The equipment necessary for longer or overnight rides on the trail include food and water for both rider and horse, veterinary first aid supplies and general camping supplies. Gather the right gear to go on a weekend trail-riding trip with helpful advice from an experienced trail boss in this video on horseback riding.
Hi I'm Judy Smith a long time trail rider and horse enthusiast from Battleground, Washington and I'm going to give a little talk here on equipment that is needed when you take your horse on overnight vacations or on the weekends or on vacations. Number one, you need a hay bag. I prefer the kind that the horse put their heads in rather than the ones that pull it out because when they pull it out it gets all over the ground. This is a bucket that I use for liniment for washing them down when we get back in from trail riding. This is just some of the medications, some bues that you need to keep on hand for pain if something should happen, some veterinary cream, some antiseptic skin cleaner and some liniment, Pro Bi in case they have a problem with colic and they have a stomach problem, some more fly spray, the concentrate so you can mix up some of your own in case you run out, some salt. I always have plenty of salt if they don't want to lick this which they usually do then I just sprinkle some on to their grain. A waterproof blanket for a light sheet for, in the real warm evenings and then/or and then a heavier waterproof sheet then in the Fall. This is a shower if you don't have, it's a portable shower that folds out, you put, it holds I think six gallons of water, it's really neat on a hot day, come in, take your shower. This is my OK Corral Kit and it's actually a portable electric fence that can be set up if you don't come into a camp that already has corrals or high lines, water bucket, a grain pan. This is my kit that I keep my high line stuff in. I actually have tree, what's called tree savers and then if you don't have tree savers you can use old cinches and I'll demonstrate that later and these are not eliminators. You don't have to tie knots in your rope, works really slick and I just keep everything all into a nice bag like that. Over here we have water containers. It's real important that you take enough water if you go into a camp that doesn't have water. I also have a 30 gallon container in my trailer that I fill up always so that I have water waiting for my horse when we come back. It's very important to take wheelbarrows when I go on a long trip and my trailer is fully packed I take the little collapsible one, they're real inexpensive, they're right around $30 and then when I just do weekend trips I like to take this bigger one because it's easier to handle and of course along with a wheelbarrow you've got to have your manure fork, and I like to carry a rake, shovel and broom. It's so important to pick up after yourself whether you are just on a day ride at a trail head, or you're in the camp. So many people drive in, unload their horse, clean out their trailer and just leave it where it lays but I can't stress the importance of cleaning up after yourself. We're up here at the high line that I mentioned a while ago. When we were down at the trailer mentioning all the horse camping gear and this is what I mean by high line. We've attached a rope between two trees in order to feed the horses at night. This is in case you go into a horse camp and they might have high line trees set up but nothing in between them, not trees but poles or if you go into a dispersed camping place which and by that I mean that there is nothing, there's no facilities at all and you find two nice trees and you can set this up. You just have a cotton rope and what we call tree savers or the cinches like I showed a minute ago and you attach those around the trees, tie your rope off and then tighten it as much as you can down at the other end. I like to use this kind of a feed bag. There is not near as much hay wastage and while I'm talking about hay make sure you bring weed seed free hay to all Forest Service DLM Department of Natural Resources and all grass lands parks as of January of this year weed seed free hay is demanded and they are checking for it. I always put these hooks so that I believe in easy access so you can just reach up there, hook your hay bag to your lines. This is the rope that I use. I either use a rope or a chain to tie the horse up and I like to use a separate rope for my regular lead rope because again that's for convenience sake and I tie it just enough off the ground so that the horse can touch the ground with their nose but yet it's not down so very low that they would get tangled up into it. This is my own preference. I haven't had any problems with it but a lot of people are uneasy with this method and they want their horses tied tighter, up higher so it's just a matter of your own preference and I make sure there is a swivel on it, whoops, there is a swivel on this end. There has to be a swivel some place so the horse doesn't go around and around. A quick suggestion if you have a horse that does like to chew on lead ropes or chew on anything I just fix this tie out of a chin, it's on the swivel. It's just like a lead rope. It's on an emergency snap so if he gets in trouble you can go ahead and quick release him and he can't chew it in two.
Specialty: Trail Rides
