Charlottesville horse farms wish Happy Birthday to the horses!
In addition to a Happy New Years toast at midnight on New Years Eve it would be appropriate to raise our glasses to wish the horses Happy Birthday.
On all of the Charlottesville horse farms the horses have turned one year older today. On New Years Day all of mine always got a bran mash loaded with cut up apples and carrots as a special birthday treat.
If you are a non horse owner you may be wondering how all of the horses could be a day older today. Of course chronologically they were not all born on January 1, but there needs to be a way to determine their ages for competition purposes. In racing and some horseshow divisions it is important that the horses are competing against others of roughly the same age and maturity. Of course this can factor in when breeding, particularly for racing. Breedings are timed so that the foals will be born early in the year without being foaled in December of the previous year, which would be disaster. Particularly in the 2 and 3 year old races a couple of months older could result in an advantage of strength, endurance and perhaps speed. For most of us the calendar age does not matter in what we do with our horses.
Lets wish Happy Birthday to all of the wonderful horses on our beautiful Central Virginia horse farms.
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