What is the jugular groove?

If you look at a horse's neck, you will see a groove towards the bottom on both sides. This is the jugular groove, and it contains the jugular vein and carotid artery (making them rather vulnerable - this is where a predator is likely to go for).

Because of the way this horse is standing, the jugular groove is extremely visible.

What is the gaskin?

The gaskin is a big muscle found on the horse's hind leg above the hock. It's analogous to our calf (remember, horses stand on tippy toe).

This very fit Appaloosa mare has a powerful gaskin - you can see how the leg bulges a little on the outside.

What is the chin groove?

If you look at a horse's face, you'll see they have a dip on the lower jaw, about where the corner of the mouth is. We call that the "chin groove."

You can see it here on this Icelandic horse, right before where her chin gets all shaggy.

What is a belly guard?

If you watch jumpers and eventers, you will see that many of them appear to have a leather "pad" on their stomachs.

This is a "belly guard" and it's either a special girth or an attachment. The point is that jumping horses often have studs on their shoes for extra grip on landing. Many horses, when jumping high, will tuck their hooves in pretty tight against their stomachs. The guard stops the studs on their shoes from digging in.

(You might also hear of a belly guard for turnout - this is a fly sheet that covers only the horse's stomach to protect them from certain kinds of flies).

The dark brown belly guard is particularly visible on this white horse. Image source Nordelch via Wikimedia commons.

Why do riders wear hairnets?

If you look at videos or pictures of an English show, you'll see a lot of the lady riders wear hairnets.

Rider's hairnets are generally a similar color to your hair and they're designed to keep long hair neatly out of the way without using a pony tail holder, which can be annoying with a helmet (I personally just use the holder, but I've never had that issue).

It's also, well, tradition.

What is a training fork?

A training fork is just what cowboys call the English running martingale - except they tend only to use them to train the horse to keep its head down, whilst a lot of hunt people use running martingales for safety reaons.

What is a carrot stick?

Answer: Something which gets old school horsemen rolling their eyes.

The term "carrot stick" was invented by the Parellis, who promote a particular style of horsemanship (some people love it, some people think it's absolutely awful and teaches people to be afraid of their horse).

What is a carrot stick actually?

It's just a whip. And if it has a lash on the end, that's a "savvy string."

Yes.

Really. The only difference is that, yes the Parelli "carrot stick" is more expensive.

(In other words, the horse world is as vulnerable to fads and gurus as anything else).

(You might detect some bias against the Parellis. They promote not wearing a helmet so you pay more attention. I have little patience with that).