Do Things Happen For A Reason?

As a person, I'm not superstitious, religious, or driven by the idea that the fates completely govern us, but sometimes I like to think that things happen for a reason. Maybe the universe gives us a little nudge here or there to keep us on a certain directed course. I'm willing to let myself believe in that a little bit.

Pax's pending sale fell through this week. I know the prospective owner is sad about that, because she definitely wanted it to work, but with her lease horses all unexpectedly coming home at the same time she is squeezed for space. Maybe in the future she will be able to try again, but honestly, I'll have put a bigger price tag on her by that time. And by that I mean, she's still not technically for sale but the more time I put into her, the more money she will be worth. 

Since P didn't take this year and we stopped trying, I was feeling really lousy about the fact that I had gotten P specifically as a broodie and now was going to have absolutely nothing to show for it. My baby was sold, she was not successfully bred this year, and I didn't really have any other plans to breed her further. It sucked. But then Pax's sale fell through. And I started to wonder.... maybe things all happen a certain way for a reason? Maybe I'm meant to keep Pax, if only just for the time being. 

With that in mind, I decided it was time that Pax gets some more worldly experience. If I am really going to keep her, then it is time to start exposing her more to the world at large. 

Note to self: find halter that actually fits her china doll face

Yes, that's old Pmare I'm riding! Since she is not pregnant and not doing anything else, I decided it was high time to put her butt back into light duty work as a trail horse and primarily as a pony horse that can drag other horses around for exercise. In the past, P has always been my go-to pony horse, because she's sturdy, bossy, not bothered by anything whatsoever. She just plows on forward no matter what the ponied horse is doing. The last time I ponied Pax, it was a number of months ago, and she was still too young and mentally immature to take it at all seriously - there was a ton of rearing, striking, bucking, and running involved and I wasn't terribly keen to fight off flailing baby hooves while I was riding. I wasn't sure what she was going to do this time, but she is 15 months now and significantly more mentally mature than she was several months ago, so I figured it was a good shot with Pmare as my pony horse. 

P had not had a saddle on in about two years and she was not very happy about it. I got a few Very Dirty Looks, but I knew once she got out on the trail she would be more cheerful. I think she must have had a few girths cranked on too hard and fast in her past, because when I got her she used to bite the trailer kind of savagely whenever you'd tighten the girth. A few scoldings and a more carefully applied girth stopped that habit, but she'll always remember it. 

The first five minutes of the ride were total chaos. P was a complete cow and reared, spun, and jigged, nearly clotheslining me off a couple of time with her own child's leadrope. I had to actually dismount and lead her off the road for a minute because she was stopping traffic. She did settle down, thankfully, and I was able to get a gauge on her soundness as we went along. She is definitely not sound whatsoever - she is totally fine at the walk, but when she gets into her little shuffley jogging trot, she feels like riding a cripple gaited horse. Part of this is because she's just completely out of shape and has no muscle tone whatsoever. She historically has been at her worst when she gets into that dinky little jog, and has always gone a lot better when trotting forward, but there is no real need for us to be doing that at the moment. She'll be quite fine for easy trail rides, but I'll probably give her some bute before each one to help lessen her soreness as she gets back into shape. For this particular ride, we only went about half a mile, and then came back home. 

Pax though? Pax was PERFECT. She was not worried about anything. She was even a bit lazy and didn't want to keep full up with her speedwalking mother for a bit. Waiting a few additional months for her to mature before trying this again was SO helpful. I think she'll be on the slow side to mentally mature, but that's quite all right. A lot of warmbloods are. But I think it's SO important to get young horses out and seeing things. It just makes everything about them that much more able to handle weird stuff when they see it in the future. 

So what is this next year going to be like for Pax, since she is staying? All of the same things on the ground. Being ponied out on the trails and traveling to various locations for trail rides off property. I decided not to do any FEH stuff with her this year because a) I felt she was too mentally immature, and b) I thought she was sold!, but next year I will plan to do the two year old in-hand division of the FEH. Who knows? Maybe she'll be my event horse one day. It could happen!

Pax says, I'm a good baby. Just don't stick your fingers in my ears or else. 

Happy Birthday Pax!!!

Happy 1st Birthday Pax!! My little tiny baby is now a big, bouncy yearling and I can't believe a year has already flown by. 

One year ago today, P decided that 9:30am was the perfect time to lay down and have a baby - we didn't have one single missed night of sleep in the barn! It was an easy birth, and the baby popped right up within a 1/2 hour unassisted and went straight to the milk bar with a strong latch. Basically it was the easiest breeding season ever - P was ready to be bred right at the very first time we took her in to check her, caught with just one dose of semen and only the one breeding, carried with no problems and needed hardly any extra calories, and popped a perfectly complete and healthy baby right out. I'll never have a season that easy again, that's for sure!

She is 14.1 now at the withers and 14.3+ at the butt, shedding out to be a shiny dark liver again. I imagine she'll be like her mother with the fading, unless kept under a UV sheet all the time! She does everything a good baby should know how to do - leads, ties, trailers, clips, bathes, blankets, comes to be caught, stands to be trimmed, wears her flymask and flyspray, knows the very basics of how to lunge, and has worn a saddle and girth and been led around with it. She takes everything in stride and doesn't worry about any of it. She's going to be a fine strapping beast when she grows up!

While it's not 100% a done deal until a contract has been drawn up, I do have a good friend who really wants her and made an offer that I accepted. While I did not breed her to sell her, she truly would be in the best of hands with this friend and I of course would be able to stay in touch and watch her grow up, and have the ability for first right of refusal. This friend is a consummate horsewoman that I have known since we literally were grade school kids at summercamp together. We both grew up totally horsecrazy together!

And selling her does have a small bonus - it frees me up to for my plans for next year... I'll share that next!


Happy Birthday Pax!!!!!!!!!!

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!