When I was in Wellington, I mentioned to my friend that I wanted to get a figure 8 bridle for Simon to school in. “Why?” She exclaimed, “Your horse is a good boy. He doesn’t open up his mouth!” I didn’t exactly have a good answer, because my horse is a good boy and doesn’t open up his mouth. I realized the reason I wanted a figure 8 bridle is because they look cool and jumpery. I think a lot…
I went out to see Simon pants last night, and he was back in full spirits. Feeling very fancy and proud of himself, he was quite the demanding horse. Where are my fans? Why haven’t we been hand grazing? This hay is not in a haynet! Needless to say, I was a bit busy tending to his every need in the hour that I was at the barn. Given how worried I was over the weekend and how sick he looked,…
I’d like to introduce a new segment over here simply called the OTTB Spotlight! I bet you could connect the dots based on the name alone, but I will be featuring different former track horses on this blog and what they’re doing in their current life. Besides, who doesn’t love a good ‘ol OTTB? Today’s spotlight is Viper, who you may recognize from some of my blog posts around here. Viper is owned by an adult amateur at my barn, and…
Sometimes things go swimmingly, and sometimes they don’t. This is a story about the latter. On Friday I blogged about how I was a bit disappointed at Simon’s soundness post injections. My vet said to wait till early next week to check back in so the injections had a full week to take effect. Ok, good plan. Then Friday afternoon he was worse. Walking heel to toe on his RH, and a solid 3+/4 lame on that leg. Thursday night…
Ok, so we all know I’m a bit of a hunter snob but I think the following advice goes for any discipline. I’m not an amazing rider nor do I play one on TV, but I do know a bit about being a student of a sport. I grew up very seriously competitively figure skating, then coached figure skating all through high school, and have taken lessons and clinic with a variety of horse trainers on the east coast and here in…
Going to channel my inner positive person instead of whine and worry like I want to. We’re only allowed one negative nancy post per quarter! The Good My new vet is awesome. She told me to email her videos or any questions. This is greatly appreciated, because I am a huge worry wort… I don’t think this fact will surprise any of you. I turned Simon out in the round pen tonight. He acted all chill and “oh yeah, I’m…
My favorite place to shoot at major horse shows like WEF isn’t the big grand prixs or even the hunter derby… It’s the warm up ring. Sure, there’s no huge action there usually but I feel like the warm up ring is the pulse and the life of the horse show. Sure, there’s a lot of waiting (and hurrying!) but those dull moments look thoughtful and peaceful to me as a photographer.
If Captain Hindsight were here, he’d say that I should have called a different vet out after my horse was still lame at 30 days stall rest. The initial diagnosis I got of a soft tissue strain wasn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. The short story of yesterday’s vet visit was my horse’s right hock is a nightmare and it’s not fully fused. He scored a 1/2 (out of 3) on both hind legs for…