New Farrier. Baby Horse Growing Up!

So my farrier is a wonderful person.  I really like him and he's been doing my guys for years.  Granted, they've been pasturey pets that I'm reworking so having performance feet hasn't been a priority.  Mango has her summer white line issues but lately they've been bruising too and I'm like uh no.  I've asked about shoes and I always get the run around.  This is a thing from the past 2+ years and I was like :/

When I got Jade I didn't want to mess HER feet up and she was used to being shod exclusively.  I mentioned it to my farrier and he just kinda mehed me when I mentioned it.  This indifference led me to check out other people's horses and I had always heard great things about the farrier up at the TAMU clinic but I didn't realize we can just see him.  But you can!  Plus its up at my work PLUS employee discount!!!! And the clinic's prices are already lower than what I'm paying AND I can schedule appointments!  No more, how about an hour from now?  Oh, hey, your guys are 2 weeks over due...

Now that I'm riding Katy in her epic saddle, her foot soreness that was really only on rocks in 2014 became more of an issue.  If I helped her back... would shoes help her feet?  I'm not an eager person to do shoes but at this point her feet were hurting on the nice MMwhatever footing at the covered arena so that wouldn't do.  Also, she and Mango were having a hard time walking on the hard sand in the pasture so yeah.  SHOES FOR ALL!

The new farrier LOVED Jade and was honestly excited to be doing a "weird" breed's feet.  He took his time and did an excellent job.  With Katy, the first thing he did was just hack off her "long toe" that Old Farrier had been tip toeing around for years.  Mango apparently DOESN'T have white line disease, she just needs some support as her hoof was separating from her laminae.  Cripes.  The second she had shoes on, she strutted right across the concrete and was toe flicking her way back to the trailer.

Jade's "I'm getting new shoes" face

Piper and Edison came a week after that for just trims and they looked great.  Edison was a little rock star as we held him and his feet and he got the footsies trimmed up nicely.

Imma big kid!

Oh speaking of Edison!  He's sooo cool and losing his baby coat.  There is a seriously red hot smexy colt under all that dying fluff.  He's got plenty of sass but is super thoughtful.  I can see him starting to drift away from mom, but we'll worry about all that stuff in the upcoming months.  I pulled him out and started working on lunging (more like wild rearing baby horse) but he figured it out fast and all was good.  I also worked on hind leg picking up alone and it wasn't.. great.  He started hopping and my shoulder is toast so he decided I wanted him to lay down and so he did that.  I laughed and just lightly straddled him and sat on his back while I pet his ears and everything.  He was happy and I guess that counts as my first time sitting on him!  He's also HUGE(ish).  He'll never be super substantial (which we knew) but he's about 80% of his mom's height already and up to my chest with his back so yeah.  COME ON HIT 16 hands please!

 Video from when we got Piper preg checked at the OTHER clinic.  Edison gets around (y)

I also took some rather hasty pictures and registered him with APHA while at the clinic.

Introducing CS Logical Conclusion.  

July In Short. Or Semi-Short

As alluded to in the previous post, July was action packed for us.  We went on a family trip July 4th to test out the RV and then we were at a dog event for an entire week in the mid month.  I might have ridden Katy once but that was about it.  The event was a smashing success and I was pretty stoked that we pulled it off sooo well and I was truly humbled by our volunteers and the amount of people that believe in me.  I've always been on my own for so long, forging my own way, that its a shock when you have a group of people that are looking to you for leadership and just totally get what you're saying.  I'm feeling pretty fulfilled right now but also nervous a little.  Dun want to let them down! to some degree but we're all doing awesome and it was a week of being badasses basically.   We so rocked, go us.

So riding off that and the realization that I could now do MY things, I booked lessons.  After a lesson with dressage trainer in early July, I decided that while I love her as a person, I might need someone with more... unno oomph for me?  Its hard to word it really but I'm not sure my goals align with her teaching style although her lessons are quite nice and have been very welcome.  I feel like I need more focus and direction.  I like learning the process not just doing it so yeah.

I had managed to set up two lessons with Lurena Bell in Willis, TX.  She was shrot listed for the Olympics twice and her scores on Centerline Scores are great.  More importantly to me, she has loads of students (like me!) that are real people and have managed to show to and beyond their goals.  I'd only briefly met her when I was a teenager and trying to watch another boarder's kids at Windy Knoll so I couldn't recall how she was as a person.  Oh and she herds sheep with her dogs so I was all uh, yes please?

The lesson was perfect for me, Katy and Jade.  We all worked our asses off and while they're totally different horses, the exercises we did were similar with tweaks for each horse.  Easy to recall homework basically.  I told her I wanted to go home with homework and boy did we.  I also went home with a major confidence/ego boost as she told me soo many times during the lesson how great my position was and so on and so forth.  I finally was like stahhppp its embarassing about teh compliments to which she replied they weren't compliments, they were observations.  That shut me up but I was still glowing.

I've never had that many compliments/good things said about my riding in all the years I've ridden.  Like, if you add them all up, it would still be less than this lesson.  A little sad, but omg I felt validated that I'm not a flailing idiot either.  Most trainers I  ride with are like ok, do it better.  OK, that's better, but do it better.  Its all push push push not reward the little pieces.  No wonder I'm an anxious hot mess that second guesses herself.  Geez.

I floated home on Satruday with my mares who rock and then I headed out for dog herding the next morning.  No rest for the wicked!  We did soo well chasing sheep and then Monday PM I went to agility practice.  All the things man!

So in short, I'm exhausted, physically in pain (yay shoulder rehab), and mentally toast.  And I feel pretty freaking good about myself.  Now to get stronger and work out a schedule that works as the kiddo is starting serious football practices, hubs wants to hit the gym, and I have been dabbling with doing some things with Piper as well as Edison.

Oh speaking of Edison!  He's sooo cool and losing his baby coat.  There is a seriously red hot smexy colt under all that dying fluff.  He's got plenty of sass but is super thoughtful.  I can see him starting to drift away from mom, but we'll worry about all that stuff in the upcoming months.  I pulled him out and started working on lunging (more like wild rearing baby horse) but he figured it out fast and all was good.  I also worked on hind leg picking up alone and it wasn't.. great.  He started hopping and my shoulder is toast so he decided I wanted him to lay down and so he did that.  I laughed and just lightly straddled him and sat on his back while I pet his ears and everything.  He was happy and I guess that counts as my first time sitting on him!  He's also HUGE.  He'll never be super substantial (which we knew) but he's about 80% of his mom's height already and up to my chest with his back so yeah.  COME ON HIT 16 hands please!

Arthur: New Life

Arthur has been with the trainer about a month.  In that time, he had his skills I'd put on him brushed up a touch more and he restarted jumping properly.  By all accounts, he was the awesome, wonderful, snuggle bunny of a horse that I knew was in there and we'd lived with for the last 6 months.

People came to check him out as their next hunter propect and we quickly had a bite which led to a vet check naturally.  The trainer felt he'd move best with shoes on and since Arthur does have pancake feet, I agreed.  And that led to his PPE coming back as possible laminitis a day or two later.  Whaaaa?  There was a follow up PPE for that reason a few days later and derp, no laminitis, no soreness, just new shoe touchiness that other day.

So glad I'm not there in person to watch these things.

HOWEVER!  The followup PPE NOW has revealed that Arthur has some scratches on his eyes.  Minor but either normal things from stuff like dust in the paddock when he was younger or CANCER!!!

Seriously, who deals with these PPE vet people?  Cripes.

So yeah, naturally the people that are looking at him have a hot button with eyes as their last horse had to be retired after its eye was removed for cancerous reasons or something similar (so I understand but geez PPE vet, ranging from nothing to CANCER AND DEATH is a bit of a wide range). 

The people were lovely and offered me less than I wanted and I decided to just go with it because that's why you set a starting price.  So yeah, from uncontrolled bucker that was terrified of the world to plodding hunter kids horse... I'll take it.

Good luck Arthur, be as lovely as I know you are <3

Bad Saddle! Not Really Though :D

OK so I have been prepping for a huge dog event we're putting on in mid July so my riding is haphazard at best currently.  With the new saddle revelation, I took my first dressage lesson in forever now that we were able to actually DO the things we'd been working here and there on.  I've been doing lessons with Amanda too and that's helped sooo much with Katy and myself (yay basics) but I wanted a real dressage lesson in my real dressage saddle.  So saddle win (y)  I think I took like 3 lessons this month from dressage trainer and one from Amanda (see below).

Amanda had ridden Jade in the new Flight and then I followed up with it after she had her go rounds with the great nonforward horse.  The saddle felt like it tipped us both forward and I was a bit disappointed.  On Katy it felt great, on Jade meh.  Jade didn't seem to care though as she had to deal with crazy riders whacking on her to go forward.  Saddle fail (sort of)

I contacted Shea about coming back out to refit and she was heading down already and tacked us on no problem.  Basically they'd fit the saddle to Katy with the idea that I'd use a pad with Jade.  I was like noooooo make it fit expensive horse please so it was done.  So basically, find a saddle fitter that returns your calls AND knows what they're doing.  SO MUCH NICER.  And no, I still haven't heard from Saddle Fitter A.  Seriously, how do people stay in business?  Ugh service industries are chapping my hide something fierce!

At this point I had no real idea what to do with Jade (she'll go forward after a few minutes and then... unno what to do as our instructions end there)  so with that and my cray schedule, we haven't done much in July.  I HAVE worked on her ground work which has begun to change her from a pushy obnoxious (but sweet) big girl into one that's more compliant.  We'll see what we need to tackle under saddle as we get to that.

Oh and the saddle is back to being wonderful now and works for both horses so yays.  Now to do this big event and then get to riding and all the things some more!

Nigel: Crashing Down

I'm so behind on this writing thing due to lots of things going on, so this is written (again) way after the date.  I am however glad to write about this after the fact.  Also, sorry for lack of pictures, but well... there's not much I'd be able to post about this photographically :/

So this was the week we euthanized Nigel.

I don't feel bad about my choice and even though I can question things leading up to it, in the end it was unavoidable even if what led up to it could have been prevented.

If you're keeping track, in the past month or so, there's been 2 different MAJOR blow ups with this horse that resulted in him seriously injuring himself.  By whatever grace you believe in, he's managed to not injure himself or anyone long term but I know its just a matter of time unless he's really got his crap together.



 And after the trainer, it really, really seemed like he did.

If you recall, when I picked him up, his legs were huge.  Cellulitis +10000 of course.  He hadn't been treated or seen and kept in super muddy conditions for 2 weeks before I got him.  A normal horse would be dead right?  Not Nigel!

When I brought him home, I took him to the barn and he got a stall across from Jade.  I knew he'd need rehab and this was the best way to do that, add weight, and hopefully get to riding him to decide on all that future things.  We took him to the clinic the first working day after I got him back and once again, he managed to pass all tests for infection, joint injury, and whatever else he should have had but inexplicably didn't.  They wrapped him from coronary band to knee/hock on ALL FOUR LEGS.  he was at the clinic for THREE days and I should tell you, he was a lamb.  From the moment we picked him up from the trainers, he was a dream boat.

I'd begun thinking maybe, just maybe this WAS my event horse!  But I also recalled I have Edison in the wings that will be a much more trustworthy one probably.  So I put on my businesswoman/trainer hat and got to work with Nigel.  At this point, I'm not trusting his tying and since he's BEEN getting tired FOREVER at the trainers, I tie him to a secure area near where our stalls are and leave him tied about 30 minutesish while I do my chores for each of those days and can keep an eye on him the whole time.  NOTHING that went past him ever phased him and I'm tentatively thinking this is going to work.  He was handwalked every day until the bandages could come off 5 days after bringing him home.  I never ONCE saw "Old Nigel" but I also wasn't going to take it for granted.  Also, I can't have him deciding to "untie" himself and trash his legs AGAIN every 6 months...  so we needed to test out how good he was at this tying thing and so we did.  On the 5th day of rehab, I crosstied (OMG RIGHT?!) to remove the bandages.  I knew this would/should test him but instead he was super quiet, happy, and just a little silly (in a friendly way) as I managed to removed the LAYERS AND LAYERS of wrappings on his legs without so much as bandage scissors (totally blanked on bringing them).

He was a saint and calmly but alertly checked out the farm goings on while I did this.

Then we did a bath because he was covered in rain rot (of course).  With that all done, he grazed, hand walked and then we tied in the same place as always.  Remember, he's now used to being tied for like all day so this wasn't excessive in any way for him.

So I start doing barn chores and the horse stands happily.  Calmly.  No big deal.

I think when "it" happened was when I finished up cleaning the stalls.  It wasn't very much but as I went by with the wheelbarrow, he was watching me more wistfully than before.  I was letting his legs dry before rebandaging them as well.  After dropping off the wheelbarrow, I came back to him and touched his hind leg (nbd) and then his front leg and I just felt the change in the force.  It wasn't an OMG WHOA moment, but once you're around cray horses long enough, you can practically smell something changing.

And so he pulled back once I was out of the way.

And stopped.

And thought about things.

And then JUST when he was about to look at me for assistance, he got his NOPE EFF THIS SHIT and he began his "thing."  Gosh if I could have begged a horse to check in with me, this was that moment.

Its hard to explain this in any way that's going to make anyone truly understand when you've not dealt with "broken" horses but basically... he systematically and methodically tried to figure out how to break the halter or the rope.  Its not a simple pull back and freak out scenario.  I can do that in my sleep.  This is calculated, calmly done, and very independently driven with no regard for what humans are doing or physical pain to himself.  All I did was keep people back and wait it out.

The most popular approaches he likes to use are putting his feet on things to push OFF them for extra leverage as well as putting his front feet ON things to push UP on them.  Since he had a lovely pipe fence, he spent most of his time trying to utilize those to accomplish his goals.  Problem was, my stuff dun break and he also managed to twist the rope over the safety knot so I couldn't let him go.  Best I could do was keep people away and calmly wait for him to check back in with reality.  It was all very slow motion, calm, no flailing, and I even went up to him in this 2 on, 2 off position to moves his front hoof away from the rope so when he came down on his own, he wouldn't be caught in it.  It was that calm and he was that aware of what he was doing.  Basically, no self preservation coupled with him doing this sooo many times that he knew what he was doing.

People asked me if it was a trick I'd taught him.  I said no.

I checked my phone to kill time while I waited for him to give me something to work with.

About 20 minutes later, he completely and calmly gave up, checked back in with me like "hey, human, help me out." and I untied him easily and my lamb of a horse was back.  He'd blown out something inside his right hind leg badly and when I started assessing him, he's also managed to grind his right front pastern down to the tendons and seisomoids so I knew this was it.

I gave him a final big meal and lots of pats (while explaining to onlookers that he was walking the green mile and why).  I called the clinic and made the arrangements.  I knew I had to get him loaded before his adrenaline wore off so I headed home to get the trailer at 9pm. My brave, never say die boy unloaded 2 legged lame at the clinic but alert and completely cooperative.  80% awesome 20% deadly dangerous  *sigh

I could doubt tying him THAT day in THAT way all I wanted, but honestly... this is also the kind of horse that will "wing it" out on cross country when he wanted to.  He was athletic as all get out and sooo bold, confident, and clever that he'd just make that decision to leave a stride or so out in front of a huge table or hang a leg.  This is the horse rotational falls are made of.  I couldn't resell him knowing that.  I couldn't push forward and ride him myself and know that.  I didn't want someone less experienced dying from him not wanting to be tied today, yesterday is fine, but not today.  None of this mattered as he manged to mangle his legs beyond reason and didn't seem to give a shit that any of that had just happened.

I did contact the trainers I work with and they completely agreed that this was the right choice but I also knew it the moment I saw the look in his eye when he decided to be clever that evening.  There was never a doubt in my mind at that moment or since.  I'm sorry for Nigel, but I'm upset about the people that made him this way and allowed him to learn this deadly game.  While I spend my time with Jade and Edison, I'm realizing that that's where I want to be at this point in my life... helping "new" MY horses reach their full potential and not destroy myself over fixing other people's mistakes.  Its sad for me as I've done it to long, but I just don't think I can keep doing it.  I had my cry over my big red boy and I'll channel that energy into moving forward.  I guess you really can't save them all but this was my first time with that and it sucks.

Be free Fancy Boy <3

Baby Horse 2.0: We're Cooking!

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Edison: Month Two

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