When you hear about foyers with marble floors, bronze pony statues as centre piece and tongue n’grooved walls of wood with mirrors here and there, you start imagining things. And when you are told that there are railings of polished brass under hanging baskets of ferns, with an entranceway leading off to an enclosed pool at the side, you are probably thinking which mansion belonging to which member of the bold and beautiful set is being described. Well, we are really describing a stable; if that humble name can really be utilized for this structure? Built by Kenny Rogers in the 1980s for his horses.

Now contrast that picture with an easy bare essentials barn, bleak and cheap, all practical and with little in the way of decoration. What structure would you go for? Actually , what structure would your horses go for?

The truth, that may jar lots of folks, is that your horses wouldn’t give a hoot. Your horse is least worried about pricey decoration and fittings. He is concerned with safety and comfort accompanied by regular and acceptable feed and water. As long as these requirements of his are being met, he’s definitely disinterested with the accoutrements. Moneyed effects are for human consumption, not equine.

In their natural state, horses ramble in herds in the open outside, with no air temperature controlling devices, no blankets, no rubdowns and no body or hoof clipping. They survive quite well in these conditions. They have bodies that adapt easily to cool weather and hair that insulates them from colder weather. I have no doubt that if you were able to set up a useful two-way communication with your horse and you asked him whether he preferred life outdoor or indoor, he would name outside without the smallest hesitation. The only out of doors condition a horse would balk at is when conditions are both wet and cold.

On my grandfather’s ranch, horses were free to stay outdoors or go into a barn at every point of the year. Usually, they preferred the outdoors, and they entered the barn of their own volition just when the weather turned truly cold and sleety. At all the other times, they stayed outside.

When you constrict a pony to a stall, you are preventing it from warming itself through movement when the weather is cold. You are not giving it the liberty to look deeper into anything that stimulates its curiosity, nor are you giving it the room to escape from anything that scares it. Horses kept confined for long periods of time tend to develop unacceptable habits like cribbing and weaving, wood chewing, and pacing. At the least, the horse is going to go bonkers with monotony. I’ve known physical complications to arise in horses which have been kept inactive for extended periods. It is ironical that no homo sapien would be comfortable if limited to a small room day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, and yet humans expect horses to be able to live comfortably in the same circumstances. And to top it all, we expect that they are going to be wonderfully fit and full of stamina when we ride them after releasing them from spells of enforced idleness.

In fact barns were initially designed more for people’s convenience than for horses, people find it agreeable to have quick and convenient access to their horses. They are pleased that they have arranged for their horses to be kept neat, as the horses are unable to roll on a favored mound or patch of mud or dirt. Folks also find horses prettier to take a look at when their coats and manes and tails haven’t been bleached by the sun.

Barns permit people to methodically store and issue feed, and to lay out tack neatly. Barns also provide folks with a setting for showing off horses and for making time with buddies. It is silly, but barns are actually a status symbol for folks. For horses, they’re usually identical to jails.

You should really consider the choice of allowing your horses open space with a barn attached, so that they can seek shelter from unpleasant weather whenever they feel the need. Without the smallest doubt, you are going to have horses that are far perkier physically and mentally.

You also benefit in that you have less to labour over in terms of barn chores!

Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like all things about horse rugs