The Push

It all started with being frustrated, I was tired of being sold stuff that wasn’t helping my horse.    You see I was the girl always looking for the answer to “why is he so muscle tight” and how do I prevent the ulcers not just treat them once they are here.   I had tack room full of tried feeds and products that seldom lived up to their hype.  I was even more tired of hearing Justin tell me “I told you they are all selling it to make money not help you or your horse.”  So there it was, what I felt the horse world needed, someone who would only sell what they believed in. 
  With that BAR over BAR was born before I even had a product to sell I was writing out my goals and motivations of my perfect world scenario.   In the end it was very simple: to provide products which benefit the health of your horse, allowing it to perform to their full potential.
My standards have grown to include: the products must intend to do no harm and not mask the problem, they must be user friendly, and they must help the high performance horse to get back to being as natural as possible.  I know it sounds simple but it’s not.  Finding the balance between the high performance horse world and the natural nomadic grazing horse is a continuous learning process.  I bet your thinking how can a neoprene boot and horse blankets align with my natural goals, well that’s where the conditions they live train and compete under come into play.  Does every horse need to wear a winter blanket? Nope, sure don’t, and most don’t need to.  However if you’re going to be hauling them in and out an arena in the winter for them to experience 10-20 degree temperature changes in a matter of minutes a good blanket becomes really important even necessary for health.  If you’re going to ask them to repeatedly perform to the highest athletic standards having a neoprene boot there for support and to reduce risk of injury seems like a no brainer to me.  That being said I believe very strongly a lot of products are over used and misused and that’s going to be a big part of this blog over time.  You will be able to find my product reviews and recommended uses on here too.    There are a lot of great products on the market that are being used improperly.  I won’t name names but “HEAT” is not always your friend.  Sometimes a leg needs to cool down with water or ice sometimes it needs wrapped for support etc.   Sometimes the very best thing for your horse is to be a horse.  I mean that, most vets will tell you that too if you stop and listen and not just demand an instant result.
The truth is most of what I know I learned from making mistakes.  Yes I have also learned from very knowledge people through clinics , friendships and business but it seems the mistakes are the biggest lessons.
   I am not a therapist or a vet I don’t have all the answers.  I’m just a girl in love with horses that has had many struggles but through them learned.  I look forward to sharing my stories with you.