The Horse
by J. Warren Evans, Anthony Borton, Harold Hintz, L. Dale Van Vleck
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anthony Borton, Harold Hintz, J. Warren Evans, L. Dale Van VleckEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1990-02-15
ISBN: 0716718111
Number of pages: 784
Publisher: W. H. Freeman
Book Reviews of The Horse
Book Review: A Reference for the Serious Horseman--Dated but Irreplacable
Summary: 4 Stars
Horses have been part of human life for thousands of years and this solid reference, first published in 1976 and revised in 1990, remains one of the most reliable reference books available to the serious horseman.
It has an excellent section on different breeds in America and the sections on anatomy, confirmation, colors and the inheritance of color are both mesmerizing and as useful today as they were when the book was newly published. This is still the first book I reach for when I need to look up a disease as the descriptions are clear and comprehensive. Sometimes the remedies have changed or improved. And this book was published before the "Impressive syndrome" or HYPP condition was discovered in Quarter Horses.
Section 3 on Nutrition and digestion is one area where there has been a wealth of later studies, but the authors are generally sound in their recommendations. They repeat some "old wives tales" such as the prohibition on giving water to a hot horse. But to show that the authors generally "get it right" one can point to their recommendation that drinking water for horses should be in a range from 45F to 65F. A later study established with much effort that horses prefer their drinking water around 60F. This is a good detail to know when dealing with a sick horse on a cold day but for general purposes THE HORSE (second edition) is good enough.
Likewise the advice in chapter 20 regarding fences, stalls and construction is an excellent starting point. Understanding this chapter will help the new owner of a horse farm avoid some expensive mistakes.
One area where this reference is badly dated is in the behavior and training sections. Here I would recommend the works of John Lyons, Linda Tellington-Jones, Pat Parelli or some other practitioner of the natural horsemanship movement which although it seems to be "New Age" in method is actually an attempt to teach "city people" techniques and sensitivities that were well known to our ancestors who worked closely with their horses.
Likewise, many of the management techniques in the breeding section are followed on Thoroughbred horse farms and create lower conception rates in the mares and produce poorly socialized horses that do poorly when turned out in normal herd situations. However, a perusal of these chapters should be usefully discouraging to the owner of a single mare who thinks that breeding her would be a nice, profitable hobby!
What makes this book so indispensable is the collection of diverse equine disciplines and areas of expertise all under one cover; the whole becomes more than a sum of the separate parts. No other reference covers breeds, colors, anatomy, confirmation, horseshoes, parasites, diseases and management practices and does so with some attempt at depth. Even if one area is dated, the dedicated horse owner should be able to supply the deficiency by checking in a periodical or a more recent and narrower publication. The horse has not changed that much in domestication and the general "horse sense" of this reference continues to advise and inform humans who aspire to horsemanship.
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