If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you probably know or you probably surmise from what I've said, that I have a pretty simple set up for my horses, and that they live a fairly natural, outdoor life. Every Saturday at vaulting practice, I get to see how the other half of the horse population lives. A stable full of exquisite Warmbloods imported directly from Europe, they are blanketed, bandaged, padded, armored almost, against every conceivable type of disaster. And it makes sense, I shudder to think what those magnificent animals cost.

Since I've been thinking about the whole blanketing thing with the onset of cold weather, and after some good advice from my readers have decided to not blanket my horses for all of very good reasons that they gave to me, I've been paying more attention to how other horses are kept in the winter. I was surprised that the vaulting horse had been clipped just a couple of days prior to practice on Saturday. I'm not talking just his ears or his muzzle or his fetlocks or his face, but his entire body. He was smooth and silky and blanketed from head to tail. Don't you think he gets really cold when he's outside working? What would happen to him if he got out of his stall, headed out towards the wilderness, and managed to tear off his blanket?

OK. Call me paranoid.

I guess I'm finding very interesting these days, how we humans keep animals who have for centuries lived on the steppess and on the plains, outside in all types of elements, able to subsist on plants from which other animals would probably receive no nourishment.

They're tougher than we think.