Holiday cover for a Paint Horse combines ordinary stock-horse care with one coat-specific duty that general instructions miss: the pink skin beneath a Paint's white markings, especially across the face, muzzle and any white legs, burns in strong sun and peels painfully. A sitter can get feeding and turnout right and still let a bald face burn badly in three bright days. Your sheet should therefore treat sun protection as a scheduled task alongside hay and water, and then cover this horse's quantities, companions, exercise limits and contacts in the order a cover day runs.
Give Measured Feed, Hay and Turnout Details
A Paint Horse's feeding section needs the same precision as any easy-doing stock breed. Write hay by number of flakes or weight, the exact hard feed measure if he gets one, and where each is stored so the sitter is not improvising from the wrong bin. Name his turnout field, the hours he goes out, and the companion horses he is settled with, including who must be caught first if one of them bullies him at the gate. If he is in regular work, state plainly whether the sitter rides, lunges, or simply turns out and brings in, because an unfamiliar rider on a quiet-seeming Paint is a risk your notes can remove in one line.
Make Sun Protection for White Markings a Daily Task
A Paint Horse's white markings need their own written routine. Say which areas of pink skin are vulnerable on this horse, whether that is a bald face, a white muzzle, pink around the eyes or white stockings, and what you use on them each morning before turnout. Explain the physical protection too: the fly mask that shades his face, any light sheet he wears, and the rule that he must have access to the field shelter or shade line during the brightest part of the day. Ask the sitter to look at the muzzle and face daily for redness, crusting or weeping skin, and to keep him in shade and call you if burning appears despite the routine.
Cover Legs, Hooves and After-Turnout Checks
A Paint Horse's white legs make another check easy to assign: dirt, heat and swelling show clearly, so ask for legs to be run over by hand at bring-in. Set out the hoof routine, picking out daily and noting any lost shoe, cracked wall or sudden tenderness on hard ground. If he wears a rug at night or in heavy rain, name it and where it hangs; if he lives out unrugged, say so clearly so nobody adds one out of kindness. Add the small temperament notes that help a stranger: how he ties, whether he is needle-shy at vet visits, and the treats, if any, that are allowed.
Finish With Contacts and the Yard's Practical Map
A Paint Horse's last page should be the emergency and logistics sheet. List the vet first for anything involving lameness, a hot swollen leg, an eye problem on that pink-skinned face, or a horse off his feed, then the farrier for shoe problems, then your own number and a yard neighbour who can hold him for treatment. Mark where the first-aid kit, spare halter, mask and sun products live, which tap fills the field trough, and the gate code or key arrangement. Walking the sitter through one morning, mask on and face checked, before you leave turns these lines into habit. Passing the sheet through a KinsLe Care Pass keeps this Paint's hay amounts, mask schedule and emergency numbers in one place until you are back.