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It does not matter if you are buying an established horse property, starting with a blank canvas or modifying a property you already own; a little forward planning can ensure that your dream becomes your property. Design plays a very important role in all our lives. Good design leads to better living and working spaces and it is therefore very important that we look at our property as a whole with a view to creating a design that will work for our chosen lifestyle, our chosen horse pursuit, keep our horses healthy and happy, enhance the environment and to be pleasing to the eye, all at the same time.Building horse facilities is an expensive operation. Therefore, planning what you are going to have built, or build yourself is an important first step. Time spent in the planning stage will help to save time and money later on.The correct positioning of fences, laneways, buildings, yards and other horse facilities is essential for the successful operation and management of a horse property and can have great benefits for the environment. If it is well planned, the property will be a safer, more productive, more enjoyable place to work and spend time with horses. At the same time, it will be labour saving and cost effective due to improved efficiency, as well as more aesthetically pleasing, therefore it will be a more valuable piece of real estate. If the property is also a commercial enterprise, then a well-planned property will be a boon to your business. This book will help you make decisions about what you need, and where you need it; it could save you thousands.

If you watch horses grazing pasture, you would think that they were made for each other. You would in fact be correct; millions of years of evolution have created a symbiotic relationship between equines (and other grazing animals) and grasslands. Our aim as horse owners and as custodians of the land should be to replicate that relationship on our land as closely as possible.In an ideal world, most horse owners would like to have healthy nutritious pastures on which to graze their horses all year round. Unfortunately, the reality for many horse owners is far from ideal. However, armed with a little knowledge it is usually possible to make a few simple changes in your management system to create an environment which produces healthy, horse friendly pasture, which in turn leads to healthy 'happy' horses.Correct management of manure, water and vegetation on a horse property is also essential to the well-being of your family, your animals, your property and the wider environment.This book will help to convince you that good land management is worthwhile on many levels and yields many rewards. You will learn how to manage your land in a way that will save you time and money, keep your horses healthy and content and be good for the environment all at the same time. It is one of those rare win-win situations.

Understanding horse behaviour is a very important part of caring for horses. It is very easy to convince yourself that your horse is content to do all of the things that you enjoy, but a much better approach is to understand that your horse has very different needs to you. Horses see the world quite differently to humans; they react to situations in a way that can seem illogical to us, but they do this because they have behaviours that have evolved over millions of years and ensured their survival. Horse behaviour is linked closely to their physiology and this is what makes a horse, a horse.A good approach is to take everything 'back to basics' and think about what a horse has evolved to be. This book describes horse behaviour in both the wild 'natural' environment and in the domestic environment. It then looks at how you can reduce stress in the domestic horse by understanding and acknowledging their real needs, resulting in a more 'well-adjusted', content and thriving animal.Do your horse a favour and read this book!

With horse ownership comes great responsibility; we have a responsibility to manage our horses to the best of our ability and to do this sustainably and ethically.Horse keeping has changed dramatically in the last 30 to 40 years and there are many new challenges facing contemporary horse owners. The modern domestic horse is now much more likely to be kept for leisure purposes than for work and this can have huge implications on the health and well-being of our horses and create heavy demands on our time and resources.We need to rethink how we keep horses today rather than carry on doing things traditionally simply because that is 'how it has always been done'. We need to look at how we can develop practices that ensure that their needs are met, without compromising their welfare, the environment and our own lifestyle.This book brings together much of the current research and thinking on responsible, sustainable, ethical horsekeeping so that you can make informed choices when it comes to your own horse management practices. It starts by looking at the way we traditionally keep horses and how this has come about. It then discusses some contemporary issues and offers some solutions in particular a system of horsekeeping that we have developed and call The Equicentral System.For many years now we have been teaching this management system to horse owners in various climates around the world, to great effect. This system has many advantages for the 'lifestyle' of your horse/s, your own lifestyle and for the wider environment - all at the same time, a true win-win situation all round.

Buying a horse property is probably the most expensive and important purchase you will ever make. Therefore, it is very important that you get it right. There are many factors to consider and there may be compromises that have to be made. This guide to buying a horse property will help you to make many of those very important decisions.Decisions include factors such as whether to buy developed or undeveloped land? Whether to buy a smaller property nearer the city or a larger property in a rural area? Other factors that you need to think about include the size and layout of the property, the pastures and soil, access to riding areas, the water supply, and any possible future proposals for the area. These subjects and many more are covered in this book.A useful checklist is also provided so that you can ask the right questions before making this very important decision.If you are buying a horse property, you cannot afford to miss out on the invaluable information in this book!