$900 Facebook Pony Blog Hop

$900 Facebook Pony wants to know: Whether you’ve had one or one hundred, lets see all the horses you’ve ever had.

I am going to stick to all the horses I've ridden regularly, leased or owned. Otherwise this list would be a mile long!

Major. I took my first jumping lesson on Major and leased him one summer. I went to my first show on him. He is still taking kids to their first W/T shows. He is a rock. Love that old man always and forever.

Stewart. I talked about him in another blog post: Heart Horse. So I'll just let you read that :)

Stolen Thunder, Final Valentine, Mightybobbymagee (yes, Poor Woman Showing's horse), Call the Lark, Coyote Lakes. OTTB's I rode consistently in college. I quarter-leased Stolen Thunder for a time with a friend and I took him over his first jump. He was a little cutie and very willing. I feel like they screwed up his brain though, trying to teach him too many different jobs at once after my lease was over. Valentine was a pretty boy. I rode him on and off for a semester in training class. At one point I tried to talk Mom into helping me buy him. No such luck. Not sure what he's doing now. I rode Bobby when he was 2 and failed at learning to gallop on him and after that when he got back from racing, a couple times a week for a couple semesters until he started having all the issues that lead school to finally give in and sell him to Carly. And Lark. I LOVED Lark. I actually handled/groomed him for a time when I worked on Buttonwood Farm in Rhinebeck, NY. A handsome boy and a smooth mover. I took some lessons on him and rode him as much as I could. Coyote Lakes was a 3 time G3 winner that I rode a bunch my first couple semesters and a bunch of times when I was taking dressage lessons. Legs for days and the CUTEST OTTB pony face EVER.

Lu (-cifer). I rode Lu for a whole year when I was doing the "trail riding class"....actually training for Competitive Trail riding. She was the meanest fucking wench you ever sat on. And we had a mutual hate relationship. Except that she was awesome. Did everything a little too willingly just leave her the fuck alone. Don't touch put pressure on her face. Don't tell her what to do. Don't move. Just sit there and let her do her thing because if you don't well don't say she didn't warn you. We got through one 25 miles CTR together and as we were gearing up for #2 a few months later, we were told that the school's insurance wouldn't let us do another one which was bullshit.

Rocky the Horse. Not to be confused with my dog from highschool (now my mom's dog) Rocky. He is a TB that L had had since he was 4 months old. But he was worse than most OTTBs I'd ever ridden. Everything was done on a circle and if you could do one jump without dying a day you were having a great day. I really liked that horse. Fun and unpredictable.

KC Cat. My friend's horse. I spend 2 summers working at Saratoga and H and I would go riding on her OTTBs. I lovedddddd KC. But then again I've always had a thing for chestnuts.

Fatass, Little Man, Twister, Porkchop, Curtis, Rascal. Horses I have owned and ridden in the last 4 years. Read about Fatass in the Heart Horse Blog and read about Twister every freaking day because he's my main squeeze and I luff him. The Little Man was a chestnut troublemaker who is long gone. He is loved and spoiled in his new home but I had no use for horses that throw you ass over teakettle just because they can. Porkchop is now called "Manny" and I get weekly updates about him and he is doing fabulous in his new home. Curtis is a total shit but I love him and he will be my next event horse. He hasn't even made his first race yet but I'm hoping he lives up to his JC name, "Da Money Man". And Rascal is just the cutest. I've only been on him once but I want to do ALL THE THINGS with him. Nothing bothers him and the other night I put the kiddie pool on his head. He didn't even blink. Now THAT'S a show horse! :P

As I was looking through pics I kept remembering and finding more horses I'd worked with or ridden, like the Paso, Sote who died last winter. The list could be extremely long..............

i don't have media on all of them....

TBT: because i have nothing else to blog about

How about a little TBT for ya?? I haven't been doing much exciting with Twister. As a matter of fact, yesterday I didn't ride at all. Tried to lunge him but the lightning got scary.......

This photo was 2 years ago or so. Maybe late Septemeber 2013. Twister has not always had the 0 fucks given attitude toward scary jumps.  I had made this jump and he would NOT jumps the pallet. Slammed on the breaks every time. I think in this pic I'm telling M, "SERIOUSLY?!" Eventually it became no problem and he's become a horse that literally never refuses. We might launch 12 feet above the scary-ness, but shit gets jumped!

if i can't see it maybe it will go away!

Craziness

Jumping tack today. Twister knew what that meant. He was a raging bull. A crazy person. A fire-breathing dragon. Dragging me around. Had to run him into fences to slow him. It was awesome. He felt fantastic. I tried to do the Part 1 of Finding Your Distance episode from Evention Tv and he COULD NOT canter over the ground poles. Leap over them like an over eager 4 year old, more like.

best trot ever. love this trot.

If the weather holds out I'll try all the same stuff again tomorrow. Hopefully he will have calmed down enough to use that same beastly energy in a harnessed, productive, less war-horse type way.

I will ride him every other day if it mean I can get this workity attitude and energy level.

being crazy is exhausting!

Back in Action.....again

Twister is back to normal. I'm so happy. 3 hours after giving him Azium IV he was normal again. YAY! Fucking wasp. 

normal, meaty neck!

Saturday after the clinic I wanted to come home and put Twister through his paces and do some of the exercises I'd seen. But I wanted to see how he felt first. So I rode him bareback and figured out how to canter bareback without impaling my jojo on his withers. WIN!

hugs for healthy horses!

Sunday I tacked up and worked on a forward pony in front of my leg and we worked on transitions. He tried to pull his normal shit but he was mostly awesomeness. Our transitions were actually halfway decent and our canter wasn't a raging bull out of control despite his pent up energy. I was really happy with him!

so hard to do work when dogs are always in the way!

so special......

July Silke White Clinic

Probably would have been best as a WW. But whatevs.

M and I went to watch the clinic. SS is a nut job and wasn't ready to be ridden in 'public' and Twister had just gotten over his wasp sting. So neither of us rode. But we watched and learned and caught up with our horsey friends. I took a TON of pics. But I'm just going to post my artsy ones.

Also got to try out D's Corbette but it's basically a much nicer version of my saddle so won't really help me long term. And by trying out her saddle I got to walk around on her giant OTTB gelding who I am totally in love with. I told her if she ever doesn't want Brody, she can drop him off at my farm. Whatever. I can dream. She DOES have a nice 17.5 saddle that will probably fit Twister. I have to meet up with her so I can borrow it for a couple days.

early morning before we left for the clinic, twister.

rascal

D and Spring

M trying to get the shot

D and Spring again

T and her appy

D and Brody (Silke in the bitchin' hat)

Brodyyyyy

Giant Bug Bites - Updated!

So yesterday afternoon I went to ride and noticed Twister has some swelling on his throat. It wasn't hot. And I KNOW it's not choke because he wears a gazing muzzle and gets a handful of grain. I couldn't find any puncture wound and I couldn't see any ticks either.

Giant bug bite. Soooooo pony is getting more time off until there is no more swelling. So glad I didn't send in entries for the show this weekend. Apparently he enjoyed his 2 week abscess vaycay and decided to get bit by something on his airway so he can have MORE time off.

My FB friends said I should give him some banamine. But I only have a little bit of paste and it's my emergency colic supply. None of mine ever colic. But the moment I use my banamine someone will. Because that's Murphy's Law.

This morning when I brought Twister in, the swelling looked much less. So I'm just going to keep an eye on it and give him more days off. Lucky him.

Update (all of an hr later....) before I left for work I gave him 10cc banamine paste and slathered on some icthamol. Because let's face it.... I've never been able to just do nothing. It's still not hot and he is still breathing just fine. But still. And my person said he'd check on it when he goes to pick stalls this afternoon. I still have some banamine in reserve for an emergency.

Ummmm So I got home from work today and Twister's neck looked like this:

worse. yikes.

So I called the vet. He said sounded like a sting reaction. 10 cc more of banamine and 10 crushed Benydryl. And if I had any (and I think I do but I need to find it....) a 1 gram of bute tonight. So I had to run to the store and buy Benydryl because I only have 4 and they were 4 years out of date..... fail. And I bought Benydryl cream too. Cold hosed and cleaned off the icthamol and after he dried put on the cream. He'd already been given the Benydryl. Vet said he'd give my person some azeum in the morning at the track if it was still really swollen tomorrow. He says I shouldn't worry.

perky and apparently starving to death lol

But I'll tell ya, when I came home this afternoon and it was worse I legit freaked. He was breathing fine. But shit around airways is not cool. Not cool wasp or bee or fly or whateverthefuckyouare stinging my horse on the throat. 

WW: Mostly Photography

happy hump day, bloggerville! sunrise in KY this am was beautiful!

rascal didn't like the corona i put on his nose

took the dogs to their daddy's restaurant for dinner!

15 bags = 600 lbs. truck was full
stopped and bought cat food.
#equestrianproblems

because i'm missing my moose a lot right now...

because i'm missing fatass a lot too...

Finer Details

So yesterday I decided to jump again. But actually mostly, we worked on transitions. I put him in the small paddock and did walk-trot-trot-walk and then did the same thing at the canter on both leads. He has always been terrible about his right lead. I've had to counter flex him and push him into the right lead. Now he's so hot for that right lead signal that when I wiggle the left rein, getting him to think I'm going to counter flex him and at the same time put my left leg on him, he jumps right into the right lead. And this only took like 18 months for him to learn this..... bad rider? Or stubborn horse?

At first our transitions suck. And it seems like a fight. But the more we do the better they get. So it's something I have to make an effort to work on each and every time I ride. I get so much thinking about fitness and carrying ourselves I forget to do all the other fine detail things.

The My Virtual Eventing Coach Tips of the Day are like my favorite thing on Facebook. This one they posted the other day. When my mom saw my share and asked HOW you achieve that, I told her "you ride transitions. Lots of them" and the other day my person said I am on Twister's case with my leg too much. That I shouldn't constantly have to be pumping him and constantly asking him to move out. I should be able to get him at the speed needed and have him not need to be asked every 2 seconds to hold it. All I'm doing is desensitizing him to my leg to where he's learned to just ignore it.

The more transitions we did, the more responsive he became. He's actually a little too hot for the canter transitions. He NEEDS to canter. And he anticipates big time.

Also, I have no seat. I suck at cantering without being in half seat. Badbadbadbadbad.

In August a friend is coming out to give me some jumping lessons. She used to be a hunter princess too. So we're going to work on my leg.

this height (2'6") is old news and doesn't scare me anymore

easy peasey! 

why launching yourself up your horse's neck is bad

Twister gets a day off today. He's been very perky, despite the heat, so I don't want him to wear out. Also, riding + grazing muzzle = pony is finally starting to not be so fat!

Weekend Update: Beastly Again

Friday I got my horse back. Meaning, he was a happy pony that wanted to work. 

Saturday my person and I rode together. He's been slacking in the Rascal department but beefcake was super good despite all the days off. Such a cutie.

teach babies all the thingz

<3

Twister and I warmed up WTC and then we jumped. He is ON again! Beastly pony! So much fun.

ok so my media-man is not a very good photographer
but he tried <3

Twister really doesn't care how wide a jump is
.... or isn't .

And this evening, after I'd waited all day for it too cool off because the heat index was in the No No zone, we had a serious dressage school. He pulled his shit. And he cantered like a beast while leaning on my leg half the time. But we actually had a really good school and he felt great. 

i almost forgot what it felt like to have a horse
that was infront of my leg

holy canter batman

tilty.....

goodboyiloveyouuuu

Pretty sure Twister doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up: race horse? barrel horse? eventing pony? Pony Express pony? He was just so much fun to ride this weekend. 

getting the stink eye. not sure why... he's bathed and
getting away with ripping apart a hay bale

One thing I don't like is he is stocking up a bit in the stall during the day. I guess it's all the heat and humidity. Comes in after being out all night with no filling. And after a couple minutes walking under tack it's gone. My horse is middle aged and it's starting to show. 

And his feet are getting worse. My person and I talked about it a bit today and I think we are going to get Gloves. He can go out in them now and then and wear them every ride. Stupid wet summer. His feet haven't been this bad since I pulled his shoes. And I try to stay on top of it but it's not working!!!

pretty much the weather this summer