Our ole Ranch horses would have probably died of a heart attack if we had ever given them iced water after working cows all day in a hot summers day.
It was actually a great job, outside all year round and I got to be an ace with the front end loader on the tractor, scooping up horse apples and peed-on sawdust. In fact I was double clutching an old Ford dump truck out to the manure pile back in the woods when I heard on it’s radio that President Nixon was resigning.
Lots of tedious grooming and hoof-picking of course. The pits was getting there at 5am to braid manes for some event. A lot of Thoroughbreds have a personality about like white leghorn chickens, anything at all could send em into hysterics, whereas Quarterhorses, Morgan’s, Arabians etc were generally more placid.
They would transport the horses to events in a big motorhome- looking vehicle. Horses backed into stalls all facing the middle ( I’m recalling six horses but it’s been years). The worst job was riding in the back with the horses, standing in the middle by their heads to keep ‘em calm. I hate getting sneezed on by horses.