Welcome students to Day 7 of the course.  Today we continue learning about health care for our horses.  It is so important for us to pick up the signs of a problem, for as a herd animal, the horse will try to hide the fact that it is weak or in pain.  The last thing a herd animal wants to do is advertise the fact with a “Come eat me!” neon light.  Hence, our horses are what we may term “stoic”, however, it is an innate behaviour to hide their weakness.  The more knowledgeable and attentive we can be to changes from normal, the better the welfare of our horses as we will pick up issues at a far earlier stage. You will also be introduced to Body Condition Scoring with a learning object that will help train your eyes to assess horses more accurately.  While this does have to be done with both palpation and visual assessment, we encourage you to work on building your skills of assessing BCS in your horses and get in the habit of doing this regularly – particularly in the winter when a blanket is on your horse by checking often under the blanket!