NTW Romp in the Willows 5/14/16

Well, that was about as bad at the last Romp in the Willows. Meaning, not the worst show ever, but it very prominently highlighted what happens to O when she is faced with things she is really good at, and faced with things she is really not good at. She is really, really good at going fast, having endless endurance, and tight turns. She is really, really bad at precision work that requires a lot of careful, slow maneuvering and frequent stops. 

There are three parts to the Romp - an obstacle course, a cones course, and a XC course where you have to pick up ribbons along the way and return them to the timer at the finish. O is really good at two of those things. The obstacle course? Oh man. It was total carnage. It was a different course than the last Romp, but we did just as horribly as we did last time. And came in the same place too - dead last.

Since the map looks confusing, I'll explain the course. The first obstacle is a big board bridge which the horses must go over. The second is a narrow wooden channel - you have to drive one wheel into the channel and drive through the entire channel with that one wheel still in it - which is way harder than it sounds. The third was a narrow raised obstacle that you had to drive through without knocking anything down. The fourth was a push through gate made of a pool noodle that was elevated and set between two standards - the horses had to push the gate with their chests and walk through it. The fifth was an alleyway made of flutter flags. The sixth was a tiny little board, like 12"x12", that you had to stop one wheel on and stay there until the judge told you to proceed. The 7th and 8th were a barrel that had mail on it, and a mailbox that you had to put the mail in and raise the flag. The ninth was a back up knockdown U-shaped obstacle where you had to pass it, turn, and back into it, knocking down the back rail (but not the side rails) before proceeding on. The final obstacle was crossing the bridge again, and exiting.

I thought for sure O was going to have a way better time than she did last time. She was feeling zen all morning, taking a nap while we waited for our turn. I thought for sure we were going to be fine. And it did start off fine. O crossed the bridge with no issues, approached the wooden wheel channel, and actually successfully executed it on the first go. It was great! And then, at the very end of the channel, she just stopped dead of her own accord. All I could think was, ohhhhh no here we go. That is her default when she is about to get all kinds of fried. Sure enough, we got into obstacle 3 and made it halfway through, but when we tried to turn to exit, she stopped dead again, backed up, jackknifed the carriage, and would NOT move again. I actually reached out and patted her butt to tell her it was ok, because it was all the way over to my right side and I could reach it. We continued on, went very successfully through the pool noodle gate (which creamed SO many people - I saw SO many horses either freak out or actually jump over it, complete with airborne carriage... not good!!), went through the flutter flag alley fine, stopped right on the square fine, picked up the mail and put it in the mailbox fine. All went fine. Then we tried to back into the U, and.... nope. Unfortunately with the 4 wheeler, it is SUPER easy to jackknife and not back up straight, so we couldn't get it straight. Just couldn't do it. I tried to get her in line, but kept having to walk her forward and straighten her out, which just did absolutely nothing for her brain. Finally, we backed into the wrong portion, knocked down the wrong side, and I just gave up and decided to go on. Unfortunately, she was still completely sulled up and wouldn't go forward again. Eventually after FOREVER I got her going, got her over the bridge, and then tried to get her to trot forward and exit - but halfway between the bridge and the exit, she just stopped dead again when I clucked at her to go forward. She started to back up, jackknifed the carriage again, mowed clean over the entire bridge complex and all the cones and numbers associated with it, and then again wouldn't go forward. She just stood there. Forever. Completely unresponsive to anything I did. Finally, she moved on, but I actually had to get someone to lead her out of the gate because she would NOT go forward. 

It's just her thing. It's why I bought her for $500. She was so fried when I got her that she would not. Go. Forward. You would sit on her to ride, and she would just stop dead and refuse to move every time you would put your leg on. You could thump her in the ribs, whail on her with a crop, or even just pet her and tell her it was all going to be okay. None of it worked. And, none of it works now. When she checks out, she is just DONE and that's the end of it. I can't do anything about it - physically there is just nothing. I just have to sit there and wait for her to come to her senses, and then she will move on. 

This really annoyed me for a long time. I gave you a command horse, you need to listen and do it. I felt for a long time that just letting her stand there was letting her get away with it. But it did not take me long to learn that there is no physical way to manhandle her into compliance. If you try, she is going to rearflail and completely unravel. And you STILL won't get anywhere - you'll just have an even more upset horse. And what good is that?

So, when she checks out to No Brains Town, I let her stand there and completely take the pressure off. I let her try to come back to her senses. And *then* we try again. There is just no way to train a horse whose brain has completely shut down. The only thing that can come of forcing that checked-out horse to do something it doesn't understand is someone getting hurt. 

And, it's okay. I understand that these things are very hard for her mentally, and mental overload just shuts her completely down. I know this about her, and I accept this about her. It's something I don't believe can be changed. She finds precision work super mentally challenging, and she always has. She is who she is, and she doesn't make apologies for it. And I can respect that about her, because she is always 100% honest with me. She doesn't misbehave just to misbehave - she misbehaves when she truly and honestly can't deal with something. She is SO very good at the things she is good at, and just SO very bad at the things she is bad at. There isn't really a middle ground for her.

One thing she is great at - total immobility when waiting our turn to go. I could probably take a nap up there

Right from the exit of the obstacle course, we cantered down the road and then trotted right into the cones course. She zipped around it like it was a piece of cake, not terribly fast but completely compliant and willing. She finished 2nd, and then we untacked for lunch and hung around, everyone commiserating about how hard and crazy the obstacle course was.

After lunch was a rather abbreviated XC course. Most of the property is currently underwater; the organizer had to change the location of the XC course and had it significantly shortened. I borrowed the owner of the carriage to ride with me, and O cruised around it like it was no problem, stopping obediently at each ribbon stop (we had to pick up a ribbon at checkpoints and then give these to the timer at the end). She did well, finishing 2nd and being extremely compliant - she listened to every command, everything I had to say. See what I mean? She is totally happy to listen and obey when she understands things - she is all about straightforward concepts. She is such a straightforward cut-and-dried kind of personality herself that I think she is just attracted to the same kinds of ideas - you go fast in a straight line here, you turn fast here. Simple, easy to understand, and completely clear. As soon as you get to nitpicking her, she doesn't take it well - too much sensory overload. Even a jointed metal snaffle is too much sensory overload for her - she needs her Happy Mouth mullen mouth, which is about as straightforward and simple of a concept as a bit can be. In anything else, she gets to rattling and clacking her bit, short-circuits herself, and takes off. I'm sensing a common theme here... 

So, it wasn't a *bad* show per se. The cones and the XC were of course fun, because O is good at those things and does them well. The obstacle course really was rough though. It was just as rough as the last time we attempted it. And I can't say it will be less rough the next time, if I choose to do the next Romp in the fall. (Although maybe I will have a moole to show next time!) To be completely honest the only reason I went to this one was because I am point chasing this year - I want Horse of the Year points, and this is a show that counted. We unfortunately probably were knocked back several pegs after this show, which kind of sucks. I've complained before about the organizer showing in her own shows, but of course she once again was Champion in our division at this show. Again. As usual. The only thing that made the placings less crummy is the fact that the Reserve in our division went to a lady who works really, really hard but has a difficult horse and she always gets beaten by us at every show. Today she beat us, and she looked like she was almost going to cry because she was so happy. The organizer doing all the organizing and then winning it all is annoying as usual, but the other lady getting Reserve gave me the warm fuzzies. I can totally get behind her beating us for once, because she really does deserve it. 

Next weekend we have a clinic, which I am really looking forward to. Then comes Pine Hill and immediately after is Stillwater! Holy crap time is flying by! 

Future Event Horse Series - Maybe?

Having baby horses is just the most fun thing on planet Earth. Having been the first person to handle Pax literally from the moment she was born (I pulled her out, if you remember!), and having been largely the only one to handle her thus far, it has really just been SO NICE to have a little beast who doesn't need nine million things fixed, retrained, and reschooled. I've had largely nothing but adult horses needing much in the way of fixing over the last several years, so to have this little babe from scratch - I just love it. Pax is smart, and easy, and doesn't question things. Her main problem is that she is overly friendly and sometimes all up in your space, as heavily handled babies tend to be. She likes me, and she thinks I am super interesting, so whenever I come into the pasture, she is the first to come straight to me. Things don't frighten her, and even when they do cause her concern, she readily accepts them as just part of her baby world - like a little sponge, she just sucks it up. She is still very immature about many things - she is only 10 months old, after all! - but her brain will mature as her body does. 

I have no intention of rushing anything with her, or doing things that I don't think she is mentally or physically capable of until she is really ready for them. That said, I was mulling it over and over in my head recently, and I decided - why not do the yearling section of the Future Event Horse series this year, if she is mentally capable? 

The Future Event Horse program, if you are not familiar with it, is run by the USEA. It is not to be confused with the Young Event Horse program, which showcases the potential talent of 4 and 5 year olds under saddle. I don't really agree with many of the things they are asking these super young horses to do under saddle, so I wouldn't participate in that series if I ever get back to eventing. But the FEH is shown exclusively in-hand, and evaluates the potential for horses as upper level event horse prospects.

Is Pax really an upper level event prospect? Eh, not really. I think she is and will be totally capable of cruising around mid-level, with either myself should I decide to get back into eventing (and maybe I will!), or with another person should that time ever come. But, I think these programs are great exposure for these babes - they are local, they are pretty low-key and they are good life experience. There are a few of them within two or so hours of me, so we wouldn't have to go on long stressful trips or spend extended periods of time away from home. Since there are only a few of them a year, the rest of the year she can go be outside growing and playing like any baby should - and this is highly encouraged by the program. They specifically state that it is more important for a baby to be turned out and look a little scruffy versus be super shiny and slick and fat from standing in a stall, which I really appreciate. 

I started looking up dates for the FEH events in our area. Oh crap.... there is one at the end of next month. That is NOT very far away!

On Wednesday, I loaded and took Pax around the block in the trailer, as her first ever totally solo ride. She has been in the trailer with her mother a few times, and practiced loading by herself at home, but hadn't ever been totally shut in and going down the road by herself. She handled it well, and only had a minor fit when we got back home and all of her idiot marefriends started having a total panic attack. Even Dylan was going, "I don't know these beasts..." Pax almost fell down when trying to turn herself around in the standing stall (not small enough to do that anymore!), caught herself, then stood still and waited to be unloaded. She still can't figure out how to back out, but she is able to turn around and walk cautiously down the ramp. Thankfully she is not a leaper - she is a thinker, mostly.

The side-eye is strong with this one

Yesterday, I decided I had better see how she was going to handle going off property for the first time by herself. I figured she would be pretty awful, as babies tend to be. and boy was I ever right. She was just AWFUL, although she did eventually settle down some.

I can't blame her for her awful behavior. Going off property for the first time is scary. Being without your herd is scary. Seeing things like cows for the first time is scary. It is quite a thing, to be frightened of these things. But, my main problem was not that she was afraid of things. She wasn't afraid, not like I expected. She screamed bloody murder the entire time for the other horses, and she did spook half to death when she saw the cows go by, but her main problem was her fallback tantrums she has when something is overwhelming for her. When she can't handle something (as toddlers are wont to do), she goes into bananas bersek mode and comes at her handler, She doesn't try to get away from you, she tries to come at you. This works in the pasture, because at 10 months old she is the literal boss of the entire mare herd. She shakes her head and she shoves her body around, and all of the other mares - her own mother included - get out of her way. And P herself is kind of a cow sometimes, and fully had her old owner taken advantage of in the same way - she just barged around, and the old owner got out of the way. She doesn't do it with me, but I know she would if I let her.

It's not like this is anything new. I've been dealing with this attitude since she was a neonate. I sat on her and squashed her more times than I can count when she was very small. I still have a mark on the back of my neck from where she reared up and struck me with her little needle hooves as a very tiny babe.

About 2 weeks old, trying to kill me

She's not nasty about it. She doesn't pin her ears, or bite, or kick, or be mean. She just barges her giant brown body around and she expects this to get the point across... like her mother does.

Needless to say, there was some major baby beating going on in that area for a little while.



BUT, that all said, somewhere in the middle of all of that, I took her back to the trailer and tied her for awhile longer. She gradually became more quiet, ate some hay, and actually stood still. I took her back in the arena, practiced some more handling, and was pleased to find that she was listening. She loaded well back on the trailer, rode well all the way home, and today seems to not hate me for having put her through this ordeal.

Pax know how to stand still in an open position, leads very well at the walk, and trots in hand better than nearly all the other horses on my property (save for O, who is super good at this). She just.... has these giant baby tantrums.

Her reaction to seeing cows

SO much side-eye

There are cows over there and cows are outside my worldly knowledge or comprehension

So, I think the FEH at Meadowcreek next month is still on. She will stand, lead, and trot in hand fine, I am sure of that. She just might, you know, show off some of her redheaded side at the same time. If you're going to Meadowcreek... you might want to some watch the fireworks!

The Girls, in a Nutshell

P and O are pretty much completely opposite personalities. I've talked about it before, but sometimes it cracks me up to think about how utterly different they are from one another. O is quick to look at stuff, lose focus, be playful, zoom around, and spook (goofily) at stuff. All of that nonsense is beneath P - she wants to eat, and meander, and NOTHING concerns her outside of that.

Now, I have a photo that perfectly sums up their attitudes towards life.

The girls, in a nutshell: O is very concerned about A Thing over there, and P is, well, not.

That about sums it up perfectly!


I also happened to catch some video of their personalities - O loves to buck, leap, and play, and P just... kind of doesn't care about anything, and doesn't feel the need to ever go faster than a casual saunter.

Mares... what would I do without them!

End of October Analysis; November Goals!

November is here and the weather is PERFECT. Sunny with temps in the mid-70's.... who can complain about that!

Our October goals seem to have completely collapsed mid-month. Not being certain that I want to actually event O after all (after giving her form over fences a long, hard look) has really thrown everything to the wind for the moment for her. I'm still 100% undecided on whether or not I want to keep trying to make her an eventer or if I want to turn our focus to other things (or do both at the same time).... I really don't know what I want to do. I'm so competitive that it is hard for me to abandon ideas!

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O-Ren October Goals:

1) Continue working on w/t/c dressage work, REALLY focus on the canter!
That fell through completely. Our w/t dressage work is just lovely, but we didn't focus on the canter hardly at all... we were doing other things instead!

2) Continue with jump schools - gymnastics, cantering courses! 
Nope... again, it fell through completely. Same reason as above.

3) XC schooling - any schoolings possible, work on BN fences and BANKS!
Same story, total collapse of structure!

4) Revise show schedule - what do we want to do this fall vs. this spring?
Well, I DID do that at least.... I have a whole new plan!

5) What else do we want to play with? Driving, poles, barrels, roping, trails - make some loose plans for other fun things!
Now THIS is what I really focused on. I've been in touch with a carriage maker who is local (the ONLY driving person this side of Dallas) who will give me some driving lessons soon, I hope! When S gets back from all her travels, we're making a pact to go to a barrel race a week (or every other week) - there are SO many around, several a week, all local! We'll start to exhibition, like we did at Glen Rose, but this is something she is probably going to be really good at, so it won't take long to get going faster. I have to set up the poles... they are sitting out and I don't know how to properly space them, so I have to wait for S to come back. (Or maybe I will look it up myself!) We are going to our FIRST little endurance ride NEXT WEEKEND! It is just the Intro division - it's only 9 miles - but this will give me a good idea of what to expect. I need to get my physical issues under control through... my calf cramp is making longer rides miserable. 

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O-Ren November Goals:

1) Really consider the eventing question.... to keep at it or no?

2) Get through our first endurance ride alive! And look for the next one!

3) Continue patterning on the barrels... and try poles!

4) Chiro adjustment! She hasn't needed anything so far but it pays to be proactive!

5) Continue long-lining, all over the place!

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And of course, Tre needs her goals too!

Trebuchet November Goals:

1) Get going under saddle.... good behavior, w-t-c!

2) Trailer out to a few places... behavior in the trailer and at the places we trailer to!

3) Start going out on trails with a buddy.... work on being a good girl!

4) Tack... try to find some things that actually fit her tiny shrimp size!

5) Put on some weight and muscle!

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Tre is doing really, really well on the lunge, and not so well under saddle. When you buy a horse for as cheap as I did - a horse that supposedly had physically problems, but so far hasn't taken so much as a gimpy step - you wonder how much wasn't told to you. She just turned 5, so she's young anyway, but while she seems to be pretty quiet on the lunge - even a little bit lazy - she is much hotter and much more anxious with a saddle on, and with a rider up. Lunging her in the Faux-ssoa, she is quiet and slow. As soon as you get out that saddle and she sees it, she is nervous pooping. We had a pretty exciting incident today when she pulled totally free on the lunge and took off across the field in full tack. (Which is why it was beaten into us that you never lunge in an open space...) It's my fault, I was not paying enough attention and let the line more or less just fall out of my hands! I don't know what I was thinking. She had a good few gallop laps around and around the field, and then finally stopped and came back to me (good girl). We lunged for quite a long time after that.... she was much more 'up' than she had been in the Pessoa. MUCH more up.

I lunged her until I felt that she was relatively quiet, and then I hopped on. She definitely has some behavioral stuff that needs to be addressed immediately... mostly she just wants to go where she wants to go (back to her friends!), and screw you if you're in the way. She balked, she rooted hard, she went sideways, she jigged when we faced the barn and refused to go forward away from it. She's a pretty good natured little girl for the most part, so it just took a few walking circles to quiet her down. She's in heat big time too, so that REALLY isn't helping!

We'll get to the bottom of this. We ended on a nice note, a quiet halt away from the barn. I am starting to understand why I never saw pictures or video of the mare being worked in anything but draw reins... she gets her head HIGH when she wants to. I'm curious to know what she would do if I put the neck stretcher on her, but I'd rather just avoid gadgets of any sort. With the reins loped behind the stirrups (in the video), she put her head high and fussed for a few minutes, but eventually relaxed into it, more or less.


Today, I tried two new things with O. The first was a set of Easyboot Transitions, which I was SUPER excited about.... aaaaaand they don't fit. Apparently she has sized up since her brand new foot hit the ground! She has gone through a whole cycle of growth already, and while she still has a LONG way to go in terms of getting the back of her foot strong and her sole thicker, she has really come far. She still needs protection for rocky or rough ground, and I am hoping the sleek new design of the Transitions will keep the boots from turning or rubbing (which happens with the Cavallos regularly).
The other thing I tried with her was a long shank hackamore instead of her usual snaffle. If she is to do endurance regularly, she is going to need to learn to eat on the trail, and she is not keen to eat with a bit in. Even when she had been fed a cookie or has snatched a last mouthful of hay when tacking up, she'll hold it in her mouth for the entire duration of the ride and not eat it. I wanted something that gave me some level of control still, but would leave her free to eat when she needed to. The hackamore had a long shank, but not a SUPER long shank... but it ended up being WAY WAY too much for her. The first rein aid she got was mostly an accident, when she spooked hard at one of the neighbor's dogs (which is odd, since she never spooks at anything, much less the dog she sees every day!). She threw up her head, hit the shanks, and EXPLODED. I'm not entirely sure how she managed to stand on her hind legs and run backwards at the same time, but she did! We tried to do some more finesse work, and while she was more than happy to trot along on a loose rein, the moment I so much as touched the reins, or the shanks jingled a little, she threw up her head, hit the brakes, and smashed me in the shoulders with her neck (years with Gogo taught me to get my head out of the way when a horse gets too light in the front end!). I had WAY too much in the way of brakes, and NO steering whatsoever.... not good. 15 minutes into the ride, my calf locked up badly, and I was in such horrible pain that I had to quit and get off. I'm really getting frustrated with this calf problem... it's terrible.

So we had one galloping loose beast and one naughty pony, one set of boots that didn't fit, and one rearing horse who did not like her hackamore at all. Did I mention the best part... that my horses got skunked last night?? I couldn't figure out where the stink was coming from... it was Tre!! The mares both had curious scrapes on them, so I wonder if there was a scuffle trying to get away from the stink. My guess is that Tre, the curious one who chases dogs and cats around, went for the skunk thinking it was a cat. Not a cat Tre, not a cat!!
Oh, and poor Shitten is going through a growth spurt and is pretty lame.... and the elderly Corgi is really lame today as well, for reasons unknown. What else can go wrong today??

Nothing else, I hope... it is bedtime, and I am ready for this day to be DONE!

Black Beauty and Ginger

(One of my friends made the comment that O and Tre reminded her of Ginger and Black Beauty.
Oh man. They DO, don't they? Even down to the part about Black Beauty's knees and Ginger's mental issues. Who knew.)




On Wednesday, Future Hubs and I made the journey down to Austin to pick up Tre. It is NOT my usual policy to take on a horse sight unseen, but given all of the circumstances it was worth taking a chance on. I had all of the rads and a currently sound horse in front of me - and a place for her to go be a happy broodie if she doesn't stay sound - so it was worth taking a chance on. While she was smaller than I had originally anticipated (just so feminine and delicate!), she was very gentle and sweet, and was happy to let us pull her out of her stall, brush her off, put a cooler and boots on her for the trailer, and stay standing quietly in the crossties. She loaded onto my trailer fine.... aaaaand then she totally lost it. My shipping halter is too big for her, and she popped out of it a few seconds after shutting the escape door - we had to use a regular halter instead. The bouncing and pawing began as we pulled down the driveway, and she banged up a STORM for the next half-hour. We stopped for gas and left the truck parked for about 10 minutes while we ran in for some food, and we could actually see the trailer bouncing up and down from inside the store.




Thankfully, by the time we ordered our food and made it back out to the truck, she had totally quieted down. She had also completely pulled down all of her boots, so I ended up just taking them off and leaving her legs naked. She was silent the rest of the way home, thankfully.

She unloaded quietly and was pretty at peace with her surroundings. She has been in a stall for a large part of the past two years (common with show horses) and been fed spaced out meals (also common with stalled horses), so the way our setup is probably looked like heaven. 24/7 high quality slow-fed hay, 24/7 turnout, a friend to live with, no shoes and no hard grains... what more could a horse ask for? Make no mistake, my animals are athletes and they work very hard for a living, but letting them live like horses is the best thing I ever did for them. I'm *sure* the day is coming when someone will get hurt or sick, but I have not had one issue with lameness, sickness, colic, or anything else since I switched from stalling and babying my horses to letting them be who they are. To me this isn't about being a weird hippie natural horsewoman... it's about common sense. A horse is a horse... so let it be a horse. Simple as that.


Tre was super excited to be outside.... O was not quite as amused. I was not sure who would come out on top, but after some back and forth squabbling O firmly asserted herself as the alpha mare. FIRMLY. It has taken a few days, but they have finally gone from O not letting Tre anywhere near her to eating off of the same haybag... finally. They thankfully do not seem to have taken too much interest in being too good of friends, something which I hope will not change. I would rather not have two screaming attached maniacs if I can help it!

O let her eat some of the hay in the shed, after she had already pooped on it, of course.

And then they were finally friends.... and Tre let Kali know that she was NOT welcome at all!

She is going to be VERY pretty once she gets muscled up. VERY pretty!

Of course, as of right now, she has no muscle at all. She is pretty darn SCRAWNY compared to big beefy O! I expect her weight to fluctuate a little bit - after all, walking around 24/7 when you were mostly in a stall before is in and of itself a HUGE increase in exercise. Having 24/7 netted forage is a huge help for getting weight on a horse, so that's at least a start... but she really, really is not a fan of our 'grainfoods.' We feed hay pellets, a pelleted fat supplement, and supplements. Since Tre was on straight Senior before (AKA candy), she is not particularly fond of switching over to the new regime (AKA raw veggies with no dressing). She ESPECIALLY does not like any of the new supplements, and also doesn't like the food to be wetted (harder to pick out the good bits, so instead she mushes all the parts she doesn't like into a glob in the bottom of the bucket and then ignoring the rest). I need to get her eating as I need her to gain some weight, but seeing as she has been living in a stall and was being fed meals, the likelihood of gastric issues is extremely high. She also smells not quite right to me... just sort of chemically and acrid. I'm hypersensitive to that smell, so I'm sure it would go unnoticed if she was with anyone else. She doesn't act like an ulcery horse in any way (except for being picky about her supplements, but that is probably just that she doesn't like them!), but the sooner I can get her fully transitioned the better. Being outside with a friend with hay all the time is huge for helping any gastric issues, no matter how small, so that is half the battle right there. 

She is currently sound, very very sound in fact! She looks even better in person than she did in videos. I pulled her shoes yesterday and was pleased to see her instantly moving better, stomping around on rocks like a champ. All four feet are somewhat contracted, which isn't surprising given her exercise level, but I expect them to beef up within short order. She was very happy after her trim and went running around like a wild thing. Surely she thinks she has died and gone to heaven here!

Her rehab schedule has started with a week of handwalking, walking her over elevated poles and up and down hills to help give her hind end a head start before I get on. She thinks this is great fun and has been very agreeable and easy to handle. (She is fresh though... there is occasional leaping and rearing/striking out like a frisky colt!) She is not very fond of the Theraplate yet (scary vibrating monster) but I at least have her standing still on it at a low setting for a few minutes. On Wednesday, I will get on her and start tackwalking!

Nom nom...

Hills and poles!

Learning to tie... she's a smart girl. Well, mostly. (I did teach her to pony on Friday... there was a lot of rearing and flailing until she figured out exactly what was going on.)


More updates on O shortly!

Nighttime

A strange thing happened to me the other day. I got an e-mail inquiry on O as a sale horse. She's not for sale officially, but after all, I did buy her as a turnaround project and that was supposed to be her original purpose. I told them I wouldn't take less than $10k for her and they agreed. They were finishing up selling their horse and they said they'd get back to me shortly. I didn't respond.

Earlier that morning, I had been hanging around in O's pen rubbing on her shoulder and generally just leaning on her and being a nuisance. I'm not sure what I did to make her angry, but she suddenly turned her head and gave me a very, very ugly look, complete with crinkled nose and pinned ears. She has never done that before and I was completely taken by surprise. I have no idea what I did to tick her off so royally, but she was very clear about her message. I instinctively shooed her off and got her out of my space, then went back to her and tried to figure out what exactly I had done to make her so mad. I couldn't replicate it, no matter what I did - she just kept turning to look at me with happy pricked ears, completely nonchalant. I tried to forget about it as the rest of the day wore on, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.

O is a mare who wears her heart on her sleeve. She leaves NO questions when it comes to things she likes or doesn't like, or things she does or doesn't want to do, and she'll let you know in no uncertain terms when something is amiss or bothering her. In some ways, this is a good thing - if something isn't right, she'll let you know about it immediately. In some ways, it's not good at all - if she doesn't want to do it, she's going to give you hell about it. Sometimes, I've had to be very tough about asserting and maintaining my role as lead mare in our herd of two. I've scared her half to death a time or two when I aggressively got after her about her behavior. I 100% stand behind being firm with a horse with this kind of personality - after all, that's why I got her for as cheap as I did... she was in control of everything and nobody could make her do anything that she didn't want to do! - but sometimes I forget that communication is still a two-way street. For the most part, any type of 'no' that she gives me is countered, and she changes her mind and offers back a secondary 'yes'. Over time, this has transformed her into a very solid citizen, willing and happy and quiet and sweet. When she gave me a dirty look that morning, however, I stopped and found myself asking the question "what made you do that?" instead of just immediately defaulting to "knock it off!" I realized that she had been giving me a clear message instead of just being disobedient, probably for the first time since I've had her. And for the first time since I've had her, I had enough humility to stop and ask "what did you mean by that?"

I never did figure it out. I tried to replicated it in every way that I could, but it was a one-time moment and she didn't do it again. I sent her out on the lunge that evening as dusk was falling, and realized that every time I reached over to pat her when I was leading her around, I was waiting for her to make a dirty face back. I realized some level of trust had been violated. I realized how it must feel to her when I give her a dirty rotten look for no good reason at all, on all of those days when I am tired or crabby or internalizing something that has nothing to do with her at all. I didn't understand why she had done what did had done, because there was nothing clear behind it, and I found myself lingering on how bewildering it felt. At the end of the lunge, we both stopped and looked at each other for a long moment. Whatever had been annoying her that morning had long been forgotten about, and she looked at me with her usual bright eyes. The dynamic between us changed some at that moment. I promised her that I would make sure to listen to her input a little better than I had been, but that she had to listen to mine as well. Impassive to the spoken language of humans, she flicked her ears around at me and touched me with her nose, listening instead to the sincerity in the tone of my voice. I think she knew that I meant it.

When I put her back out in her pen, I left her alone for a few minutes to finish sweeping up the barn and to shut out all of the lights. With everything suddenly in darkness, I felt my way over to paddock fence, turning around to look up at the stars for a minute and to get my bearings. My eyes focused on a tiny, slow-moving speck - a satellite. It isn't every day that you see one. As it got closer to the moon, it vanished, and I couldn't find it again. At the same time, I felt a bump on the back of my neck, and turned to find that O had left her hay to come over and hang out with me instead. She stood with her nose squashed up against me, leaning her head into my hands, dozing in the cool breeze of the early evening. I rested my chin on the fence, and she moved closer to press her forehead against mine. It was such a sincere movement - I don't think I've ever had a horse specifically put their brain against my brain like that ever before. Metro used to give big hugs with his head, but this was different. In that moment, I loved her more sincerely than I had loved anything since Gogo died. I'm not even sure I've really felt that much emotion at all since I lost her.

It seems fitting that tomorrow is the two-year anniversary since she died.

I feel tired and I miss her very much. I'll write about it more when I can gather my mind a little better. I feel a little sad and confused right now, going over the memories in my head. What a strange thing, to love and lose something that meant that much to you. It really does change everything. 

Addy-Tude

After our wonderful success last weekend at O's inaugural dressage show, we've had another good week of work mixed with some days off. She got Monday and Tuesday off, quite rightfully (not that she worked hard on Sunday at ALL, it was easy-peasy compared to her usual, but I did feel that she deserved it anyway!), and then she was back to work on Wednesday with a nice long hack. It was dark by the time we got back.... there is part of me that wants to gripe about that, but it means that cooler weather is coming, so I guess I can't whine too much!!

It was back to work on Thursday with a very light dressage school. Our flattest area on the property, which I use for my flatwork, is unfortunately also currently full of rocks, all of which seems to have sprouted after our last massive rainstorm. It's a bit tricky to do anything serious up there because of this, and I didn't put O's boots on, which was not a smart thing to do. We got some very productive walk and trot work done, but that was about it, and I called it a day after a short but very successful session. 

O also made a new best friend....

S's little niece was there visiting, in all her precious cowgirl attire. She is 4 and she was in loooooove with O. O has really become super gentle and quiet since I've had her, and was more than willing to follow the tiny little human around wherever she wanted to go. 

Kind of reminds me of another little mare and her pet kid...

Gogo and my old boss' little 6 year old son, who did in fact carry his Hobbes around with him everywhere. Gogo doted on him and followed his every move... seriously adorable.

Today was supposed to be another easy hack, just because I was enjoying the cooler weather so much and wanted nothing more than to just toodle around, but that didn't work out quite the way I was hoping. We set off down the road, but O gave me a little bit of a sour face when we turned away from the barn. It wasn't any outright misbehavior, but she had her ears pulled into that not-quite-back-but-not-quite-relaxed position, just a little bit of attitude about having to leave the barn. I gave her a minute to change her attitude and legged her on, but when she continued to be just a little balky and crabby about leaving (not doing anything wrong, just moving out a little stickily and turning her head from side to side like she'd really rather turn around and go back home), I booted her onward and we took off down the road. The entire reason I got this mare for so darn cheap was because of her totally unchecked bossy attitude, so anytime she gives me ANY grief of ANY sort, no matter how subtle, I put my foot down. We had a decent workout after that, trotting and cantering back and forth up the road, but I never really felt like her attitude was totally 'with it', if you know what I mean. She was obedient and didn't do anything wrong per se, she just wasn't particularly amused by it. Sorry mare, we were supposed to just go for a nice walk, you know!

Tomorrow, she gets the day off..... BECAUSE OF THE AECs!!!!!!!!!! That's right, they are right here in Tyler, TX for the next three years! It's about a 2.5 hour drive from here.... I'm going up for the whole day to spectate and have fun and shop and enjoy myself!!!!! The goal for next year... COMPETE in it! 

I also have some news.... some very big news. Some very very big news! Some of you guessed on Facebook already.... but.... I am going to make you wait for the official announcement until next week when it is official! Let's just say that finding little cheapie fixerup projects might really be my calling... 

Mare Personalities, Part II: Imogen

If I had set out to find P's complete opposite when I was searching for a new horse, I would have perfectly  found it in 'the old' Imogen. (I was obviously not looking for a different personality, nor was I looking at all... but that's what I found!) 'The old' Immy, when I first met her, was a nervous, skittery, panicky, terrified mess of a mare, but I knew there was more to her than met the eye. 

Those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning will remember how things started out with Immy, who was then simply named "Bay Girl." To quote the very first blogpost I put up on her.... 

"The story of The Uncatchable Number 267 begins with a moment in history without a past. The first time I laid eyes on the mare with only a number for a name, I thought, "Wow... that mare is so pretty. How did she end up like this?" I was in a golf cart at feed time, grain buckets in hand, riding around with the summer girl whose job I was taking over. "She's really skittish," she told me as I dumped her grain into her bucket, watching the mare snort warily at me from a distance. "I don't really know much about her."

Neither did anyone. All that we knew about the mare was that she had come from an embryo transfer program, and was carrying the foal of a recently deceased mare. She came with the number 257 as a name, and also had this unceremoniously branded onto her left buttcheek. We took to calling her "Bay Girl," as anything was better than a number for a name. She was half-wild, uncatchable, and unhandled. She kicked when you pick up her feet, she couldn't be haltered (and instead had to live in one with a catch rope), and she flinched away from human touch. She was also absolutely drop dead gorgeous and a lovely mover... which you often got a good glimpse of while she was running away in the opposite direction from you. 

We didn't know her breed, her age, her history, or anything about her. One thing was excruciatingly clear however.... someone at some point had been very, very mean to her. When all you are to the world is a uterus, no one cares enough to handle you with any sort of care or compassion.

I handled Bay Girl a few times over the following few months, but never for anything pleasant (here, let me give you your vaccines... let me shove dewormer down your throat.... let me hold you while we heavily sedate you for trimming...). The turning point came when all the horses came into the barn for the night due to bad weather. She lives outside in a halter with a catch rope, and we took her halter off just to see what she would do when we had to put it back on in the morning. Not surprisingly, she wanted nothing to do with it. Anything from her cheeks forward is apparently off limits for human hands in her mind, and anything near her ears and poll as well. I managed to somehow get my hand over her nose (which resulted in a lot of head tossing), and after she had backed up twice around the stall with me at her nose, she finally stopped and I somehow got the halter on. I think if I hadn't been the one feeding her for three months prior to this event, I would have never been able to even lay a hand on her, even in a stall. At this point, all I could do was feel sorry for her. How on earth did such a nice mare end up this way? She deserved so much more. 

I asked my boss if I could handle her. She said yes."

And thus, history was made. The only human contact the mare had ever really had was for quick, mean moments in time, and not surprisingly she wanted nothing to do with people. She lived alone in a small pen in a catch halter, and for the first two months that I knew her, I was her primary feeder and not much more. When I first started to work with her, she knew me as the food lady who hadn't been mean to her, and she started to allow herself to be caught and handled. It wasn't long before she started to wait at the gate for me, and slowly we progressed from there.

It wasn't easy. She was terrified of having her feet handled. She needed to be sedated for farrier work. I couldn't crosstie her properly because she was so afraid of having her face touched. Getting a blanket on and off her for the first time was a huge and terrifying ordeal for her at first. She couldn't even deal with having her mane brushed, she was so afraid of hands coming at her. Everything I did was subject to scrutiny, and her default reaction to anything questionable was to panic and bolt. (Surprisingly, the second she would hit the end of her lead rope, she would stop and stand still - she was very, very smart despite her fears.) And yet, despite her reactions, she surprised me with how smart she was. She picked up new things incredibly fast - one time and she understood, so long as it didn't scare her the first time. And absolutely nothing in her surrounding environment scared her - she wasn't spooky in the SLIGHTEST. The only things that scared her were humans.... she just didn't trust anything they did. 

Slowly, over the course of time, she learned about things. She learned to deal with halters and flymasks being put on and off (something she still struggles with). She learned about blankets and having her feet handled. She learned about baths, hairdos, leading, crossties, and hard tying. We didn't get to do much when she had her colt at foot, but once he was weaned, I started to work with her on the ground and on the lunge, and it wasn't long before she was lunging in both directions on and off the line. She wore a saddle pad with no problems, wore a surcingle with no problems, wore a bridle with no problems.... she was very, very easy to start! Bridling in and of itself was very difficult, seeing as she was extremely headshy (she still is), but once on, she had no problems. Around this time, thanks to all my AMAZING blog readers, we had collectively saved up enough money to buy her, and I brought her home in November of 2012. It didn't take her long to start wearing a saddle, be ponied off of Pangea, and start grounddriving. At the very end of December, I sat on her for the first time, and it was like a dream come true. She was a little sensitive and nervous, but once she figured it out, she settled right in. I was on cloud nine.

Now, a few months later, she is walk-trot-canter under saddle, going on trail rides, and starting to ride out alone in the big field (SUCH a big deal and she loves it - she drags me away from the barn, I can hardly make her go back!). Once she was meek, quiet and reserved, but not anymore - especially since the introduction of O-Ren into the herd, she has become especially bold, barging her way to the front of the line for snacks, food, or attention. She is still extremely body protective, and can be hypersensitive to touch and to stimuli (we've tried to address this as a possible magnesium deficiency, but hyperloading her with magnesium hasn't helped, nor has chamomile and a calming supplement... I think it's just her personality!), but it has definitely improved. She is still very headshy, but it is also improving.... it's just a very long road. I still have to be cautious with her when she is moving free in her pen, as she is very reactive to being approached from any direction that isn't from head-on - we've reached an agreement where I leave her alone when she is loose in her field on her own time, and she comes to me for interaction and for meals. (Since she is always the first one to the gate, this isn't ever a problem, but it does make for an interesting relationship. She comes to me for everything, but if she doesn't come to me, I don't chase her around. She makes the choice to interact with me - I know better than to run this mare around and force her to be caught. I can't imagine EVER doing this with another horse - with any other hard to catch horse, I'd set them to work until they decided to be caught, but this completely backfires with this mare and only makes her want to be with people less.)

She is unlike any horse I've ever met.... so smart and bold, yet so reserved and sensitive at the same time. One moment she is cuddling, and the next she is backed off at the end of her leadline. She trusts me, but she is still waiting for me to do something bad to her... her abuse went on for so long and is so deep-seated that it has molded who she is today. She has changed SO much over the course of the past year that it is impossible to say what kinds of changes she will continue to go through over the course of the next year, or the next several years. She is one of a kind, and she is wonderful. She is so very challenging in that I cannot treat her like any other horse on the planet - she is so very 'special needs' in her care, and is so emotionally delicate. But she is changing every day, becoming bolder and sweeter and stronger, and I can't wait to see where she is 6 months from now, a year from now.... one thing is for sure, she'll be more beautiful than ever.

Mare Personalities - As Requested! Part I: Pangea

I have a lot to write about in terms of working the ladies this week, but this post (a request from McFawn) fits right in with that. Immy, P, and O are all very different now from when I first started working with them, not just in appearance but in personality as well. All of them came to me with various issues, and while they will all always have their individual quirks, they've all really changed for the better.

Part I: Pangea

Pangea came to me as a confident, obnoxious and entirely too self-assured boss mare. Having owned her father, I knew the personality type well (bold as brass, afraid of nothing, go-anywhere-do-anything ATV), but P came with the additional bonus of being a mare who had been able to do whatever she pleased. She had been living out with a herd, doing whatever she wanted, and prior to that had been ridden by her weeble-wobble adult ammy rider. She launched her rider more than once and broke some of her bones in the process (actually in her sale contract she came with a specific "bucker" clause), and her rider was terrified of her. When I went to go see her, I had to do everything myself - catch her in the field, tack her up, lunge her, ride her, all without knowing hardly anything about her. She was rude and pushy, but totally push-button under saddle. Somebody had taught her well, that much was obvious. 

When I got her home, the first thing I did was install some manners. She had basically been allowed to do whatever she wanted, which ended immediately when she came to me. I'm strict when it comes to manners, I will be the first to admit it - you better not put a toe out of line or else you are going to get busted. I don't tolerate attitude, pushiness, moving into my space unwanted, dragging me around, lagging behind, barging ahead, wiggling while being worked with/tied/saddled/groomed/bathed/whatever, pawing, chewing, etc, etc, etc.... horses are too big and I am too small and I value my life too much to let them get away with the murder that so many people don't seem to care about! From day one, I let them know I am the Boss Mare, and that is the final word on it. P was no exception to this... she started out pawing for food (her old owner used to shove cookies into her mouth to get her to stop pawing, which effectively taught her to paw for cookies!), biting my trailer when being girthed up (she has huge white scarring on her withers from previous ill-fitting saddles), wiggling like crazy when being attended to, and barging forward when being led. Now, she stands like a lady and waits for her food, leads properly, stands quietly for everything (although she still hates being blanketed.... she doesn't do anything per se, but she stiffens up and narrows her eyes... she would rather be a wild naked animal!), and can even be trimmed while standing out in the field with no halter or anything. (Photo proof of that!) While she is bossy, she is not mean in any way, and would never make a face at people or give them attitude. She is the leader of the group of mares, but is totally benign in this role, and lets the lower ranking mares eat with her, hang out with her, and do everything that she does. Sometimes she moves them away with a mean face, and that's all she needs to do - they take right off and don't disturb her again. They are completely enamored with her, and are totally unable to function without her - they turn into Tweedledee and Tweedledum when she leaves, running around the field screaming their heads off for her. While she enjoys being fed cookies and snacks, she isn't particularly fond of coddling or being petted, and I get the impression that she only tolerates my grooming and doting because she knows she would get in trouble if she didn't! The only part of her that she really enjoys being fussed over is her ears - she will stand all day long and let you curry the insides of her ears. The harder and deeper the better! (She is exactly like her daddy in this respect - he would go to sleep when you would clip his ears! It was his favorite thing!) 

She can still be a total pill under saddle, when you ask her to do something that she doesn't feel is necessary (like slowing down - the mare power walks with the best of them!). Since most of her work is now relegated to trails only, this isn't a problem most of the time - but once in awhile I really have to get after her and reminder her that NO, we don't have to walk at 10,000 miles an hour all the time! From the moment you hop on her, she is all march, and strides out away from home even faster than she does coming back. She hates bits of all shapes and sizes, but she goes like gangbusters in a bitless bridle or a bosal. (It's not a teeth issue, as it never changed after her teeth were done... I honestly think she just doesn't like bits, plain and simple!) Years of compensating for her old injury left her with a completely right-wards sway to her body - even her feet all flare to the right, all of them! - and she of course rides this way as well. She'll never be sound really, but she is very comfortable and happy to get around. She is really a solid citizen, a stand-up kind of old gal, and she is every bit her father's daughter. 

Up next.... Immy!