Metro.

8 years ago, I said goodbye to this wonderful, giving, charming, incredible character. 

He was really one of a kind. He took such good care of me, snuggled me, talked to me every time I popped out from around a corner. He toted my butt around my first real XC courses, and brought me my first big fancy ribbons. He was always there for me.

When his time came, I cried and cried and cried. It was so hard to let him go, but it was the right thing. His body failed him, and I set him free. He shaped my life as a teenager and young adult, and I owe much of where I am today to him. He's even part of my business name. 

I don't know if I believe in spirits and orbs and those kinds of things, but I took at least a dozen pictures of his gravesite the day we euthanized him and only this picture had orbs. Both of them are flying upwards, one over his headstone and one directly overtop Quincy's headstone, which is where I was standing when I took the picture. It wasn't snowing, it wasn't dusty, none of the other pictures have them in there. So, I don't know... but maybe.

I am so lucky to now have old Pmare - his last remaining offspring - with me. She may be off-site at her lessee's place for the time being, but she has a forever home with me. She is wonderful and witchy and every bit his child, and I love her. 

Now, Cuna shares this day with Metro. Keep them in your thoughts, and send Aimee some well-wishes when she's ready to put up a post on it. When our horses hurt, we have to be their stewards and make choices for them... this choice is the hardest one to make, but it is the most selfless and honorable one. Much love to her, and to everyone else who has gone through the same battle. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween!!

Gogo as, well, herself!:

Metro as DINO!:

And Gogo, playing the part of sweet angel:

Enjoy your holiday everyone! Give your horses and dogs some pumpkin cookies and EAT CANDY!

Metro

Reposted from 2011 with small edits, and just as applicable this year as it will be every year.

Oh, my Metro.



Six long years ago, my Metro went to sleep forever. Five years. I can't believe it. Six.
But time heals all pain. My memories of him are strong and rich. The neverending stream of 'what-ifs' that I had running through my head when we euthanized him has settled and faded away. We did right by the Cookieman. We let him be at peace, and let him go to a forever place where there are no seizures, no stall rest, and no painful limbs. And because of his sacrifice, I was able to spend five beautiful years with my wonderful Gogomare, whom I never would have found otherwise. Because of his life, I am now reaching out to his daughter, who is every bit his child and just as lovely.
Even still, I miss him every day.


- Somewhere in time's own space
There must be some sweet pastured place
Where creeks sing on and tall trees grow
Some paradise where horses go
For by the love that guides my pen
I know great horses live again. -





You can honor his memory and read all my Metro posts on the Eventing-A-Gogo blog here. I love you Cookieman, and I miss you with all my heart.

The incomparable Sophie.

After a brief and whirlwind weekend trip from Texas up to Calgary, Canada, I am back home again and (mostly) functional despite how exhausted I am. And I very happy to say that Miss Sophie, the entire reason for my northern journey, was everything I could have wanted her to be.

The trip was short and tiring, but well worth it. After an exhausting flight north on Saturday (which took me from Dallas to Toronto to Calgary... could it have possibly been more out of the way?), we never made it to the barn due to ice, and had to settle for our trailer out to a local indoor the following day. I was all too happy to crash early that night, seeing as the excessive amount of travel, schoolwork and work that I've been doing lately, not to mention looking for a place for Future Hubs and I to move to, has completely worn me out, and I've been severely lacking on my sleep! I got a solid 10 hours, thank god, and awoke at 6am bright and ready to roll.

The sun was just rising as we reached the barn, early dawn still creeping dark around the edges. A Chinook had rolled in early that morning with the typical howling winds that it brings, and I could hardly believe it when I felt the outdoor temperature.... almost 45F degrees!! It hovered around nearly 50F that entire day, which is UNHEARD of in that part of Canada at this time of year. The weather rolled in and rolled right back out again after I left, so I consider myself VERY lucky. (The weather in Dallas yesterday was FAR worse.... 40 degrees and sleeting all day! Barf!) We hooked up the trailer, grabbed all the tack, and proceeded out to the pasture to catch Sophie. I knew exactly who she was from the moment I set foot in the field... she was the first one to notice us, and the first to break away from her friends and walk towards us. She was beautiful... far prettier than I had expected, and in better shape too. Considering that all she has done lately is stand around eating on a roundbale free-choice (no grain, no blankets, no riding, no grooming, no supplements, no nothing at all), she looked really quite good, and actually had something resembling a topline. Must be all that eating exercise!

We loaded her and another mare into the trailer (other mare was owned and ridden by the woman who was trailering us to the indoor), and headed on our way. Once we unloaded, I had a chance to interact with Sophie, grooming, handling, and tacking her on my own. She ties, trailers, stands for the farrier, goes out solo on trail rides, is independent, quiet, and sensible. Her owner said that she had been bucked off twice by her, and that she could be fresh, but I lunged her beforehand and she didn't do a thing.... she was lazy! Her bad habits include pawing and wiggling when bored (like when mounting or standing around... that will stop immediately!). Once on her, I discovered that someone had put quite a lot of time and effort into her... as soon as I picked up contact, she immediately set herself right on the bit, and off we went. Starting off at the trot, she was a bit stiff to warm up, but once we cantered she was much more fluid and smooth. I can't exactly blame her for that... she's 15 and not on so much as a joint supplement, so I understand!

Was she a bit creaky behind? Yes, a little. Not outwardly lame by any means, and it improved dramatically once she got going, so I can't fault her for it. Will be she a serious competition horse? I doubt it, although once she gets on a good joint care program and has some conditioning, who knows how she'll go? I distinctly remember how much a little Adequan and Cosequin did for her father... he was a new horse on them!

She was lovely. Not an extravagant mover in the slightest, but well trained and 110% willing to give anything I asked. She was an absolute peach. I loved her.



Also, don't mind the neon blue Vetwrap on my boot.... busted zipper. So classy, I know. Eventers are resourceful after all....

The rest of my pictures are being cranky and refusing to upload, so I'll have to keep fighting them... ugh!


At this point, we are pending a prepurchase (she will not pass a sport prepurchase, I just want to see what we are working with here in terms of usability), and then we can move right along with things. There are lots of trucks that make this journey on a month basis, and I have a barn potentially lined up, so there are lots of movements in the right direction... without any finality yet, of course. I can't believe this all worked out the way it did.... what luck! What timing! Karma, don't fail me now!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

End of December Analysis

A few days late, that is! I guess I'm not used to having and maintaining goals any more, seeing as the last set of goals I did for myself was in November of 2010. I didn't set a single goal for the entirety of 2011... helpful in some ways, detrimental in others. On the whole, December was very successful for being a simple feel-out month, one in which I tested out Bay Girl's temperament and reactions to stimuli. I honestly can not believe the transformation in her... she's a different animal already and we've only just begun!

December Goals:

1) Continue desensitization to touch (touch with hands, grooming tools, towels, etc, on legs, body, belly, and face)
Success! I've had great luck with touching Bay Girl all over, especially while in the crossties (she still sucks away a bit when you touch her anywhere but her neck when she is out in the pasture). While in the crossties, she lets me touch her face, belly, legs, and everywhere else... hooray! She has also hesitantly been letting me rub her all over with the towel, something she's not particularly sure about yet. This is particularly important to me because she will eventually need to wear a blanket with regularity.... and maybe someday, she will carry a saddle. She is still hesitant about her body being touched while out in the field, but we will continue to work on this.

2) Introduce turnout blanket
Success! Or well, mostly. But just because we got it on once doesn't mean we'll be able to do it again. I intend on making this a regular event in our daily handling, not just on an as-needed basis.

3) Continue working on not just catching, but haltering as well
Again, success! I discovered shortly ago that her aversion to haltering is probably due to the fact that she is quite certain that anything moving towards her head is dewormer. She was probably only ever caught for unpleasanties like that in her former life, and she was reacting accordingly with a "no please don't catch me and shove crap down my throat!" Once I figured that out, haltering her became really quite simple. All I had to do was do it regularly. Eventually, she realized that I was not coming to do something mean and horrible to her. She is still a little hesitant, but this will continue to diminish as time goes on.

4) Work on picking up front and hind feet with no kicking, pulling, or wiggling!
Success! She's actually been better about her hinds than her fronts, very interestingly. She offers up some very small hesitation on occasion with her fronts when first picking them up, but once they are up, she stands quietly for picking and cleaning. She has a bit of thrush on her left front which I am topically treating (would love to give her a good CleanTrax soak but that will NOT be happening anytime soon!!), but it is clearing. I'll have to do a post on her feet.. they are quite interesting!

5) Go on walks around property and desensitize to anything scary we might find!
Success! I didn't focus as much on this as I would have liked, but what walking we did do was successful and pleasant. Her leading needs a bit of work... actually, she needs regular groundwork in general if I am to be honest with myself. I'm not sure how much I wanna do with her being so very pregnant, but this is something that will eventually need to be addressed.



And onto January.....


January Goals:
1) Continue desensitization to touch (touch with hands, grooming tools, towels, etc, on legs, body, belly, and face)
2) Work on blanketing regularly (a few times a week, dangling leg straps, etc)
3) Introduce dosing orally with tasty things (working on deworming phobia)
4) Continue for walks around property
5) Set up a calendar schedule for her (like Gogo's old one)

Basically this is more of the same thing, only on the next level. More handling, more blanketing, more haltering, more leading, more everything! I'll have a calender set up for her soon... but first, I get to go see SOPHIE! T-minus 2 days and I will be sitting on her.... I can't wait!

More Pictures of Sophie

A few recent pictures of the rather saggy Sophie...








It is uncanny how much she looks like her daddy Metro. I mean look!




Although she is a definite improvement on his conformation, bless his poor heart.
Should this work, I think she needs a different name. She is not anywhere near as delicate as the name Sophie implies!

Pieces of Heart Horses.

(A repost from Eventing-A-Gogo. More on the little mare later!)

This story begins with a younger me, my beloved gelding Metro, and a laptop in a college dorm room. I was a freshman, completely enamored with my beast-gelding, and was spending a moment of my free time surfing the vast interwebz for old information about my horse instead of doing something important (homework? Why do that?). Quite by accident, I stumbled upon a sale ad for a bay mare named Chloe in Alberta, Canada. Her sire was listed as Blue Rodeo, Metro's Canadian-registered name. Immediately I perked up. He was her sire? I knew he had been kept a stallion until he was six, and that he had bred a few mares, but didn't know of any actual offspring around anywhere. Sure enough, the fantastic little mare was up for grabs at a fairly hefty price. Video clips of her showed some dressage and galloping cross country. Pictures told of a beautiful, well put together mare. Her description sounded like she was exactly like my Metro, even walking boldly up to a running chainsaw and attempting to put her nose on it (yikes!). I oogled over the ad for weeks, wishing I could somehow find a way to afford a second horse. One day, a big graphic proclaiming "SOLD!" appeared on the front of her ad. Disappointed but not discouraged, I e-mailed the owners and asked if I could be put in touch with her new owner so I could speak with her. After some complicated finagling, and some months down the road, I managed to reach her. We sent countless e-mailed to each other, chronicling our collective related journeys and our precious horses. I was enamored with the little mare.

A year or so down the road, I got back in touch with the mare's owner. We discussed setting up a custom breeding for me for a Windfall baby out of her, now redubbed from Chloe to Sophie. My Metro had died by this time, and I wanted to keep a piece of him alive with me always. This never ended up coming to fruition, as I ended up buying Gogo instead. I told the owner that if she ever needed to find a home for Sophie, she could always contact me and I'd take her in a heartbeat.

We kept in touch over the following few years, just little drop ins to ask how everything was going and how our little mares were doing. Sophie was bred and produced a precious little filly by a Swedish stud, born right in the middle of a horrible storm with no muss or fuss. Life went on as it always had.

A year and a half ago, I couldn't get ahold of the owner. Her e-mail had been changed, and I had to do some serious Googling to find her. It took some time, but I managed to get ahold of her again to see how Sophie was doing. Much to my surprise, she was for sale. The owner was pregnant and no longer had time for her. Would I like to buy her for $10,000? Well, I couldn't exactly afford that random expense, much less keep two horses at the level which I was accustomed (spoiling rotten and sparing no expense), so I unfortunately had to turn her down. I was heartbroken. I wanted that mare so badly it made me ache.

She offered her to me again some months down the road. Again, I couldn't afford to keep two horses, so I declined. I forgot about it in the haze of rehabbing Gogo. We lost touch again.


The week after Gogo died, completely out of the blue, I received another e-mail from the owner. I hadn't spoken to her in nearly a year. Would I still be interested in Sophie, she asked? Price dropped to $2500.



Good lord. Could that timing be better? One door closes, another opens.



This isn't the perfect deal. She's 15. She had an old stifle injury years ago that I know nothing about. I have no idea what she's been up to, if anything. I have to hear back from the owner concerning all of these things. But honestly, with this horse I wouldn't even care if she was just another expensive hayburner looking pretty out in a field. Let's hope she's not, let's hope she's perfectly rideable and wonderful, but either way it wouldn't matter to me. I've been actively pursuing this horse for almost 7 years. She could have three legs in the grave for all I care.



It's interesting about how much resistance I've gotten about this. Everyone says not to even bother thinking about pursuing it. Everyone is absolutely sure that they know what I want. Even my own mother told me I wanted a different kind of horse than this. I think that is all very interesting, seeing as aside from owning a piece of my heart horse, I don't even know what I want. To be fair, externally I imagine it looks like I want another uber-talented youngster who can replace Gogo as a Prelim prospect. In reality, the more that I think about it, the more that I feel ill about the prospect of essentially breaking and killing another horse. Do I want a horse with huge expectations and then be horribly let down when I fail to take them anywhere except to Lameness Town, or do I want something sweet and fun that will pleasantly surprise me if they turn out to be a good riding horse? Do I actually want to look at all of the following: a big, fancy warmblood that will win everything but totally fall apart a few years down the road? A little project mutt that will be fun but might not amount of anything at all? An off the track broken down maniac that might either kill me or itself in the process of turning it around? When you put it all that way, it's hard not to get discouraged about this whole process, and I'm pretty soured off the whole sporthorse ordeal at the moment.



This is not a good picture of her - I will have better ones later - but you can get a vague idea of what she sort of looks like:



She's a lovely lovely girl. I'm set to fly out to see her on the weekend of January 7th and 8th. I can't wait. Who knows? She might be completely unsuitable and useless, and I might hate her and turn her down. But on the other hand, she might be exactly what I need to turn my funk around and get me back on the track that I know I am supposed to be on. Only time will tell.