Don’t Skip A Beat, Fear, and more riding!

Don’t Skip A Beat, AKA Louie is a very good boy.  A very gorgeous boy.  He is also the source of a lot of frustration for me.  I have touched on this before I’m pretty sure, but Louie came to me on a trial lease in March, and he is the half brother to my little brat Rowdy.  It was my understanding that Louie was a solid trail horse and that he’d had 6 months of Dressage training.  When I went to pick him up, little things came up like he doesn’t load easily in the horse trailer, his training wasn’t a steady 6 months it was more sporadic and the big one for me, he doesn’t stand to be mounted.  I could feel my anxiety right off going thru the roof but I wasn’t going to back out.  Me and my stubbornness. 

So our first few rides were good.  Louie is different then Buddy.  Buddy walks along head down, rarely snorts or spooks at anything Louie has a higher head carriage and gets snorty and excited at the drop of a hat.  We rode with Sharon at the wildlands and that went well although we were both exhausted when we were done.  My breaking point came when I took him on a ride over to the dam intending to make a loop. 

In retrospect, there were several factors this day that were working against us, Louie hadn’t been ridden in a few days, it was a crisp breezy day, we were using a different “bit” (I’d been riding him in a snaffle and had a hackamore on him this day) and there was a pinto eating rooster in the woods.  When that rooster crowed, Louie’s head came up and he started dancing and I got scared and started messing with his face and we started fighting and I got even more scared and ……do you see where this is going?  Well I did what I swore not to, I gave in and we headed back to the house.  Great, right?  Well, yeah except that we were on the road, in my very unfavorite place and there was a car coming and there were kids yelling and the leaves were blowing and someone was using a lawn mower and I completely self destructed.  I jumped off and Louie walked me home.  This all happened in May and I haven’t ridden Lou but a handful of times since. 

Louie is now mine, well, we’re awaiting the official transfer paperwork but it’s in the works.  About a month ago, I bought a side pull, I bought it to work with Rowdy but I decided to try it on Louie.  He is a completely different horse under saddle in that side pull.  We’ve ridden in my small ring a few times walk and trot and he’s had his moments, being the smart boy that he is, he figured out that when he has a tantrum I’ll get down so he’d work nicely for a couple laps and then have a tantrum only I stopped getting down and giving him his way.  I dug down deep I guess and found comfort in the safety of my ring and just kept at him and it seems to have worked. 

About a month ago I got him out and decided to trim his feet.  He was fantastic which I hate to admit it but it surprised me tremendously!!  After I successfully did all 4 feet I gave him a good grooming and then he and I went for a walk.  He was fantastic.

So with that in mind, I decided to get on him last week.  I saddled him up and climbed on and walked out into the back pasture.  He was snorty and spooky and I was a little nervous but I refused to give in.  I got him settled in one direction and then we went the opposite direction.  We got around that way once and about halfway around again it was tantrum time.  He sat on his haunches, launched himself into the air and then started towards the barn.  It took me a minute to get myself together and I turned him away from the house.  I got him bending and yielding his haunches and we did some figure eights and serpentines and he settled down and seemed pretty happy to be working.  We rode for about a half hour and then I headed out to the driveway to see if the kids were home from the neighbors yet, they weren’t so I headed back towards the field, I figured he’d have a fit but he didn’t he settled right back into work and we had a decent ride! 

On Tuesday Meg and I made plans to ride on Wednesday and since they are logging on one of the trails we can ride to from here we decided to head to the safety of the wildlands.  Tuesday evening I hitched up the trailer and then decided to see how Louie would be about loading on the trailer.  Given the issues from the past, I figured he’d be a brat about it – much to my surprise and delight, he sniffed the ramp and walked right on.  And there he stood quietly!!!  We very quietly backed off the trailer pausing a couple of times and then loaded up again.  We did this several times and then I put him up for the night!  YAY!  The divider has to be open but so what??  And really I think now he’d probably load with it “closed” but who cares honestly?  He walks right onto the trailer without hesitation now and that’s all I care about!! 

Wednesday was a BEAUTIFUL day!!  The sun was out and it was just gorgeous!!  Meg got here and we got the tack loaded and then grabbed the horses.  Louie again walked right onto the trailer and Zandy of course walked right on too – that mare is fantastic!!

When we got to the North Gate we parked and unloaded the horses.  Meg tied Z to the gate and I tied Louie to the trailer.  Now tying was another issue that I was having with Louie – when he first got here he’d pull when he was tied so I was pretty nervous about him being tied to the trailer and next to the road but he was perfectly fine!! 

We got tacked up and both of us mounted without incident.  Once I was in the saddle, I was a little nervous simply because riding him out of the safety of our ring.  We headed off at a nice brisk walk and were enjoying the colors and the the beautiful day.  We took Hothole Pond Trail and met a porcupine.  Those little creatures are adorable!!  He waddled off down the trail ahead of us and then off into the brush.  We got down to the water but Louie wouldn’t get his tootsies wet.  Zandy of course waded out as far as she could go and pawed and splashed and had a grand time! 

On our way back out of this trail we stopped for some pictures and then crossed back over the rocky part of the trail and decided “what the heck” and Meg urged me to canter!  Wahoo!  Louie has a HUGE stride and is very comfortable – however, he doesn’t have balance for corners yet and we’d get going at a canter and come to a curve in the road and Lou would keep on straight!  It was quite funny!!  We loped quite a bit of this trail on the way out and then headed towards the southgate again.  When we crossed the meadow where the life flight helicopter can land (yes I’m weird but those signs always make me smile – knowing that when I am on the ground and in need of emergency care they can get lifeflight in there!)  Anyway!  We took Great Meadow Trail – it was beautiful.  The coloration of the leaves along Great Pond Mountain was just gorgeous there was a distinct line across it where the ever greens up top met with the beautiful leaves/colors of the trees lower on the mountain.  We had a great time over all and I can’t wait to get Vince out there when he gets home!!  Meg will only be here for one more week and I’m not sure that we’ll get to ride again but the couple times we’ve been able to so far have been wonderful!  Louie is doing great and I really think that I’m moving past my fears. I have felt like a failure for being so scared since my fall but I’m realizing that a bit of fear is healthy, when we let fear overtake us, that is when there are problems. 

I don’t expect all wine and roses with Louie, we have a lot of work to do, but with the more time I’ve put into him lately, the better he’s gotten.  He’s stopped fighting/testing me at every turn and in general he and I are just getting along much better.  I’m very excited for what our future holds – I have big plans for this big goofy boy!!  Stay tuned!!

A Ride on the Wildside

At some point hopefully I will catch up on all that is going on around here.  I went back and read some of my older posts and realized that there was more that I wanted to add/say but I just never got there!!

So anyway – my best friend is here visiting from PA this month and it just so happened that the day after she got here, there was a benefit ride/run/walk/bike out at the Great Pond Mountain Land Trust.  My good friend Sharon was manning one of the aide stations and it promised to be a great day.  The trees were gorgeous shades of yellow and orange and although it was overcast, the temperature was mild and there was no breeze to start with!  The basic idea of the ride was a gate to gate ride which covers 8.8 miles.  There were 4 aide stations along the way and at the start each person was given a card, if you got 4 punches your card got put into a drawing at the end of the day.  Sharon also did a couple of raffles at her station – Meg nor I won anything but we had a blast!    There are plenty of side trails off the main road that goes thru the wildlands but we stuck to the main strip.  We met several other riders and there were A LOT of bikes and walkers as well.  Some of the bikes were not very considerate of the horses, whizzing past without saying anything.    The first bikes we encountered were at Sharon’s station, we were standing still and when I saw the bike I hopped off Buddy.  Given his traffic issue I figured he’d totally flip over bicycles.  Not so.  The goober couldn’t have cared less about those bikes.  Buddy was phenomenal, I guess I probably shouldn’t have expected anything less from him, he is by far the most level headed horse we have!  Meg rode Zandy and she proved yet again what a great girl she is!!  This was her first ride since she had the abscess and although she did seem a little ouchy trotting downhill she was completely sound on the flat and going uphill – I think the downhill ouchies had a lot to do with the actual “cut” where the abscess burst thru than anything else.  On the way out, Buddy had plenty of pep.  On our way back though, he was acting like I’d just ridden him 1000 miles non stop.  Nevermind the fact that we’ve gone out and ridden two and three times the distance/time that we’d spent riding on this day at least once a month all summer long.  It didn’t occur to me until the end of the ride that we have always come in from the South Gate so climbing the hill that was the mid point of this particular ride would have been the end of our “normal” rides so he was dragging his feet like crazy not wanting to go any further when we turned around.  Zandy knew that we were headed back to the trailer though and she kept leaving us behind!!  All in all it was a great day, it was nice to be riding with Meg again although I do wish that Sharon and Zephyr had been able to ride with us!!  We made it back to the trailer and the horses loaded right up and we headed home.  I did have a little difficulty walking for the next couple days – my hips have really been bothering me lately and I think because we did a good bit of trotting and even a little cantering my body was protesting!!

What I’ve been up to….

As usual, left to my own devices I manage to get myself into trouble!!  Nothing too serious this time so let me recap what’s happened since my last post!

We now have a boarder.  Snowflake came to us “temporarily” at the beginning of September.  There were some issues at the place she was at before and I was able to help out.  Snowflake had a gorgeous pinto foal earlier this summer, I got the pleasure of meeting her when she was about 2 months old.  Sadly, she injured herself seriously and had to be laid to rest.  This was understandably upsetting for Snowflake and the poor sad mommy was on the thin side when she got here.  Snowflake also has cancer in the skin around her eyes.  She’s ok but wears a fly mask to protect her eyes and has a couple spots that need to be removed.  She is such an easy mare to care for that having her here isn’t an issue and she’ll be staying with us indefinitely now.

Louie has been an awful pasture bully.  He was picking on Snowflake and then decided to pick on Zandy.  Zandy came in from the pasture pretty lame one Sunday afternoon.  She had a lump on her shoulder that was warm to the touch and she was VERY sore.  I put a call in to the vet and we decided a dose of banamine initially and then bute as needed and hot packs as many times a day as possible – if she wasn’t showing marked improvement within a few days we’d reevaluate.  2 days later she was almost falling over lame.  We decided to have Dr T out.  Dr Tanja came out on Wednesday and the best we could figure out was that she’d injured her shoulder – probably kicked or ran into the hay rack in her stall when she was being stupid a couple nights before.  Basically a wait and see approach, cold hosing for her left foot because Dr T was worried about that foot from taking up the slack from  her right side.  But just basically wait and see how things go – probably a long recovery but we were hoping for a full recovery.  A couple days later Zandy blew an abscess!!  WHAT?!  Yep, after all that apparently the bump on the shoulder was just coincidence.  Go figure huh? 

Louie’s owner has come to the decision that she can not keep him anymore and has asked me to keep him.  I’m very torn on this issue – I love Louie, but we aren’t the best match, I’m admittedly high strung and he is too and we feed into each other and cause a huge mess!!  I’m working on it – I think I may have a plan in the works but we’ll see!!

Buddy has GROWN!!  He now measures a level 14.3!!  HOW did that happen??  He has hardly grown since I got him and then BAM he shot up seemingly overnight!!  Last night while I was cleaning stalls I had to do a double take standing next to him his hip was at my shoulder – HUH?  So I went and got my handy dandy tape and measured – yes I know the tape isn’t as accurate as a stick but I don’t have one of those and I didn’t need either to tell me that he’s taller than he was when I bought him!

Now for the most exciting news.  Vince has a horse of his very own!!  A friend bred her Percheron mare to her QH stallion and in May 08 this “little” guy was born.  They are thinning their numbers and while I definitely wasn’t looking for another horse, this cross is one that Vince and I had talked about as a good compromise for him and the price was most definitely right.  He has always said he wanted a draft horse but our barn is short and there is just no way one of the giants that we’ve casually looked at in the past would have fit.  Vince has renamed him “Rocky” – he was “Blaze” with his former owners but that just didn’t fit him.  He has been here less than a week but is fast becoming a part of the family.  He is a LOT pushy at meal times – we’re working on it.  Vince only got a couple days with him before he had to go back to work but he spent some time with Rocky and although we agree he’s a project, he seems quite smitten with him.  The plan is to get Vince riding on Zandy and come next fall I’ll get both colts started under saddle.  Both of course will have ground work and have been saddled etc but I won’t get on either of them until next fall.  Both of them will also be gelded very soon.  Rocky string tests to 16 hands but right now he’s not much taller than Rowdy.  Where Rowdster is smooth and flowing in his gaits out across the pasture, Rocky has that “doop de doop de do” about him.  I’ll try to get some pictures up soon!

That’s it on the horse front, kids have settled into school, I’m using my quiet time during the day to make jewelry and I am hoping that I can get my butt in gear and get on a schedule to start working some of these lazy ponies on a regular basis!!

Stay tuned…..