Flying Change Farms, LLC

09/11/2026

Great, simple summary…

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1121417167114164&id=100077376745605

🐴💊 **BUTE vs. BANAMINE: WHICH ONE WHEN?**

They’re probably two of the best known medications in the horse world. Both relieve pain and inflammation, but they aren’t necessarily the first choice for the same problems.

Here’s an easy barn trick for remembering the difference:
🦴 BUTE = BONES, JOINTS & FEET
🤢 BANAMINE = BELLY & FEVER

🦴 BUTE | Phenylbutazone: Think musculoskeletal pain and inflammation. Bute is commonly used for things like arthritis, hoof pain, laminitis, strains, soreness, and other causes of lameness. If your horse hurts when he MOVES, your veterinarian may reach for BUTE.

🤢 BANAMINE | Flunixin Meglumine: Think visceral pain, meaning pain coming from the internal organs. Banamine is especially useful for **colic and abdominal pain** and is also commonly used for fever and inflammation associated with systemic illness. If your horse hurts in his GUT, your veterinarian may reach for BANAMINE.

🐴 BUT WAIT...
Bute doesn't have a GPS programmed for the legs, and Banamine doesn't magically drive straight to the intestines. 😂

Both are systemic NSAIDs, and both can reduce pain and inflammation throughout the body. There’s plenty of overlap. The difference is that each has situations where veterinary evidence and experience make it a more logical first choice.

⚠️ DON’T STACK THEM. Giving Bute and Banamine together can increase the risk of ulcers, intestinal injury, and kidney damage.

⚠️ Banamine may make a horse with a serious intestinal problem appear much more comfortable temporarily. If the pain returns, breaks through the medication, or your horse continues showing colic signs, call your veterinarian.

🦴 My horse hurts when he MOVES. Think BUTE.
🤢 My horse hurts in his GUT. Think BANAMINE.
🤷 I don't know WHY my horse hurts. Think VET. ☎️

And remember, pain relief isn't the same thing as fixing the problem.

09/08/2026

Very interesting article about course design!

At the highest levels of show jumping, making a course more difficult doesn’t necessarily mean making the fences bigger. For FEI Level 4 Course Designer Guilherme Jorge, some of the most effective questions are created through details that spectators may barely notice like the length of a pole, the color of a rail, or where a delicate vertical appears in relation to the rest of the track.

“It’s very important that you have, as a course designer, the consciousness that even [when] you are building the biggest Grand Prix of your calendar year, you have to think that the horses are going to have to face many other top-level competitions,” Jorge said on episode 480 of The Plaidcast.

That philosophy shaped the $1,000,000 Rolex US Equestrian Open Grand Prix at Wellington International, where Jorge needed to challenge some of the best horse-and-rider combinations in the world without simply demanding greater physical effort.

Jorge had already designed his Grand Prix course when he watched the week’s 1.55-meter qualifier. Twenty-five of 60 combinations jumped clear. That result told him just how strong the field was. “I would need to make pretty much every jump count,” he said.

Rather than dramatically increasing fence dimensions or creating more demanding distances, Jorge adjusted some of his materials. The goal was to make certain jumps require more precision and carefulness while keeping the physical demand appropriate for the horses.

📎 Continue reading about course design at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/08/26/how-course-designers-make-a-grand-prix-harder-without-making-horses-jump-bigger/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

09/02/2026

“The U.S. doesn’t lack talent, breeders, or quality horses. What it lacks is infrastructure: a thoughtful, affordable, and accessible system for producing young horses. Without it, American-bred horses will continue to struggle to compete with their European counterparts.”

https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/09/10/fixing-the-young-horse-pipeline-why-the-u-s-falls-behind-europe/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAUFKRZwZG9mBWZkaWQWUNqM2IfCrVawgtxYj5PE8eGCBqOVJ2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzE3Mzg0NzY0MjY3MDM3MAABHh6Yy3rHVtQ0EGW0iMKzJwwWuC1baECQwQ1qBIgDyY2Fiyau09i4dq91AYL9_aem_op9py1-Zkl_1M81u9mezOQ

Brought to you by The Plaidcast When American buyers look for their next jumper or dressage horse, they often turn to Europe. The breeding isn’t necessarily better overseas, says trainer and rider David Reichert. The problem lies in the pipeline. “The breeding is good in the U.S.,” Reichert ex...

09/01/2026

Barn friends are the best friends! 🩵

09/01/2026

Sunday Funday at FCF! Cheers to great barn friendships!

08/27/2026

When Finding the Problem Becomes the Problem

There is a strange trend developing in horsemanship that I think deserves some careful consideration.

We have more information than ever before. We have access to research, biomechanics, veterinary knowledge, saddle fitting, dentistry, nutrition, behavior, neuroscience, anatomy, rehabilitation, and an endless vocabulary for describing what might be happening inside a horse’s body.

That should be a wonderful thing. But information is not the same thing as understanding.

And understanding the theory of something is not the same thing as being able to recognize it, feel it, influence it, and know whether what you are doing is actually helping.

I increasingly see riders become so committed to the idea that there is something wrong with their horse that every proposed solution simply uncovers another problem.

The horse is crooked, they are told. Then they discover that the crookedness is caused by asymmetry. Then the asymmetry is caused by compensation. Then the compensation is caused by an old injury. Then the injury has created a neurological pattern. Then the neurological pattern means the horse cannot safely be asked to do the exercise.

And suddenly, months or years have gone by and the horse is no further along.

There is always another explanation, another restriction. Anither professional to be called, and it always results in the horse backsliding and being unable to be ridden.

At some point, we have to ask a difficult question:

Are we actually helping the horse, or have we become attached to finding things wrong with the horse?

Having problems can happen, but problems are not the goal.

Horses absolutely have physical limitations. They can have pain, injury, poor conformation, asymmetry, weakness, inadequate strength, poor coordination, inappropriate equipment, dental problems, and countless other genuine issues.

Ignoring those things is not good horsemanship.

But recognizing a limitation should lead us toward a better question:

What can I do about it?

If the answer is always, “Nothing, because this horse has X,” then we aren’t really training anymore. We are diagnosing, and many people can become addicted to diagnosing as opposed to creating true soundness.

And diagnosis without a path forward can become a remarkably sophisticated form of helplessness.

A horse doesn’t need us to find every imperfection in his body. He needs us to help him function better within the body he actually has. The vocabulary can become a substitute for feel.

One of the problems with learning primarily through theory is that theory can give us the illusion that we understand something long before we actually do.

You can learn what “thoracic sling,” “compensation,” “rotation,” “lateral flexion,” “asymmetry,” or “proprioception” means. You can learn to recognize the words people use to describe movement. You can watch endless videos explaining biomechanics.

You can even become very good at explaining these concepts to other people. But none of that automatically teaches you how a horse feels underneath you. It doesn’t necessarily teach you when a horse is genuinely restricted versus simply inexperienced. It doesn’t teach you how to make a correction without creating three new problems.

And most importantly, it doesn’t teach you how to determine whether the thing you believe is happening is actually happening. That requires practical experience.

Knowledge should make us more discerning, not more afraid. It should give us more tools, not fewer.

The question I want riders to ask, instead of continually asking:

“What’s wrong with my horse?”

I would encourage riders to start asking:

“What is my horse capable of right now, and what can I do to help him become more capable?”

08/21/2026

Whether it be a walk warm up/cool down, a conditioning ride up and down our gentle hills, or a day of jumping some log jumps, our trails offer a chance get out of the arena! So good mentally for both horse and rider, and also teaches the horse to find its own balance over uneven footing and terrain.