Red Mare Problems

Breedle Dee has been a bit neglected since Christmas and has decided it is unacceptable. I got a call from the BO that Bre has been kicking Romeo and has made him limp away a few times.  To her credit she gives him tons of warning when she wants her space. For some reason social cues are beyond Romeo. He just doesn't get it. She gives him way more warnings than the average mare would. Bre is the mare who will let horses walk on top of her butt on trail rides. I have had horses literally tuck their noses under her tail on rides and she doesn't care. A girl has to draw the line someplace though... She will give him the ear pin, mare pissy face, cocked back leg, half kick, and only then will he get nailed. Through all of it he is clueless. He will just get closer and closer to her.

Romeo has his this issue in herds before so it isn't just Bre. At seven Romeo isn't going to suddenly figure it out. If he hasn't caught a clue by now he is never going to. You could say horses will be horses but we can't have Romeo get hurt. I was surprised to hear that things have gotten bad but once we started talking about it the reason behind her increased irritability became clear. Red Mare needs to be worked!!

We don't have this issue in the summer. In the summer she gets ridden by the BOs family and a myriad of teenage girls. Bre will also work herself when the footing is good. I kid you not, she will herd Romeo around like they are being lunged calm as can be. We didn't have the problem last winter but our arena had great footing to run around in until March. She was also being ridden by Romeo's Girl all winter. This year our arena is crud and RG has been busy with high school. I am pretty sure Bre is just stir crazy from lack of work. She is feeling good from her Legend shots and acupuncture. As if to tell me this hypothesis is right on Bre escaped on Weds. She went out of her way to jump a hedge just for the fun of it. Then she ran up and down the driveway just because she could.

Luckily the BOs niece has outgrown her horse and asked to start riding Bre. Apparently she fell in love with her this summer. I am also moving to day shift so I will have more energy to get her moving. I can't wait for it to dry out and get sunnier. I am getting testy with all this rain too. I know how she feels. Does anyone else have horses who get crabby in the mud season?

Who Me?

Accidentally Deleted Comments SORRY!!

Allision, Teresa, and Lisa all left me lovely comments and I clicked DELETE instead of publish. So sorry. It must be all the codiene cough syrup and steriods going to my brain. I read the comments and loved them. Thanks so much!!!

Fun Horse Blog from Down Under

I have been reading a lovely blog about a horse named Allie and her loving momma. Lately the blog has been focused on a New Year Equestrian Challenge. The Challenge is a daily list of questions to blog about. I am having a wonderful time reading her blog and thinking about my own questions to these answers. If you have seen it already check it out. Guaranteed to make you smile and bring back many similar horsey memories.

Allie and Grace's blog

What are your best memories?

Miss My Ponies!!!!

I had my lovely planner, Dickie's big boy saddle was in the mail, I was very very motivated with that show coming up soon.... Then my nose started to run a little and I was coughing on Friday. I didn't think too  much about it because I have asthma and terrible allergies. Saturday I had a make up Christmas dinner planned with my mom and once I woke up I realized I was sick. I didn't want to cancel because we had already put it off once. Sweating and coughing I made it through cooking a full turkey dinner with the help of my much Better Half and the BFF. (Don't worry the BFF was the one who touched food, and there was lot's of hand sanitizer on my part). The day came off without a hitch but by the end of it I felt sicker than I have been in years. That is saying a lot because I constantly had some kind of cold in nursing school. And pneumonia is frequently the exclamation point to the end of my colds due to my asthma.

Super yummy feast!!!

Long story short I have been in bed since Sunday. My biggest activities are eating food someone else cooked and the daily washing of my sweat drenched sheets (sexy huh). I am missing three days of work in all this and am out of sick days (I am a new employee without much accrual and already had a few colds). I work on a transplant unit and my patients are all taking immunosuppresants. I don't think they would appreciate this bug. I finally had the energy to go to urgent care yesterday. I had grand plans of being able to drive myself but that was short lived and I got a ride. I have pneumonia and a major asthma flare. The good news is I have two 60mg doses of prednisone in me at this and can breathe a little better. Still a bit of a mess but being able to lay flat without wheeze/hacking is amazing. I didn't realize how bad my breathing was until it is starting to get better.

Polishing my show boots is the closest I can get to the barn right now. 

I miss the ponies so much. This was going to be a good week for riding. Next week I really need to focus on Dickie and Romeo for the show. I am so grateful my horses are being taken care of. Josey's mom even saved my by picking up grain for Dickie. The big man can't go hungry. He's probably already a pain in the ass with the lack of handling. I can't imagine him at dinner time with no vittles in his bucket. Dickie's new saddle is sitting on the couch calling to me. I sat on it a few times since I can't put it on a horse yet. It has the med-wide gullet installed but it looks pretty narrow. I think it will fit the baby boy right now. I was hoping he med-wide would fit the grown up horses because I also have a med for Dickie. I think the grown ups will probably need a wide. The saddle looks really amazing for a synthetic. The gullet is nice and wide. The panels look even and balanced. I hope it fits Dickie but between all the horses I ride I know it will fit one of them. I miss having a close contact. I am a dressage girl at heart but there are things I don't like to do in a dressage saddle. 

Watch out ponies. I can jump in this one!! 

What To Bring in the Show Ring Bucket?

This is a question for readers out there. What are your must haves for the ring side bucket (or tote, or whatever you use) ?

I haven't shown in ages and I want to make sure we have the important stuff handy. Here is what I plan on keeping ring side:

1. Extra yarn/bands to for last minute braid/band crisis. Or for unanticipated tack/clothing crisis requiring McGiver repairs.
2. Hoof Polish
3. Boot rag
4. Horse rag
5. Hair spray
6. Water spray bottle
7. Scissors
8. Baby oil
9. Body brush
10. Tail brush
11. Show Sheen
12. TREATS!!!

What else? I like to keep it as simple as possible. I don't want to pack the barn around with us but I want those last minute things that make you look extra shiny in the ring.

Dickie loves a Job

December was a weird month for us. I had a few weeks where I was only able to get out there twice. Most of the month I didn't make it over to the big arena. I was either too tired or getting through the gate was too stressful. A spring comes up when it is really rainy and the creek goes right through the gate to the arena. Getting back through the gate is super stressful and deserves a post of it's own so I will revisit it at a later date. 

We have still spent time together and made some great progress. We have been going on walks past the scary llamas and up to the loud bust street. He will tie in his stall for up at an hour even when he has ants in his pants. We wears his saddle so often now that he thinks it is just part of treat/cuddle time. I whack it on him, shake the stirrups, drop it next to him and whatever else might accidentally happen during his lifetimes. I can put my foot in the stirrup and jump up and down like a crazy person. I can knee him in the side and poke him with my toe. One thing I like to instill in any horse I train is that people are weirdos. They make noise, trip, fall, make horses wear ridiculous things, they wear noisy clothes..... People are unpredictable nut jobs and the sooner horses accept it the better things will go for every one involved. After almost 13 years Bre just rolls her eyes when I get a wild hair and do something really stupid. 

So December wasn't a total wash for training. However, I have found that this horse really likes to be physical. He seems to thrive off work. I do need to balance that with cuddle time because he is offended if I just come out after a few days off then expect him to work (I swear he is such a mare sometimes). When I am round pending him and working him in the arena he is a million times easier to handle in hand. He is calmer and more focused. I think he is going to be one of those horses that you need to ride regularly. Bre loves to go on adventures and is also up for anything but she is perfectly happy to be just a pet. I think he is going to be like me TB mare who needed to work. We finally made it back into the arena on Weds and it was like he never left. He was definitely wild on the lunge to start (he's two) but he was listening, remembered voice commands, and wasn't out of breath. I have finally figured out which days the arena is clear of jumps so I am looking forward to getting down a lunge schedule. If the jumps aren't the arena we can use the long sides so I can work him a little longer without worrying about the strain of circles on his maturing body. 

I am also looking forward to riding him! It barely over a month he will be three. My new saddle will be here early next week. We aren't going to do much but I think he is going to respond well to work. If the jumps are up so I can't lunge for long I will be able to get on and walk him around. He handles longer training sessions really well as long as I keep changing our focus about every 15 mins. Riding him will mean I can do a 15 min lunge, in hand work for 15 mins, then ride for 15 mins. 

He's wearing a big boy saddle and breast collar. 

We've been working on getting him to stay put until I ask him to come. 

He can be trusted for kisses now without loves bites. 

He kept getting into the bucket of burrs and ending up with him all over his face. 

He is so friendly and followed us around like a dog in the pasture. 

"Are you sure you don't want me in your personal space?"

"If you love me you will take those gloves off and hand them over"

Three in one day?

Last summer I had high hopes of getting back in the swing of riding. I had stolen Josey from my new BFF. I was getting Romeo tuned up. And I even had a new saddle that Bre deemed acceptable to ride her in. Then Josey started to have some health issues, the arena at Bre's went to mush, and the December holiday season sucked my free time away like a black hole. I was also rejecting organizing my time and opting for doing what felt good in the moment. This worked well for sunny summer days and not so hot for depressing mud filled downpours. Right out of nursing school I couldn't bring myself to use a planner. I think it was a case of PTSD. Working full time, being class president, owning a horse, and nursing school meant I literally scheduled my time in 15 minute increments. After rejecting my planner for six months I went back to scheduling my days and it already feels better. 

Josey is feeling fat and sassy. So sassy that she gave her owner a little buck and scoot this week. Her owner had a lovely ride after Josey kicking her heels up a little. It has been a struggle to get the right saddle for her. She is a draft cross so she is wide but she isn't draft wide. She is like a big full QH bar type of wide. She also has withers and for some reason saddle makers think that wide horses don't have withers. She is wide all the way up her wither rather than having bony TB withers. If you just get a wide saddle thinking it will work they often sit on her withers. As a result I think she has had many saddles that don't fit right over the years and that resulted in some protests when asked to trot/canter. 

Josey's momma got her a wintec dressage saddle and she LOVES it. She hopped right into the canter for me yesterday. That was new. I think park of the issue was not knowing the canter command but having a comfy saddle helped too. She also had the most forward lovely trot. She still isn't quite stretching into the bridle but she's bending around circles and isn't resisting. After the ride I could see that her back muscle had come up. What a good pony. 

The BO and I made a date to ride yesterday. It was really fun because we are both getting back into riding after a break. Because we board away from the main barn it can be hard to motivate myself to make the trek over with twice (once with Dickie, once with Josey). If I have a date with someone I am much more likely to actually follow through. After our ride she offered to let me ride her horse. He was super fun. He is a 7 or 8 year old quarab. He has a much quicker stride than I am used to but once he settles down it is a nice trot. I really enjoyed him and I hope she lets me get on again. 

After ladies riding date it was time for a lesson on Romeo. It started out fantastic. We went in the snaffle to make sure all the basics are still there. He wasn't chomping and was asking to stretch forward from the first lap around the arena. She had ridden bareback the day before to fix her leg position and she was back to her lovely seat. Then all hell broke lose. Romeo saw something that struck fear into his very soul. We aren't sure was that thing was. We think maybe he saw the BO's Newfoundland out of the corner of his eye and thought it was a hungry bear (he has seen this dog many times by the way). His initial spook was a bolt across the arena straight at me. I saw my life flash in font of my eyes but somehow I managed to get out of the way. It took a good hour and half before we could get him to go around the arena without trying to sit and bolt. RG must have velcro in her butt because she sat up like a champ through it all. I ended up hopping on for the last 45 mins. She was doing great but getting worn out and my years of riding a screwy TB made me well equipped to deal spaz spooks. At the end of the ride he was jogging by the door on a lose rein but he was still convinced that something was coming through the door to eat us all. 

Romeo has is occasional spazzy moments but this was something I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it. I hope RG isn't too worried that it will happen at a show. I bet it will never  happen again. In a way it was good for her to learn how to deal with a nut ball horse. She did really well. Most people would have been in the dirt or too frozen to really ride him through it. It was also good for me because I was beginning to wonder if I still had it it me to deal with equine insanity. It has been so long that I wonder if I can get my mojo back. I still have it. It is under ten inches of fat and atrophied muscle but with a little work I will be ready for the Dickster. 

Needles to say my abs are a bit tender today but I love it.