Blanket Rack - What Every Fashionista Needs! OR Another Sue and Francis- "Design and Do" Project

I myself may not be much of a fashionista, but I do like my horse to be fashionable and as such he has an array of outerwear to keep him warm, dry and cozy during miserable weather. Raphi in fact, has more outerwear than I do! His current wardrobe consists of:

• two rain sheets ( 2 so that if one is completely soaked and not dry by the next morning he has a dry one to put on)
• two winter blankets for being turned out in- one is for regular cold winter days and the other for the really Artic days ( like when its -30 Celsius)
• a wool "cooler" to help him dry off and keep warm after getting all hot and sweaty when working in the cold weather. He would catch a chill if you just leave him wet to dry off with no blanket, or overheat and sweat up again if you just put his big blanket back on while still hot from exercise
• a stable blanket/liner- for keeping warm in the winter while inside the barn. The barns are not heated and it is hard to work a horse in winter if he gets his full heavy winter coat ( his natural one!) as it takes simply ages to get them dry! The options are to clip all the hair off and blanket them. I don't clip him but his coat stays lighter if he is blanketed. With the weather we are currently having I will have to think about starting soon-- it is going down close to freezing at night now. Raphi is also typical of his breed( thoroughbred) and was raised in Southern Ontario where winters are not quite so harsh as they are here. Hence, he does not get a really thick winter coat and if I dont want him to lose weight/condition over the winter, I need to help keep him warm. Otherwise he will use his "stores" of fat ( of which he has none!) to keep warm... and end up a skinny horse by spring.

So I came up with a very budget friendly way to keep his blankets tidy and able to dry if needed. There are commercial ones I could have purchased but they don't have the look that I wanted. I again wanted something that would suit the old barn look and feel. So my idea was a combination of a saddle rack that I have seen at another barn, and the stall guards that Francis made. I said we could cut a cedar pole in half lengthwise and attach to the wall with a " screw eye" and a "hook". The screw eye is mounted on a board attached to the outside of the tack room, and the hook is screwed onto the cedar piece. These "arms" can then be left hanging against the wall when not in use, or put the hook up into the eye so the butt rests on the wall board and the "arm" sticks out. The blanket is placed over the arm and hangs down to the floor. The width of the cedar pole "arm" allows air flow which will facilitate drying.

All neat and tidy!