If you’re like most horse people, “hacks” means riding outside of a ring. There are far better horsewomen to talk to you about the best ways and places to hack, so I’m going to talk about the other kind of “hacks”; shortcuts or ways to make caring for your horse’s health a little easier whether you’re a recreational rider, a professional with a barn full of horses, or a competitor. I thought about this as our seasons change here in Canada, and although the trees and many animals are getting ready to slow down and be dormant, my life is anything but quiet. Although show season was a lot different this year, and will continue to look different, strangely there seems to be as much to do as always; who’s with me?

Here are some quick and easy ways to make your life easier when considering taking care of your horse’s health.

Pre-book appointments that happen regularly : you know how your dentist books a year in advance? Many vet clinics, farriers, and other professionals such as massage therapists will do that for you too, booking you on a regular schedule for regular appointments. For large barns, this may mean booking one day a month for your vet, and clients can sign up and make arrangements with ease. For those of us with smaller herds, book your next appointment and get it in your calendar. One less thing to think about and get organized, and your vet and farrier (and clients) will likely appreciate you being organized.

Pre-order medications : you’ve likely seen Amazon’s subscribe and save program, where you can subscribe to a commonly ordered item such as vitamins, diapers, and more. If you’ve ever been “Last Minute Larry” and run out of your horse’s medication or had to organize a last-minute run to the feed store for supplements, you’ll know that it can be a huge time drain. You can arrange regular shipments with many veterinary clinics or supplement providers, because guess what? When you know the dose for the horse, you know how long it will take to run out! I generally don’t recommend buying in major bulk with medications unless there’s a long expiry, but for some this strategy works well.

Use electronic systems to your advantage : When your phone isn’t pinging you about a new Instagram post, but is instead letting you know it’s time to get those prescribed physiotherapy exercises in on your horse, that’s when I see alerts being helpful in lieu of annoying! Using the calendar from your phone to set reminders for items such as administering medication daily, performing a specific therapy prescribed can be super helpful and increase the rate of success of the therapy. (One of the biggest ways treatments fail in human or animal health is due to human compliance with remembering, having time to follow through). In a large barn, shareable task checklists are helpful to manage treatments and ensure you’re not making any blunders (iPhone’s Task list is good for this). Further, restock systems that are cloud viewable and shareable with everyone on the team are incredibly helpful. I love Anylist personally, but there are loads more. But please don’t store medical information on a public, free program. A system like eVet can help with reminders for bigger things like which vaccines and therapies your horse is on, and they are confidential and accident proof (unlike the health records binder you might have getting dusty in your tack room counter, just waiting for coffee to be spilled on). Look for systems that don’t make more work for you: can your vet access it? Can you send it to the farrier so they can be in the know? Can you send it to the show office easily? 

What do you think? What tech and hacks have you found to make horse health care easier? I’m hopeful that some of these hacks will prevent those “Oh no” moments when you realize you need a last-minute Coggins test (again), or you’ve run out of an important medication. Maybe we’ll all be able to spend a bit more time on real life fall hacking if we’re not wasting time on things that aren’t on horseback!

Happy trails!

Guest blogger bio:

Dr. Melanie Barham is an equine veterinarian, FEI veterinary delegate, entrepreneur, digital marketer and university instructor. With a background in eventing and performance horse practice in the US and Canada, Dr Barham currently dedicates her career efforts to the Ontario Animal Health Network, Global Veterinary Career Summit and strategic business consulting.