was imported from Ireland by a woman who didn’t have the skills to ride him.  So he stood in a stall after being in open pasture in Ireland.  He got handed around to a lot of trainers, and he got very suspicious and sour.

Lindy has done an incredible job turning around his attitude, but last March he became wild, and she’s a rather timid, beginning rider.  Then he was perfect for the rest of the year.  This March — same thing happened.

So she talked to Dr. Stewart McCall who asked, “has he started shedding his winter coat?”  Lindy said yes.  Steward explained there is an enormous hormonal release associated with shedding and some horses get really crazy.”  Also chestnuts have this problem worse than other colored horses because their skin is more sensitive.

This is widely known in Europe and in fact they call it “The Time of Shedding”, and some trainers just turn their horses out in March and put them back to work once the old hair is gone.  And Native-American’s have a similar phrase.

So I just thought this was really cool and interesting and I wanted to pass it along.