I can't even think up a stupid title

Bobby is currently in Lame Horse Limbo. He broke the laces on the Boa boots (not really sure how...), so I'm waiting for new ones to arrive so I can replace them. For now, they're getting Gorilla taped on. He looks like one classy mother fucker, I can tell you that. I'm also waiting for the Oxine to arrive so I can hopefully soak out the nasties in his toes.

I saw this stuff while perusing ideas on how to make his feet not suck quite so badly. Has anyone ever heard of it or used it before? It got bookmarked for later shopping.

grazing outside the barn with the pig dog.

Pilot, who almost everyone actually calls "Little Grey Horse" in person because his name sucks--he came with it, and I called him Pistol for the first month he was here because I could never remember Pilot--has had two arena rides the past two days.

Yesterday, he got his booty worked off on the flat. We had a rather lengthy discussion about how he does not need to buck during counter departs, or when he gets the wrong lead and I ask him to come back down to the trot. Then we had a discussion about how coming off the circle to go down the long side does not mean I'm asking for a lengthening--in fact, for dressage test time for Baby Horsies, it means it's almost time to trot again. SO TROT.

He carried his lessons over very well today, though. I dropped my stirrups three holes to where I usually flat Bobby (still three holes shorter than I ride in a dressage saddle, which I really want to have again) (p.s. sad face, I want a dressage saddle again.) and was surprised to find that my leg didn't dangle past his belly. It helps that he's so fat right now. But for being 15hh and me being 5'10" of legs, it didn't feel too awkward at all. What it did do was make me feel a lot more secure instead of feeling perched on top of  fat, green baby with exceptionally questionable steering.

I also switched out pads to something else, and the combination of better riding on my part and a tack change made him feel a lot more forward and happy. His canter was also much calmer and more controlled, though he still wanted to throw in a couple of bucks. Well...they're not even really bucks, in that his head doesn't go diving down and his hind end doesn't go shooting up. They're more like exuberant hind leg dances with a neck wiggle. But still uncalled for.

a picture of my awkward mule waiting to get his boots and sheet put on
to break up word vomit.

Because he was so good, I set up a little crossrail with a placing pole 9' out for him to go over. He trotted right over it without even bothering to jump it the first time, then cantered off before calmly coming to a halt at the end of the arena when asked. Trotted back around, a stride out from the pole he picked up the canter on his own, cantered the pole, cantered the X, landed on the correct lead, and again halted quietly. Once more of the same routine before I asked him to canter the whole way. He was balanced enough that he easily made the turn down the quarterline in our small indoor, and he cantered evenly over the pole and X like it was no big deal. No bucking, no rushing, no nothing. Just a ho-hum jump.

Now, he's been jumped in the arena plenty of times before (around 2', maybe 2'3"). He's been at the barn for about a year and a half and he was being ridden almost every Saturday in a lesson, and he was ridden quite a bit over the summer. But the Saturday rider went off to college and the summer rider went back to Hong Kong (to return this winter for a couple of weeks), and into the field he went to do absolutely nothing. So I'm very happy he's picked right back up where he left off in that respect.

Even though Hubby killed the latest camera (though not quite as thoroughly as the last one, and we again have it covered under warranty), I'm going to make him come out this weekend for better Little Grey Horse pictures.

LGH returns to the XC field.

Unfortunately, the Big Bay Horse is not in good shape. After digging around in his feet yesterday, I realized how much worse the thrush crack in his right heel bulb has gotten. Figuring that was the culprit, I finally put in an order for Oxine (thanks to the recommendation by a blog reader!) to hopefully knock out any remaining fungus. Today I shoved Kopertox soaked cotton into the crack and wrapped it up. Took him outside to see how he walked and he was dead fucking lame on the LF. WTF?! I'm going to soak both when the Oxine gets here, and schedule body work for next week sometime. If that doesn't help him, I'll figure out something else to do. In the meantime, he's back to daily groomings, stretches, and free cookies.

In fun, not lame horse news, I took Pilot out to the xcountry field again this morning. He got his feet done yesterday, but I didn't know when the farrier was going to be there and since he was the only one on the list, I didn't want to be on him when they pulled in. Basically, he's been hanging out in his field getting fatter by the second the past two days.

I went up with Pilot on the longe since a) we're not allowed to jump in the xcountry field alone, and b) even if we were, jumping a green baby horse who's only been up there once before is not my idea of a good time. I started off by chasing away the stupid-as-sin 2yo filly away while the rest of the mares grazed obliviously, then clearing away torn up jump pieces.

signs of naughty pony damage: plain old cribbing, the shits.

bear damage: ripped up and knocked over.

more bear damage--that used to be another log before it rotted and was torn up.

PA has an estimated 15,000 black bear population, and we live in a pretty bear-dense area (more north by my house than at the barn, but BO has seen them before). The majority of the xcountry jumps have been in the field for at least a decade, and they're almost all logs, so they rot out. The xcountry field has a well maintained food plot on one side and miles of woods on the other. What's more delicious than stopping for bugs in logs while on your way to corn? Hence the bear damage.

But anyway.

I warmed Pilot up with a few trot/halt transitions on the longe to make sure he was listening, then snuck his circle over to include the branch. He didn't care and kept on trotting. Made the circle a little bigger to include the cherry log and he seemed surprised to see it, but went anyway.

these are all off my crappy cell phone, so sorry for the quality.

I had him do that a few times before stopping and giving him a cookie for a job well done. There's nothing this horse loves more than a cookie and being told he's a good boy.

Figuring he'd grasped the concept of longeing over a jump, I took him over to the ditch. He had a big snort and a one-step scoot sideways, but he's got a great brain and he processed the new monster as, "Holy shit! So scary! Let's see what it is!" I let him take as long as he wanted to sniff around it before I put him on a tiny circle and sent him towards it. The first couple of times, he threw on the brakes and went skittering backwards. I give him some encouragement with the longe whip and sent him right back towards it. He finally got to it, threw on the brakes, and then just stood there and looked at me like, "What am I supposed to do now?" I gave him a big scratch for trying to figure things out, then led him away and sent him to it again.

This time he launched over and let out several giant bucks. I stopped him and gave him a cookie for going over, but then had to switch tactics and put an immediate kibosh on the bucking. He threw a couple mini bucks on Sunday after jumping and I let them slide, but today he was in bronco mode and I don't want him thinking that's acceptable to do after a jump. Like, ever. As soon as he landed, I had him immediately halt and stand. If he managed to do it without bucking, he got a scratch. If he didn't, he got sent forward to the canter on the circle for a few laps before trying again. Scratches quickly won out over extra work and he went back to being polite.

After the ditch was conquered and totally boring, we went over to the baby bank. Going up, not an issue. He stepped up politely at both the walk and trot. Going down? From the walk, totally fine. From the trot, we had to revisit the bucking issue a couple of times. Learning that stepping off the bank is easier for baby horse to keep his balance than launching into orbit helped.

"oh, you do it like this! got it."

I was going to be done there since I was almost out of cookies and he had been pretty good, but we were walking back towards the barn and he saw the stacked logs, locked on, and veered off to them. I let the longe line out and without any encouragement from me, he jumped right over them.

I let him go over them a few times since he seemed to be enjoying himself, then called it quits for real. I told him to whoa, he stopped at the end of the longe and stood there (horses coming in uninvited is not allowed--so rude) while I fished out my final cookie. Before I even got it out, he'd turned himself around and went happily trotting in the other direction over the logs. With zero encouragement, he stayed on his circle and made a few more laps before halting himself and turning to look at me.

taking the large side on his own accord. 

He definitely got his cookie after that, and lots of extra scratches. Someone is going on the trailer with Bobby next year to be a baby event horse. I actually played around with the idea of entering him at Burgundy's last event of the year in their Intro division, but Bobby needs extra pony attention ($$) and the cats and dogs are due to get their Seresto collars replaced ($$$$), so Pilot will have to wait until next year.

If I can just get him to carry the forward attitude over to the arena, even the dressage work will be fun!

Little Grey Horse

The fun of a sound Bobby has faded all too soon. He had Thursday off, and when I got on him Friday, he was foot sore in the RF again so I didn't ride.

Saturday, he also had the day off, but I did get on Pilot. After tweaking his leg in the paddock, he's had a couple of weeks off to recuperate. I rode him Thursday as well--that time just doing w/t in the indoor to assess soundness. Yesterday, we went up to the outdoor and worked on such strenuous things as steering, and going straight, and being more forward than a dead slug.

flowers! so much more exciting than paying attention!

Pilot's such a good-natured dude who doesn't put up a fuss about much of anything that it's easy to forget how unbelievably green he is. We spent a lot of time doing figures all around the ring, trying to get him to listen to my legs for steering, but having to give several "Hellooo down there! We're about to run into the fence!" tugs on the reins. It doesn't help that he has to gawp at everything around him. I also had to use every muscle in my body to get him to go forward. Pony club kicks, saddle humping, arm flapping, you name it--it all came into play at one point. Who wants to go forward when you can watch other horses instead? The baby brain is a magical thing.

Part of his problem is that someone must have taught him early on that if he frames up, he's good to go. So when I nag him enough that he tunes in, he curls his head up and then gets pissy if I keep asking him to go forward. False framing isn't going to get you out of work, dude!

he does try though. he'll be a dressage pony eventually.

Today, I recruited Hubby to go up to the xcountry field with me. Unfortunately, the majority of the jumps have been torn up by joint effort from bears and horses, but there were a couple of little logs that were Pilot sized. Hubby got on Bobby western (and booted) to chaperon us. Once Bobby escorted us across the tiny stream, Pilot took over and marched up the hill on a loose rein, taking everything in with a big, forward stride but no snorting or tension at all.

how cute is he?

We broke off from Bobby once we got to the top and explored by ourselves. He stayed alert but relaxed--not bad for a 4yo who's never been up there, never been on a trail ride, and never had to go off by himself in a strange area before.

I eventually had Hubby and Bobby lead us over the tiniest jump in the field--a little branch. We walked over each way once before Bobby put the parking brake on and we were left to do it ourselves.

ain't no thing.

listening ears. 

I moved him up to the cherry log beside the branch next. He was extremely impressed by it and launched his front half while barely remembering to bring his back half along at the last second.

so giant!

"what are my back legs supposed to be doing?!"

I know my position leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm glad I took such a defensive back seat because he popped his head up so high on landing that he almost cracked me in the face even with how far I was sitting back--I had mane up my nose!

blurry, but hubby killed the camera almost directly after this. AGAIN.

We went over the log a few more times before trotting up and down some of the steeper terrain and calling it quits. He's out of shape and his baby brain is easily distracted, so I didn't want to push my luck and end up making him sour. I think he enjoyed himself though.

bobby wasn't sure if he was jealous of his lack of
participation or not.

Everyone gets tomorrow off. Bobby is going to go back out with the boot on his RF for a few more days before trying completely barefoot again. Hopefully that will make him less sore. Poor dude.

Continued success

First of all, thank you for all the comments on Bobby's feet! I spent most of yesterday afternoon and this morning on the barefoot websites you guys linked me to. I'm not confident that I want to be the one to do his feet in the long run, but for now, I think it's working out well for me to tweak them every week. That way I don't have to worry about a farrier doing any major changes to hold him over for six weeks and he goes lame again.

It helps that I have BM to call on when I've got a question about any funkiness--she's not afraid to plop down beside me and point out where I can do something different and then show me how to do it. I have absolutely no prior "farrier" experience. Before this, I only knew how to pull a shoe and use a rasp without taking off chunks of my knuckles (that was a hard battle to win). I'm definitely learning a ton as I go, and regardless of who does him in the future, I'm going to be a lot more involved.

"durhh, just give me cookies."

To further add to hoof improvements, I walked him down the gravel driveway to the indoor today sans boots and while he was still a little short, he kept right up with me instead of dragging behind and giving me sad faces--something he did even with boots on just a week or two ago. Because of that, I decided to see if he could get turned out with no boots. He cantered up the steep, rocky hill to his paddock like it was no bigs and wandered off to graze. Big win!

We gave him those three weeks in a pen with a foot of shavings and a tiny, private pasture to wander in and out of at free will. Then he was put out with boots on both fronts in one of the smaller pastures before getting moved back to his original pasture. Pretty quickly, we pulled the LF boot, but kept his wonky RF covered until about a week ago. Then we switched to let the RF go naked, dry out, and toughen up while adding some comfort of the boot on the LF. This final step is just to let him grit it out with nothing on. If he gets really sore, a boot will go back on and we'll give him more time. He's also getting a little Bute to help make life easier. For it being less than two months since his shoes came off, I couldn't ask for anything more. He's way ahead of where I though the would be.

"tell me, unicorn. are you happy to be back in work?"
"debatable."

I made the poor beastie do a dressage school today before giving him tomorrow off, and he was surprisingly good for it. Actually, I don't know what's circulating inside Bobby's head right now. He's been pretty fabulous about everything lately. Were his feet really so bad as to make him a miserable bastard sixty percent of the time?

He was lazy to start off, but I think that has more to do with being out of shape than anything. He is a chunker right now. Give him a couple weeks and he'll burn it off, but wowza. Someone stuffed the sausage a little too tight into the casing, if you know what I mean. (And no, I'm not referring to a penis, you fucking perverts.) It does make him look like a big fancy warmblood, but I'd rather have a leaner Thoroughbred-looking....you know, Thoroughbred.

Anyway.

Dressage ride.

All the time off he had packing on pounds was also spent doing stretches, and dang has it helped him reach over his back. This horse had no idea how to carry himself and stretch down at the trot, and barely at the walk. Now he's relaxed and rhythmical while swinging out at the trot on a loose rein with his nose on the ground. His neck looks downright sexual, and the push from behind makes it so much easier to lengthen his stride (when prompted with a tickle of the dressage whip, the fat cow). We did a lot of alternating between a more uphill dressage frame and stretching at the trot before running through a dressage test.

Ugh, his canter was deplorable. Bobby's canter has always been hit and miss for me, and today was definitely a miss. I let him take a breather before sticking him on a circle and being really mean to him asking him to go correctly.

We did a million and one walk-canter transitions (actually easier for Bobby than trot-canter) before he remembered the idea of jumping into the transition without flinging his head and neck into the stratosphere. After that was established, we worked on continuing on in the canter without his head and neck snaking back up to stare at the ceiling. My legs were so. fucking. tired. I didn't want to quit until I got my point across, and he was getting tired and making me work like hell for it. He finally gave me one full circle of his beautiful, balanced, uphill "There's a reason you keep me around" dressage canter and I let him cool out with tons of pats and praise.

barn kitty shows exactly how bobby and i felt.

I have high hopes for dressage tests next season. I keep playing around with warm up to see what suits him best, and where I can cut corners if I need to (aka, when I get to a show late and have ten minutes to be saddled and in the ring for my test--it's happened before!). If he can just stay focused and not throw tantrums, we'll be golden.

Good hoof news all around!

Instead of being greeted by the BM with such bad news as, "Your horse tried to impale his head again." or, "Bobby seems to be missing a large chunk of flesh on his flank." I actually got really good news! We got a crazy fucking downpour yesterday--4" in under two hours up at our house--so BM turned Bobby out without his boot so it didn't get wet and then insulate a nice fungus-building puddle overnight. (Oh, p.s. Bobby is down to just one boot and still on 17 hours of turnout in the biggest field. Whaaat.) She said he came running down the hill and was the first one in this morning for the first time in forever, and he did it looking completely sound.

YAYYYYY!!!!!

With that kick ass fucking news in mind, I decided to see if I could do our two point torture session in the cross country field barefoot.

the reaction we get from the mares when invading their pasture.
clearly bobby is not viewed as a threat. or a suitable boyfriend.

Um, yeah. We could. Granted, the rain made the footing absolutely perfect, and the xcountry field is the only field in the surrounding five counties that isn't shale-based so we weren't battling rocks, but still.

My goal for the two point challenge is to add an extra minute of my start time of six minutes every week. I thought I might die, but I did manage seven minutes today. I split it up into three minutes of trot, three minutes of canter, and one minute of trot. Then I cried a little from the pain in my aching calves and walked Bobby down to the bottom of the field so we could have a run up the hill.

I turned him around, made him halt, and then randomly decided to clear my watch that still had the two point time on display. Someone took the beep as his cue to go galloping out of the start box and sprinted away while I still only had the reins in one hand. I let him go flat out since it's a clear shot to the top of the hill and there's plenty of room on top to pull him up before it drops off again. Besides, Bobby is so polite to gallop anyway!

Um, no. Usually all I have to do is stand in my stirrups and let an inch or two out of my reins and he merrily comes back to a trot. It took me every foot of flat ground available to get him pulled back up, and it involved a lot of feet on the dash and see-sawing of the elevator bit. Crazy fuck. Clearly his toes were not causing him pain. Take that, NF!

I touched up his hooves when we were all done, cried a little more about my lack of leg strength while bending over, and snapped some quick pictures.

For comparison:

Pictures from 8/26, a day after getting his shoes pulled:

LF

RF

LH

RH

fronts.

And today, 10/8:

LF

RF

RH. missed a spot on the outside! 

LH.
(obvi not as tiny as my fingers--i'm just an excellent photog.)

the RF is still being a little bitch. BM suggested scoring above where that toe
crack wants to start again and it stopped it in it's tracks.

you can see how dished the toe is on the RF. it IS growing out, and it's WAY
better than it was even a few weeks ago, but i think it's going to keep trying to
crack until the dish is gone.

I welcome any and all comments on his feet! I've been rasping them about once a week just to keep the chips and any flaring to a minimum. Still a ways to go, but they're obviously so much healthier than they were a month and a half ago.

ALL THE PICTURES.

After Bobby went turkey hunting earlier this week, my next few rides were downright pedestrian in comparison. I went on another trail ride to do some conditioning work before hunting season kicked off, and I got my baseline for the two point challenge in the xcountry field another day (Six minutes, for those who are dying to know.).

On Saturday, I put him through a pretty extensive dressage schooling that he started off rough but ended really well. I know you're supposed to use lateral work to help warm a horse up, but Bobby is the opposite. He is literally incapable of moving sideways until he's been working for twenty minutes and has been packaged into a more compact Bobby-frame. He's too long and enjoys flailing about too much otherwise.

But anyway! Those were pretty boring rides which is why I didn't put forth the effort into blogging about them. Let's have pictures! And video! Of jumping!

!!!

I warmed Bobby up in the outdoor completely barefoot. He was the teeniest bit mincy wherever the footing was packed down, but overall felt pretty durned sound.

he was not feeling pretty durned cooperative on the flat however.

I kept the warm up short before putting his boots on and getting started over jumps.

Twice over the gate:

Twice over the coop:

Then we started working through my favorite grid: three bounces, two strides to an oxer.

Twice through with just the bounces, then the last jump went up to a 2'9" (ish? might have been 3'?) vertical. Twice through with that setup:

Finally made the last jump an oxer (back rail either 3' or 3'3". I haven't figure out the holes on the 6' standards yet.) and went through a few times to finish:

he almost jumped me out of the tack on landing on this one, he cracked his
hind end up so high. he gets a little exuberant with his tuckus every now and then.

The height wasn't huge--I usually use this grid to knock the height up to around 4'--but I went with spread this time. Bobby was unimpressed. When your regular jump length lands you nearly a full stride past the fence as it is, a wide oxer is cake.

So. Nothing too exciting, but I'm happy to report that I feel like a little bit of a boss jumping again. I think Bobby and I hobbling along on our broken feet for a couple of months recharged my brain. I feel like a capable rider over fences for the first time in a looong time. My position can still be tweaked--my leg still slips back more than I want it to--but my heels are down, my hands are capable of going forward instead of yanking on his mouth, and going faster than a western pleasure lope when approaching a fence is suddenly easy peasy.

Hopefully the trend continues. Being friends with my big, dumb donkey is fun.

"pretending like i know how to pose is so exhausting, you guys."

Bobby Magee: Killer of the Innocent.

Just when I think Bobby and I have begun to gel, hold hands, share cookies with each other, and do all those other girlie best friend things, he reminds me that he is a Mighty Magee son and the devil runs through his veins.

Our ride started out innocuous enough. We plodded around the indoor for five minutes before I said "fuck it", strapped on his booties, and headed out onto the trails.

how could you resist on such a gorgeous day?

He was a rock crunching machine, feeling totally secure in his boots and not sore on his naked hinds. We went galloping up our hill and galloping through the chest-high grass for a good ten minutes. He never took a sore step and remained totally polite even in his exuberance at doing fun things again.

Then we ended back up at the top of the galloping hill. I asked him to trot down it, keeping an eye on the rafter of turkeys (there's your trivia answer for the day) that were milling about at the bottom.

Now, turkeys are not intelligent animals. I've tried to raised babies before and they all committed suicide in various ways--burning themselves alive under the heat lamp instead of getting up and moving, drowning by falling asleep in their water dish, etc. We've encountered them numerous times on trail rides, and I usually don't even know they're there until Bobby has trod on them.

"Bobby trods on turkeys?" you ask. Actually, Bobby has a propensity to crush any small animal in his path. He deliberately goes out of his way to trample any bird or rodent that has the misfortune to get underfoot. I guess it's his "If you kill it, it can't kill you" mindset. He has a long history of unnecessary murder.

Bobby set off down the hill at merry trot. It wasn't until about halfway that he spotted them.

Bobby: ZOMG. TURKEYS. DO YOU SEE THEM?

Me: Bobby, no. We're trotting politely down this hill. Put your head back down.

Bobby: ARE THEY MOVING? THEY'RE NOT TRYING TO RUN AWAY ARE THEY?!

Me: Bobby...forget the turkeys.

Bobby: THEY'RE TRYING TO ESCAPE! I SEE THEM MOVING!!!

Me: BOBBY! NOOOOOO!!

Bobby: CHARGE!!!!! DEATH TO TURKEYS!!

He snatched the bit and took off down the hill as I flailed about, grabbing mane and trying to shorten my reins and haul him to a stop without tumbling over his head. The turkeys, at this point, saw the black freight train barreling towards them and heard me yelling every expletive known to man. But, as I said before, turkeys are unfathomably stupid. Half of them went running into the woods. The other half circled around in confusion until we were upon them. It was only then that I managed to saw my horse's mouth enough that he threw on the brakes and half a dozen turkeys flew into the air around us.

It was like some horrible comedy skit, only I feared for my life and my horse's sanity.

Once the fucking turkeys had all dispersed, I cracked Bobby upside the head with my hand so hard it hurt me. I know open-handing your horse is in poor form, but I was so unbelievably pissed. WHO THE FUCK CHARGES INTO A BUNCH OF TURKEYS ON THEIR OWN ACCORD?!

I mean, really, Bobby?!?!

He had a big snorting prance fest until we were out of the woods, and then he dropped his head and walked home on the buckle.

The most disappointing thing was that my helmet cam was in my car. I brought it on the off chance that I might go out, but then was too lazy to walk out to my car, put it on, and mount from the ground. For that I apologize profusely. It was a moment that really should have been immortalized on film.