Category wise, horses are a unique pet to have. Most of us don’t have a member of the family that is technically considered livestock. Though I jokingly call my dogs my “herd”, they are fairly universally accepted as pets in the United States. While some people do have working dogs, they become less and less common. For dogs and cats, everyone accepts their value as emotional instead of economical. Horses are less black and white though. For many of us,…
After scraping myself together for a Saturday morning lesson, I decided it would be a good idea to scrape myself for a cross country schooling day on Sunday after more wine. So bright and early, we loaded Simon up and headed out for adventure. Since we had only been jumping a grand total of two rides before schooling, I told myself that we were just going for an adventure. Normally I’d be trying to obsess over getting ALL the pictures…
This weekend was about the holy trinity – ponies, friends and alcohol. Sometimes these combine in amazing ways, and sometimes they leave you showing up for your Saturday morning lesson feeling less than stellar. Less than stellar for your first lesson in over a month. For your first lesson in over a month where your trainer busts out some awesome exercises, that are simultaneously super fun and ridiculously hard. I think I said at one point, “This lesson points out…
I hear “one day at a time”, “one minute at a time” and “keep putting one foot in front of the other” very often. It’s one of those obnoxiously cliche things to say that is both annoying to hear but also extremely accurate. With something like this, sometimes it really is the only way to go forward. For me, the saying has morphed into something more like “stride by stride.” All my life I’ve been very conscious that I’m the…
I am itchin’ to ride my horse again. Tomorrow will be about a month since Simon’s leg blew up, and three weeks after the vet diagnosed him with a suspensory strain. Tomorrow I will hop back on for a mostly walking ride, and slowly leg him back up. He’s been rather enthusiastic in his limited turnout, with more playing & leaping than I’ve ever seen him do. Still, we took this issue very conservatively and his leg has stayed cold…
Long time readers of this blog might have been thinking lately, “Wow – Simon sure has been super sound lately. It’s been a while since she’s had issues.” Been a while until now, that is. After the horse show, I gave Simon Monday off. He got new shoes, and my trainer/farrier didn’t report any weird swelling or issues. Tuesday I went out in the evening to give him a light hack. Immediately on pulling him from turnout, I noticed his…
Right now my horse is not taking the hunter/jumper world by storm. He’s not jumping 3’6″ and he’s not doing perfect lateral work or flying changes. There are a lot of other things that are more important to me right now. When he gets several days off, I can pull him out and know that I’ll get a decent ride from him. May he be a little resistant to bend or maybe a little anxious for transitions? Most likely, yes…
Nothing says “Let’s have a break from this really heavy stuff” like a bunch of pictures of me failing with my saintly horse. This is a great blog hop idea from Zen and the Art of Baby Horse Management. Enjoy! And that’s why the creature has a 5lb box of treats folks.