Pax - 4 weeks old!

If you've been paying attention to the news lately, you'll know that Texas appears to be being biblically flooded out. I guess the deities saw that Greg Abbot got voted in as governor, and they decided to drown us and start Texas over again from scratch (not a terrible idea really). Unfortunately, so far our literal 40 days and 40 nights of rain has basically put a huge damper on not only the show season, but the thought of working the horses at all. Not to mention the fact that trying to move while it is raining EVERY SINGLE DAY is just awful. Everything is covered in mud, everything is dirty, and everything is wet. And it sucks.

May's show season was supposed to be thick and full - three shows right in a row. Then it started raining right after Sunrise Ridge, and hasn't stopped since. After Sunrise Ridge, I didn't work O for two weeks, then loaded up and headed right to the Games Day, where she did super well as you know. Then I couldn't do literally anything else, because it started raining even more, and every day. Even during the sporadic breaks in the rain, everything is bogged down in massive mud - there's no decent footing ANYWHERE you go, and even if you did try you'd either ruin the ground or ruin your horse's legs. There has been nothing that anyone can do really (at least not with the move. When the move is complete, I can trailer out again). 

The Carriage Classic at the beginning of the month got cancelled due to the weather. Then the Games Day, slated for the following weekend, also got rescheduled due to the weather. It was supposed to be held today, but once again, it had to be cancelled because of the weather. The last show I was supposed to do was Pine Hill, which is in fact running, but is also this weekend - and this is the weekend my parents came down to help us with the move and setting up things in the new house. Seeing as I literally haven't hooked my horse once in nearly a month - and have only been able to lunge her twice - it's not like we were remotely ready anyway. But, it sucks, there's no way around that.

I have no idea when or if it is ever going to stop raining. Tentatively we are going to the Cowboy Country HDT in mid-June, and hopefully the ADT in late June, but we'll just have to see how the weather holds! When I get my cart over to the new house, I will at least be able to drive up and down the roads, if nothing else. O is acting crazy possessive and protective over the baby though, so it might be kind of a rodeo to start.

In much better news, Pax turned 4 weeks old on Thursday! With my parents coming in and the move going on, I haven't really had much time to sit down and write about it. (Technically I should be up and showering right now, but oh well, I wanted to blog so I'm gonna do it!) I can't believe she is already a month old. She is growing like a weed and is just gorgeous.

When it was warm and sunny for 10 minutes, a million flies and mosquitos came out. Everyone got their flymasks, even Pax:

If that doesn't make you feel all warm and squishy inside, you might be a dead person, because baby horses in baby horse flymasks are adorable.

She also does many 'adult' things now, such as:

Grooming: 

Oh yea that's the spot

Picking up her little feet (and she'll get her first trim in a few days!):

Standing 'tied' (meaning, the lead rope has one turn around the fence and she can easily pull free if something happens - but she understands pressure now and she stops if the rope tightens. Don't actually tie your baby horse, their necks are SO fragile at this stage - teach them about pressure first, and then everything goes from there!):

She is too wiggly to stand well for conformation pictures... this is about the best one I managed to get:

She also learned about blankies for the first time (although I did stick one on her as a neonate for a new minutes). The other day I pulled in to feed them breakfast, and Pax was absolutely soaked and shivering hard. P is a feral beast, and doesn't like to go in her shed when it rains, so she makes Pax and O stand out in the rain with her. Pax obviously isn't going to leave her mother, and O isn't going to leave either one of them, so they just stand there and shiver miserable next to P while she, blissfully unaware of the rain, eats or naps.

No, she's not massively roachbacked - just had the MAJOR butt squinches due to the cold rain! I conned them into the shed for some alfalfa.

So, we learned about wearing a baby blanket:

It's kind of like a mini skirt, but it works

As you can see in the pictures, O is always super concerned about her tiny friend, and P kind of doesn't care. O and Pax go off and do their own thing all the time, and P ignores them to eat. 

I did get to lunge O for about 15 minutes the other day, inbetween rainstorms... it wasn't much but it was something!

 And now it's pouring again.... sigh!!

Red Mares Can't Jump

Hmmm. I may have a small problem on my hands. I have an athletic, talented red mare who is a total ATV, goes anywhere and does anything, loves to run through the water, is totally brave, is a pretty mover, and can go forever without tiring. Primo eventer material, right? Only, there is one problem... her form over fences. It just.... isn't good. At all.

I had seen videos of her freejumping as a youngster, and I had written about her not-so-great form before. I was really hoping that she would improve with time, with schoolings, with grids, with knocking into some solid XC fences a few times. I thought she was doing well. 

Then I got to see the pics from the schooling show.... wow. Her form was AWFUL. Here's the VERY best one, where she kind of looks like a halfway normal horse (but this was partway over the jump... the picture taken right before it had one front leg underneath her and a knee hanging badly):

(That's the one I purchased. The rest of them I hope to never think about again!)

Hmmmm. Well, I thought, it must be me, I'm restricting her in the front.... so how about I lunge her over some XC obstacles and see how she does with that?

That was a mediocre experiment at best. She flopped, flailed, and smashed into them repeatedly. She hung knees, twisted in the air, and in general just made a total mess of herself. The bigger they got, the worse the form was. 

Sigh. That is slightly depressing. She is built to do it.... but she's just not great at it. She's not AWFUL.... but she is seriously inefficient with her legs/body. If she doesn't learn to get out of her own way, it is only a matter of time before she seriously hangs a leg.

Here's the thing though... I'm disappointed in her form, but I'm not entirely upset. Why? Because she is so talented in SO many other fields, and will be SO good at so many other things! I haven't 100% decided to give up on making her into an event horse - she is such a cute mover, definitely enjoys galloping and jumping, and can't be beat in terms of bravery. I am a serious believer in not giving up on something, and that if you put in the miles the rewards will come. With more work on the canter, and more work through grids... who knows? Maybe she'll transform! But, maybe she won't. I don't really know. 

What else do you do with an athletic little red mare who loves to run fast and turn sharp and go go go go go?

These are all things I bet she would be GREAT at. She loves to chase cows - I bet if I practiced roping some more we could do some breakaway stuff. (I don't really think it is totally ethical though... so likely not.) She thinks running barrels is the most fun thing ever! Once she gets going she will be SUPER at it. She would also be fantastic at poles, and we have barrels and poles to play with! We're not going to do the Tevis of course, but some LDs would be easy to condition for at this rate, considering how fit she already is - and who knows, maybe a 50 would be doable! Combined driving is what I REALLY think this mare would be awesome at, and what I have ALWAYS wanted to try - it's like eventing without the jumping part! Any sort of carriage sport is ridiculously expensive to get into though... I hope we can take some lessons, but as for right now I will have to stick with the ground driving. I have a client who competed in combined driving, and she told me I can come be her navigator next year!

The problem is that I have this overriding guilt about deliberately *not* aiming for the AECs when they are RIGHT here in Texas. They will only be here for two more years, and then they will go off somewhere else. If I wait, I will lose precious time. 

Wait. Wait, I have a very small mare here who wants to try her hand at being an eventer!

(Can you find the bot fly in the picture that was making her so upset?) 

Same as O, I bought her as a sale horse, and she will sell if I find the right home... but would she not be ADORABLE as an eventer? I wish she was a hand taller, but still!

This could all work out after all!!!

Some More Comparisons!

O-Ren, not quite 4 weeks with me:

P-mare last February (2012), and P-mare this April:

Immy last March (2012), and Immy this April:

There was a long discussion on Facebook about why she was so unhealthy last year (check out her crappy body condition and her ripply feet!) but was still covered in shiny dapples, and is way way healthier this year but doesn't have a single dapple... I assumed it was because of possible ongoing gastric issues (she gets cowpats at the drop of a hat and stresses so easily, despite the one million things I've done for her - at this point we're thinking she may have permanent intestinal scarring from years of stress/parasites/poor diet), but someone mentioned that pregnancy hormones can do that too, and sure enough, some Google-sleuthing confirmed that for me. She's clearly a LOT healthier this year regardless.

Also, check out the changes in her feet, from flat, flared and ripples to well-connected and strong:

Just goes to show that sweet feed is JUNK FEED! It is my personal opinion that there is NEVER any reason to feed sweet feed to horses, EVER! 

3 Week Picture

3 weeks of work, and O-Ren is already changing....

I'll have to get some better pictures of her in the sunlight, she's starting to really shine!