Colic.

So when you have horses this is the dreaded "C" word, right?

I've been passionate about avoiding this situation since I was in high school and aside from a few small Banamine fixed bouts, I haven't had to deal with straight up, go to the clinic colic ever before so this was a new one for me.

Australian Shepherd Nationals were being held in Bryan this year so I naturally was attending and my friend from AZ was coming in for a week of fun (and loads of dog related work!).  That morning I'd taken Katy for a lesson with Sarah and as I was parking the trailer I noticed that Mango was laying down mid day.  Nothing dramatic, but she was down and sleeping.  I've learned that on weekdays during the day my pasture mares love to sunbathe so I just wrote it off.

Mango in Jail Recovering

Trailer unloaded and horses done, I set about packing and changing things up for the dog shows we had.  I kept looking out at Mango and she would get up, get water, graze, walk around and then end up laying down at some point.  No rolling, nothing uncomfortable looking, just chill.  I tend to be overly paranoid (see above paragraph about colic avoidance), so naturally I was a bit obsessive as I washed dogs and get things ready.

My friend rolls into town and I go to check on Mango one last time and I KNOW she's more rotund than normal and I don't want to deal with this this weekend so I load her up and we head to the clinic for some Bute and Banamine.  Upon arrival we unload and she calmly goes into the stocks.  At this point she's looking more like a balloon and I'm getting more worried.

I have a strict "no surgery" opinion about colic to this point as I've seen very few horses have long term success after having it so I'm eyeing up Mango as they pull an obscene amount of fluid from her stomach.  After the 4th 3 gallon bucket I'm all making my peace.  They aren't too happy about anything they're finding and now I'm sure we're heading towards euthanizing her.

The final test they do is to check the fluid past the obstruction and... its totally fine.   Fluid before it is fine too.  They go for another ultrasound and due to her thick conformation can't see anything.  Rectally they find out her colon is over her spleen.  What?  So yeah...

We run her in the round pen after giving her some meds to shrink her spleen and I leave her to marinade at the clinic overnight.  Next day, no dice.  We opt to just roll her and she comes through that just fine.  Colon is righted and everything gets back to normal.  Three days at the clinic and she comes home, happy as ever and we move on.

Horses.  And Dog Shows :)

Me tormenting Mango while she eats :)

Outside Time With Arthur - Home Edition

*sigh

So after the rousing success that was the other day at Sarah's, I decided to try to ride Arthur at the house but outside the round pen.  He's been worked 53422353453 times out there and since he was doing well IN the round pen and basically doing everything but being ridden extensively OUTSIDE it, there should be minor issues with riding him outside, right?

Well... not so much.

It wasn't a complete failure and there wasn't (really) any bucking so I guess that's a success.  Technically.  From the start, Arthur was a little tense but nothing bad.  I got on and it was uneventful.  My goal was really to duplicate what we'd done at Sarah's and if that wasn't happening, then I wanted to work him through a few of his fits so he learned he had to keep working after.  His fits at this point are basically he starts to "act up" and then pauses (which is AWESOME!) and then we basically have to start over.  Like.. ALLLL over.  Normally one rein stops where he circles for like 5 minutes before finally stopping.

So I had some poles on the ground as well to keep his mind busy just in case that helped.  Poles were great but general walking around... eh.  Not bad but not great.  We did some flexing and he came back to me.  Finally he gets back to rockin' awesome and I'm all FINALLY!  So I go for a trot circle to end and... he humps up BUT STOPS.  No idea why but whatever.  I start the flexing process to a stop again and he FINALLY stops once I'm thoroughly dizzy.

While circling 24354645 times, I realized that he wasn't EVER moving his inside foreleg.  Prefect pivots on the thing and while he was doing his one rein stops, he was totally chill.  The ONLY time he wasn't was when he was like OMG... yes?  and then I'd ask him to one rein stop and he'd just circle calmly until he finally stopped.

What was going on?

It was like he was trained to do this weird pivot on the fore thing.  Ugh, maybe that's a HUS thing?  So we end the ride fine and I get to researching.  Come to find out, it IS a breed show exercise in one of the EQ and possibly trail classes?  So at least I know what that was all about but now I've got the NEW issue that Arthur is grabbing onto old training that I might not know about.  Time to learn even more about breed shows.

*le sigh

Red Horses

I need another horse like I need a hole in the head.

Sadly, its becoming apparent that unless I want to swap to APHA breed shows (watched one and nope) or H/J shows (QQ), Arthur will not be the awesome event horse I'd like him to be.  Also, from a business standpoint, he's not an event horse and his value will be better recognized in the other rings.  Also, if I sell him, I can better finance things around here for my pleasure and so yeah.  I need to be realistic.

Piper is in the same boat, once she makes me a baby horse of awesome, I'm probably going to train her, show her, and sell her to some lucky Pony Club kid to go rule the world with.  While my baby horse grows, that leaves me with an elderly QH type mare (Katy) and a chunky white pony (Mango).  Also, I'm tallerish and my trainer seems to think that riding a larger horse with my crazy long legs will help me progess faster.

*sigh

I've been watching CANTER when I can for upcoming TB projects to replace Arthur with over the horizon and I found a cute local guy but if they're not free, then I'm not buying.  Husband would kill me if I PAID for another horse right now.  Said cute horse was available in August and then I heard nothing about him until.. now.  He was a "war horse" having won almost $100K and was a nice red gelding - exactly what I was hoping for.  A nice kind look in his eye and I was vaguely interested.

I heard nothing again (which was fine) until one Friday at about 4:30pm I see a red horse come up on the CANTER Facebook page needing help TODAY or.. else?  Being local I was like omg, lemme go help out.  I'll get him home and evaluate him.  It ended up being the red horse from August so I was doing a little, fate? thinking but we had little time so I headed home and grabbed my trailer quickly while shoving my son at my husband and mentioning a free horse before bolting out the door on him.

Again, poor husband.

I get to the barn and find a skinny, pissy, tall guy that didn't want to load in the trailer.   Lucky for him, trailer loading is my thing apparently and in less than 20 minutes he loaded himself.  The boarding barn crew didn't seem too happy that I succeeded and I waved cheerfully as I loaded up my truck to head home. 

So here we go, again Project Horse 3436456  "I'll Make It Up" aka Nigel

Pictures BEFORE I got him:

 

Pictures from Day One *sigh:

Katy vs the Canter

Remember how Katy is really supposed to be the treadmill pasture pet?  Well, she's my most advanced and overall easy to ride horse at this time.  She has a show behind her and most always I can count on her to put up with my crap.  Therefore, she is getting "advanced" trained probably more than I like for my sake though, not hers necessarily.

Except Cantering.

We've hit this wall with her cantering and I know its tied to her general iffy relaxation.  For the most part, Katy is chill - until she's not.  When she's not she's high headed, belligerant and just in general fearful.  You can't do anything with her except diffuse the bomb and things will go back to normal.  Luckily she's pretty self preservering so that helps but ugh... when something is bothering her, there's no uhh help?  Its a full on OMG I'M DYING GERROFF GERROFF thing until she can be convinced she's not dying.

Enter her canter lately.

We're working on it being more balanced, responsive, rhythmical - SOMETHING.  This requires me to sit down to varying degrees which she loathes.  Especially to the left.  I can't find any saddle pain and so I'm left thinking its just overall fitness weakness at this time.

Which means we have to work it.

Sarah recommends us just lunging and using side reins and I'm skeptical, but after seeing Katy through THE BIGGEST fit over the side reins, I think we're on to something.  So this starts Katy really accepting the bit (to SOME degree) and the fact that she's going to be "trapped" while doing dressage and that's not a big deal. If I did hunters, Katy would probably love life but alas, I don't and she needs to chill the crap out and relax.  Hopefully we can unlock her jaws of life.

Side rein sessions totally seemed to rock her world in a good way though and I see it carrying over to our half seat canters.  Someday we'll get things together.  And a dressage saddle might make my life easier.

*sigh

Outside Time With Arthur - Gulp

Aside from that one boring bucking thing, Arthur hasn't been any trouble to ride at all.  My anxiety is a bit of a different story, but its getting better.

I had a riding lesson at Sarah's today with Katy and decided I'd bring Arthur to try him "outside" the round pen for the first time.  Normally I wouldn't pick a new location but he normally does better in new places plus I knew Sarah would actually STAY outside in case 911 needed to be called unlike my husband.

Heh.

So I lunge him and he's boringly easy, I tighten his girth and again, boring.  I get on him and he's.. yup boring.  We end up doing walk, trot, half halt and some other small things before calling it quits.  Total ride time had to be less than 20 minutes but he totally rocked it, so why not?

Keep on keeping on project horse!

Arthur Bucks and I Laugh

So now Mr Arthur is working in the round pen.  I'm not sweating to death over getting my foot just in the stirrup and we're basically working on walking and trotting with some turns here and there to install some better steering.

Its not terribly exciting (thankfully) but I suspect Arthur is getting bored too.  Whatever, suck it up bucking pony.

So we've been aiming to ride about 3-4 times a week and its been going decent.  Today was a little different and naturally I'm always waiting for when he finally freaks out.  Can I handle it?  How bad will he be?  What will trigger it now?  Its got to be in him still, right?  I'm not really the horse whisperer (how much easier would life be then?!)

Today we were just trotting, trotting, trotting and suddenly Arthur's head goes a little further down and he's... off.  But not off.  But now his back feels weird. OMG HE'S TRYING TO BUCK!!!  But it was totally in slow motion and I easil ybent him to a stop.  I think he was more confused that the bucking even started... maybe he fell asleep into it?  No idea but it wasn't that bad, I didn't die, and I guess I could do it again if I had to.

But I'd rather not kthnx.

WE WENT TO THE AECS!!!

And just jump judged luls.

Maybe someday but this weekend was not our weekend to actually show at Texas Rose Horse Park.  I mean, there's like qualifications and rules and junk.  Not sure my one spin on Katie at GAG will get me there.  *cough

So hubs had to go to Austin to work so that meant I had to drag the child with me.  Poor kid, right?  Skipping school to do an event.  Granted we woke up at 2:30am to be on the road by 3am but meh, no sympathy!  We headed out in the van (trying to be cost effective and not waste fuel by driving the beast truck) and WHAM!! (literally)  I get a deer smashed into my van.  I even slowed down and junk.  The chick was hanging out in the middle of a four lane divided road and watches, watches, I slow down and then she's all OMG *freaksout* heads one way as I'm slowing down more, scrambles on the concrete, then decides to launch at my car.  Wth.  Basically she glances off, but as the minivan is SUPER SAFE, the crumple zone has crumpled some.

Thanks.

I stop and check the headlamp (which is out naturally) and contemplate heading back home.  QUITTER!  So yeah, I text the hubs and keep on driving.  Nothing was going to fall out the way it was and well, sitting at home all day sounded like a massive fail.  Upon arrival at Texas Rose though, I find out my passenger door won't open and its a bit more gnarly than I thought.  Moop.

We arrive at check in at 6:30a and get our swag, instructions, and gear. I'm not given a Training level fence, just Prelim through Advanced and am like, uh, when does Prelim start?  11am.

Yes, 11am.

I could have avoided the deer issue and been way on time AND dropped my kid off at school if I'd known that ahead of time.  I promise, I coulda picked up the orientation thing later on.  Oh well :P  It gave me a chance to go take some pictures of the Training peeps at the new water complex until my battery on both my camera and phone gave out.  Derp.  I'd only planned on walking to see where my jumps were so it wasn't completely a BAD PHOTOGRAPHER moment.  I did have the spare in the car, so ne'er.

MORE PICTURES

I decide at this point that it was time to move the van right to the course since there was copious amounts of parking there and I knew at the end of the day I'd love it.  We began the long trek back while checking out the fences we were passing.  Wandered back towards the barns where a nice lady offered us a lift on her golf cart.   That got us half the way back and we were good to go.  With the van now in a BOSS position right at the gate for official peeps only on cross country, we sat in the van watching Pacific Rim, charging the phone, and eating our swag snacks.  Pierce took a nap which looking back was a smart move.  Wish I'd thought of it :/

Soon enough it was time to get in position so we packed lots of things and headed out to our jumps in Never Neverland.  Imagine my glee that there was a HUGE TREE and a PORT A POTTY at a great vantage point for the jumps.  I've never been so happy to be near a toilet.  We set up camp and started the day.  Our jumps:

Horses, riders, snack bringers, score sheet takers, all sorts of people came by and it was wonderful.

Somewhere during Intermediate in the afternoon though there were some crowd control issues so I began asking people to move.  This lead to me yelling at a lot of people to MOVE NOW A HORSE IS COMING when "heads up!" wasn't getting it through to them.  Some bizarre person came tweedling up the galloping lane in a golf cart and I was like omg wth?  I mean, golf cart on course = official person but whatever.  Maybe someone let the riff raff in.  Despite my waving and yelling and threatening air stewardess like movements, they kept moving MORE in the way as a horse was coming.

So I screamed.

It was basically an appropriate version of "Move Bitch Get Outta The Way!"

Grumbling, I called in that I needed some muscle as I was running all over about 2 acres to keep my jumps clean plus the lanes.  The TD asked me about the golf cart people and I looked around and pointed at the right one.  "That's the course designer"  I smiled and laugh about how he should know where to stand.

And then I sit down.

And think about it.

Who IS the course designer?

Oh, Captain Mark Phillips.

Derp.

Not a fail moment, not a winning moment, just one of those moments were you can say you screamed at someone like that.  Go me.

I also probably miffed off the TD cause one of my refusals was challenged and I wasn't questioned about it.  When I asked about if I was supposed to be, he asked me questions THEN and I was like huh?  Seems a bit late?  I mean, I saw this! And I used arm motions and such to show.  He ends with, well there was a video and we went with that.  You were wrong.

SHOULD HAVE OPENED WITH THAT.

And so I felt a little dumb for getting all *finger in face* about that, but well.  He asked.  And I'd just gotten off yelling at 5249 people for stumping around like zombies on the course.

Oh and Mark Phillips.

Did I mention that?  Yeah.

The child did alright, he loved the golf carts coming around as the ladies kept giving him snacks and gatorade.  I cut him off and people were like awwww poor kid!  Whatever.  He was covered in so much dirt, candy, food, drink that he looked like a 3 year old and not an almost 7 year old.  I mean, come on.  He also got a blister and LOST HIS MIND about it cause there was like 1 drop of blood.  Naturally as a horse was coming by so I growled at him within an inch of his life to stop yeowling and keep his shit together.

He did and yayness.

The day wore on and Advanced was definitely awesome to watch.  My corner jump made me have to stand out near where they were riding and man, those horses and riders are beastly up close.  It was so cool to see them.

We headed out after that, stopped for some crazy slow DQ (there were NO fast food places on the trip back and forth from my house to there, seriously! Just two Subways and then I went out of my way to find some breakfast at 5 am.  The van was a rock star on the way home and I did some serious soul searching about seeing if I can sell it for what I owe.  Its a great car that's "cheap" to drive, but I can't escape that its costing me WAY more than a tank of diesel for my truck just sitting around. :/  I need to pay off some debts/credit cards/horse trailer and the sooner I do that, the sooner I can do funner horse things.

Sacrifices.

But heading to the AECs, as interesting as the trip was to get there was fun and I'd totally recommend it for anyone that wants to see some awesome riders do some awesome things :)