Fifty years of an old horseman’s notes on keeping your horse sound, your bills low, and yourself in the saddle. One big book, in large print.
Get the book for $37Instant PDF download. 30-day money-back guarantee. Read the first 35 pages free
From the tally book
Gelding, fourteen, quarter horse.
Owner said: he’s gotten lazy.
Wrote down: shifts his weight off the left front every time he stands still.
From the tally book
Gelding, twenty-two, Morgan.
Owner said: he’s dropped some weight, must be his age.
Wrote down: hay left in the corner every morning, wet wads of chewed hay by the feeder.
That first horse wasn’t lazy. His foot hurt. His owner had spent two months and good money on a new bit and a trainer before anybody looked at the foot. The second one’s teeth were talking. One dental visit, and by fall he’d put the weight back on.
I’ve carried a tally book in my shirt pocket since 1975. Every horse I started or shod went in it: what the owner told me, and next to it, what I actually saw. Reading back through forty-odd of those little books, I found the same handful of mistakes, decade after decade.
Most of the money people lose on horses, and most of the years horses lose, come from small things nobody noticed early. This book is those notebooks, put where you can use them.
Through Gumroad, with a card or PayPal. No subscription, nothing that renews.
Your download button shows on screen as soon as you’ve paid, and the link arrives by email too.
Read it on your phone, tablet or computer. Print the bonus pages and pin them up in the barn.
Nothing gets mailed. It’s a PDF, set in large print on purpose.
In the 2025 AHP Equine Industry Survey, the cost of keeping horses was owners’ number one concern, named by 50.3 percent. So here’s what one horse really costs, and where the book can pay for itself.
Example figures for 2026 from chapter 0.4. Yours will differ by region.
That fits what owners report. A University of Maine Cooperative Extension survey found an average of about $3,900 a year per horse, and a median of about $2,400.
Three of the leaks the book goes after.
A “call today” problem phoned in at ten in the morning can often ride along on a regular farm call. The same problem at midnight often carries a few hundred dollars of emergency fee before anyone has touched the horse.
Chapter 0.3, example figures for 2026
In a University of Minnesota study, horses wasted 57 percent of a round bale with no feeder. With feeders, waste ran 5 to 33 percent.
Chapter 3.7, page 182
The Supplement Audit sorts what’s worth the money from what’s marketing. No brand paid to be mentioned in this book.
Chapter 3.14, Barn Test on page 209
$37, one time. If it saves you one late-night call, one round of wasted hay or one supplement you didn’t need, it has paid for itself. I won’t promise you a dollar figure. Your barn isn’t my barn.
One promise from page 19: no saving in this book comes from skipping care. Not the vaccines, not the teeth, not the farrier, not the vet. Every dollar comes out of waste, poor planning or things you didn’t need to buy.
Sources: AHP 2025 Equine Industry Survey; University of Maine Cooperative Extension owner survey; University of Minnesota round-bale feeder study, Journal of Animal Science 90(3). Prices are example figures for 2026 in US dollars, as printed in the book.
Real pages from the finished PDF, just as they open on your phone. The print is large on purpose.
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Read the first 35 pages free, colic and laminitis chapters included
167 chapters in 12 parts. Start where it hurts. Here are a few of the pages folks turn to first.
A barn story. A line from the tally book. The wrong conclusion most folks reach, and what’s really going on. A named Barn Test you can do today, free and never from the saddle. Then two plain lines on where I stop and your vet starts: call today, or call this week.
On your phone a minute after you pay. Nothing gets mailed.
An Old Horseman’s Guide to Keeping Your Horse Sound, Your Bills Low, and Yourself in the Saddle
Secure checkout by Gumroad. Card or PayPal. No subscription.
Real YouTube comments, quoted as written. They’re about the videos; the book is new.
“Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this beautiful companions and friends of our lives. [...] Are you planning to write one day your experiences and sell a book? Please let me know.”
@katherine2245, under “6 Things Your Horse Hates That You Do Every Day”
“Never thought of the trailer from her perspective... we just go to the park for a walk and an occasional ride and I'm super careful about speed turns and bumps but very interesting, thanks”
@misscoralinafriends1950, under “6 Things Your Horse Hates That You Do Every Day”
“Thankyou for your knowledge 🙏I have been scratching my horse in those spots & she loves it .”
@KimMather-y8g, under “4 Ways to Play With Your Horse (No Saddle Needed)”
“I have to agree with every one of these decisions, given my 60 years of horse ownership.”
@chillynites1, under “7 Horse Breeds I’d Never Own, and Why It’s Not Their Fault”
“I've never owned a horse although I love them, but I learned a lot watching this excellent video. Thank you”
@clarelynch5860, under “7 Horse Breeds I’d Never Own, and Why It’s Not Their Fault”
“Most people don't realize the importance of just Being with your horse!”
@marylynnblack9258, under “5 Things Horses Love That Almost Nobody Gives Them”
I’ve spent fifty years around horses. At sixteen I was day-working cattle ranches all over this valley. I started colts for better than twenty years, and I shod horses for a living for thirty-one years. I’ve held more horses’ feet than I could ever count.
Ruth and I keep a small place near Big Timber, Montana, in sight of the Crazy Mountains. She came back to riding at fifty-nine after twenty years away. Dollar, my old bay gelding, is twenty-nine and takes his retirement seriously. I mean to see him to thirty-one. That’s where the title comes from.
I’m not a vet, and I’ll tell you straight every time you need one. One of you asked under a video whether I’d ever write all this down and sell a book. It wasn’t written down anywhere. It was in a stack of little notebooks and in my head, and neither one is getting any younger. So here it is.
Cal
About this book. Cal Sutter is a fictional narrator, and the book was written with the help of AI. Where it cites a study or survey, it names who did it, and the sources are listed at the end of each part. It is not veterinary, medical or legal advice. Always follow your veterinarian and your doctor.
No, and better you hear it now. It’s a PDF you read on your phone, tablet or computer. The print is large, and you can zoom in further. Print any page you like, and the five bonus pages are made for printing.
You don’t need to be. After you pay, a button to open the book shows on the screen, and the same link comes by email. Tap it and the book opens. If anything goes wrong, write to ocultasupply@gmail.com and we’ll help you get it open.
No. You pay $37 once and that’s it. No membership, no monthly charge, no trial that turns into one.
Checkout runs through Gumroad, with a card or PayPal. Gumroad is the merchant of record, so your receipt and the charge on your statement come from Gumroad. It adds sales tax where your state charges tax on digital goods. The book is published by TKAY OPERATING LIMITED.
No. The book is built to work with your vet, not around them. Every chapter tells you plainly when to call today and when to call this week, and chapter 0.3 is the page for emergencies. Nothing in it is a reason to wait or to give a medicine your vet hasn’t prescribed.
No. Cal is a fictional narrator, and the book was written with the help of AI. We’d rather you hear that from us. Where the book cites a study or survey, it names who did it, and the sources are listed at the end of each part.
Part 7, The Old Horse, has 16 chapters, from teeth after twenty and feeding a horse with few teeth to the coat that won’t shed, blankets, and quality of life. Chapter 7.14 follows Dollar through one whole year at twenty-nine.
Yes. Chapter 2.2 lays board and home side by side, and the daily checks in the book have a boarding-barn version: what to look at every time you visit, and the two questions to ask the person who feeds him.
No. No product, company or brand paid to be mentioned in this book. Chapter 3.14 sorts the supplements worth paying for from the marketing.
The book is licensed for your own use, so please don’t pass the file around. Send her here instead. The first 35 pages are free for anybody.
Then write within 30 days, by replying to your Gumroad receipt or to ocultasupply@gmail.com, and you get your money back in full. No need to explain. See the refund policy.
“Go on out and watch your horse. He’s been telling you all along.”
Cal Sutter
Get the book for $37Instant PDF. 30-day money-back guarantee.