equine-world.co.uk > Reviews (1)

I was the most horse mad of teenagers. I grew up in a small, affluent town in Wales, with very few facilities for bored teenagers. Consequently, parents were faced with two choices for their daughters. Either get them into horses, praying that they don’t fall off and severely injure themselves or risk boredom leading to underage sex and Class A drugs addiction.

My parents preferred the former option and so I had horses from the age of 13 until I went away to university at 18. As much as I got away with hanging out with friends and drinking and smoking at parties, I was always careful not to get caught and stayed well clear of dodgy drugs, knowing full well that my dad would be happy to stick to his threat of getting rid of Kimberley at the first sign of me popping or snorting! I have outlined some of my riding adventures in my op on my five favourite animals.

These days, busy city slicking professional that I am (or like to think I am), horse riding unfortunately is a very rare luxury. There is the odd centre in and around my area in London, but it’s just too depressing riding the demoralised and stale permanently stabled horses, whose only outings involved trotting round in circles in a poorly kept ménage. I was used to having miles of open Welsh countryside, with the odd forest and beach thrown in. So I make do with the odd weekend in places like West Wales and Devon, or a rushed hack on my too infrequent visits home.

All is not lost though. Recently I’ve been making more effort to keep in touch with the horsy world after my 8 year old cousin put me to shame with her knowledge of international show jumping and eventing news. I didn’t even know about the new Whitakers Elaine and Robert, she was not impressed and quickly pointed me in the direction of Equine World UK!

On first hit, I felt right at home. Horse magazines are so expensive and too geared up to the lucky horse owner, but here was a site providing all the news and horsy gossip I needed and free of charge.

It is a nice ‘clean’ looking site, not nearly as amateurish as some other equine sites I have since stumbled upon. The site is green and white so easy on the line, but as a fair few of the within text links are green I suspect it is not at all in line with the Disability Discrimination Act that came into being a few months ago, since green is I believe one of the hardest colours for colour blind people to see.

Membership is free upon agreeing to a lengthy set of terms and conditions (mostly to do with the forum and chat room areas) and filling in a moderately sized registration form. You can view most areas of the site without joining but obviously you need to be a member in order to participate in the forum or chat room. On joining you also get access to a private messaging system allowing you to send and receive private messages to and from other members, plus the ability to rate and comment on product news, articles and directory listings.

I will now take you through the main areas of the site in the order they appear on the top hand menu.

It’s not a difficult site to navigate at all though so after reading this, off you go: http://www.equine-world.co.uk

*** HOME

The home pages give you a few welcoming words and the chance to sign up to the Equine World newsletter. The home page offers a confusing multitude to other links, which don’t appear on the other main sections of the site.

Links down the left hand side direct you to sections such as:

1. About Horses – offering a whole host of fact files, including horse and pony breeds, points of the horse, equine intelligence (and horses are intelligent don’t be fooled otherwise!), equine behaviour and domestication history.

2. Buying a Horse – advice on choosing/ buying your first horse or pony, the costs involved in keeping one (Ouch! Depressing but necessary reading) and the essential vetting checks you need to get done before going ahead with this expensive purchase.

3. Horse Care – this section covers vital areas every horse owner needs to be knowledgeable about, such as equipment and clothing, routine horse care (worming, feeding, grooming etc.), health (horse ailments and diseases) and security of your horse and equipment.

4. Horse riding – more relevant to the casual ‘leisure’ rider like me (sob), this part of the site is split into novice and intermediate rider offers guidance on horse riding equipment and equestrian clothing, general riding information such as choosing a riding school, the paces, arena layout and glossary of horsy jargon.

5. Training horses – this bit is currently empty, apart from featuring some schooling horses text books available via a partnership link to amazon.co.uk.

6. Equestrian sports – for some reason this section is also incomplete. It currently just features dressage, harness racing and horse riding. Eventing, polo and show jumping are completely omitted.

7. Working with horses – at the moment this just provides information on careers as a groom or riding instructor. There are other horsy careers so if you would like more information it may be worth asking them to add something, or you could try posting some questions in the forum. There is a left hand link here directing you to the equestrian job vacancies area of the classified advertisements section.

The home page also highlights some Christmas gift ideas from various online equestrian stores, latest equestrian news and press releases special offers, links to some of the top menu areas including product news, equestrian items for sale on E Bay, the latest postings in the chat room and last but not least the site’s own horsy articles. Current articles include looking after your tack, caring for your horse in winter, horse hay fever (!) and lameness. Archived articles are easily reached by clicking on ‘more articles’

I would say that the home page offers a wealth of information for all horse lovers, but perhaps goes a bit overboard. The sheer volume of links and headlines results in a slight feeling of information overload. However if you’re prepared to look around and spend a bit of time on the site, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding what you’re looking for.

*** OTHER SECTIONS OF THE SITE (reached from top menu bar)

1. News – wow! I have no excuse for being shown up by my kid cousin ever again. This section gives you all the latest updates on almost every horsy topic from the Grand National, to general news, Burghley and Badminton horse trials, all the big show jumping events, hunting, driving, harness racing and more.

2. Product News – info on every horsy item you could possibly want from grooming products, saddlery and horse transport to software, books and horse riding holidays. Unfortunately a lot of the links don’t lead to information, as product owners in some of the areas don’t seem to be aware of the site. If you know any retailers of equestrian products, let them know that it is a mere £30 to add their product news to the site for one month.

3. Information – this bit has lots of nice horse photos and links to the informational articles I mentioned that are also linked from the left hand side of the home page – buying a horse, working with horses, equestrian sports etc.

4. Articles – again you may well reach this first from the home page, but here is another opportunity to access it. I’ve just noticed that it includes information on the legal aspects of owning a horse. This could do with being added to as well as at the moment it just talks about horse aspects. There are of course lots more legal implications of horse ownership that it’s important to be aware of. It should really include information on contracts between owner and rider in sharing/ loaning arrangements and third party liability. I remember 11 years ago when I had Kimberly we nearly got sued when she decided it would be fun to escape into a neighbouring garden and trample all over their beautifully manicured lawn and flower beds. We were lucky that we managed to just pay the reasonable owners of this demolished garden the face value of reparation costs for the damage done. These days you may not be so lucky, now that we are moving closer and closer to the American culture of suing everyone possible. This information is a glaring omission from the site in my opinion, but I’m sure it will be added in due course.

5. Directories – some areas are more usefully occupied than others, but theoretically you should be able to access information and website links on everything Horse in this section. Sections range from equestrian books and magazines, to aromatherapy products and equine dentists!

6. Classifieds – depending on what you’re trying to sell you can place an advert here from between £5 and £25. This price covers you for up to six months, so not bad at all, although as I’ve never advertised here, I can’t tell you what the take up rate is like. You can buy or sell all sorts of equine products here, or buy or sell an actual real life horse, even get one to loan or share.

7. Pictures – you can view lots of cute photos here or add your own. Great I guess if you want Patch to receive international cyber fame!

8. Events – the non-professional sort.

Ah I remember those early mornings, the nerves gripping my stomach as I waited for the starting bell and being dumped ceremoniously on the ground from time to time by a horse who seemed to find it amusing to make a fool of me and keep my ego in check! Events are listed by county, but as with other areas of the site, some areas are better populated than others, so you may not find anything online for your area.

9. Store – online tack shop!

10. Forums – ask questions, respond to other members’ queries or just use it to get in touch with other equine enthusiasts. There are threads on loads of different horsy topics and lots of polls too if you want to add your vote on a variety of subjects.

*** MY THOUGHTS

As I’ve said before regarding the home page this site is very crowded. The ‘owners’ of the site have had some grand ideas but perhaps not the time or resource to always live up to them. The home page is far too crowded, but otherwise the site is a complete equine fact file and a great way to get in touch with others if you’re short of horse loving friends.

The site could do a lot more, but it’s up to the users to give feedback and make more of the site, since it’s for the most part a community site like Ciao! It’s definitely worth taking a look because if you love riding as much as I do you’ll be hooked!