Skanky Biatch Showing

Thanks to Katie of Two of a Kind, I have found something to occupy myself with during my recovery time. And really probably for long after that.

Courtesy of gizoogle, Poor Woman Showing can become Skanky Biatch Showing.

Enjoy.

New House. Again.

I don't even know how to make my posts not boring right now. In the Adventures of the Slightly Crippled Thoroughbred and His Slightly Crippled Owner, big updates to me are not really worth reading about to you.

For instance....

On Tuesday, I went down to the barn to hang with Sarah on her birthday and test out some of the settings on my replacement camera. Bobby got to graze while Memphis got his booty worked.

fancy dutch hippo.

he was dead set on taking off from sixty feet away.

As they were cooling out, I jumped on my heavily Show Sheen-ed pony and took him for a canter circle each way. He stepped right off as soon as I closed my legs and seemed happy to go. Not unfix-ably broken. Yay!

chased by a UFO.
that's what i get for not wearing my helmet!

On Wednesday, I pulled the stirrups off my saddle and did twenty minutes of walk work in the indoor. The ride was all about leg yields, and Bobby showed that he's better to the left than he was earlier this summer, but that he needs a visit from the chiro eventually. He shut down doing them to the right, throwing on the brakes and glaring at me (no one can shoot you the Death Stare like Bobby can) before turning his refusal of moving forward into a spinning tantrum. Nice to have you back, Robert! We finished with an acceptable leg yield to the left. Add a hip cracking to the growing list of things he needs.

pig dog!

pig dogs love balls!

Today, I stuck my stirrups back on and went back to the indoor. Bobby was all, "Walk? Why not trot? Trot? Why not canter?" So I let him do his thing. It was about a thirty minute ride and it was done primarily at the walk, but he did get some trot work in and even a tiny canter. Instead of leg yields, I focused mostly on the shoulder-in and doing a lot of counter bend. Gosh, his shoulder-in is so fab. It's taken him forever for him to give me a correct one, but today it just clicked for him. Soooo good both ways.

I let him do one canter circle before taking him across the diagonal and doing a lap of counter canter. Repeat in the opposite direction. I gotta admit, I'm really jealous of Sarah who asked Memphis to flying change over to the counter canter on the long side and they carried on like it was no bigs. One day, Robert.

We finished with our first go at a medium trot. For having feet that look like a neglect case, it was pretty fab itself. Maybe next year we'll actually be able to show First at the beginning of the year and finish out with Second 1?

feet today.

watching the hounds. he's not a fan of dogs. 

Since he's been so sound in the indoor, and he's been walking up the driveway better each day, I decided to leave him in his stall overnight so he can try to go out with Simon tomorrow morning. I'm sure he'll be appreciative of the extra grass and having a buddy again. Hopefully his feet hold up to it. If not, he can always go back to his pen. He'll probably have the next.... four-ish days off. Hubby's littlest bro is coming out to do manly things all weekend, and I feel as though I should be around the house to supervise.

baby kelpie dog.

if i can't give you exciting pony updates, at least i can give you cute puppy pics!

We'll see how my foot feels tomorrow, but I actually had my feet in the stirrups for trot work and didn't feel as though I was going to die. It's been almost two weeks and I'm supposed to be resting it for four, so maybe with my continued routine of copious amounts of Aspercreme, ice, and wrapping I can get it down to three. Being a gimp is a drag.

UPD Mounted Police

Since there is nothing particularly exciting going on in the world of Bobby and I, I wanted to share this article from the college I went to about UPD's mounted police.

Click here to read about Jack.

Jack came to the school the year after I graduated, but I remember seeing him in the barn when I went to stalk visit Bobby when he retired. Kind of a homely dude with a bit of a pissy attitude, but it looks like he's taken to his new job.

Why the tiny campus of Cobleskill needs a mounted police officer is slightly questionable, but whatevs. If you got it, flaunt it, right? Kind of a cool story.

Toes pictures.

What kind of weird fetish hits will I get off of that title?

Pictures of Robert's toes on Sunday when he was feeling extremely uncooperative about standing still:

LF

RF, with its stank ass thrush crack. 

LH

RH

Trying to use up what I have on hand before my broke ass has to buy more things, I treated the thrush crack (which smells fucking awful, but less fucking awful than Thursday) with some Today. I'm going to finish that off before probably buying the White Lightning.

grazing under the apple tree. life could be worse.

The plan for Mr Magee is to let him finish out the week in his pen, tiny paddock, and arena turnout before hopefully resuming his previous turnout schedule--going out from 7am to 2pm with Simon. I think he'd be fine out in the big paddock right now, but he has to walk up a steep, really rocky hill to get there. I walked him up Sunday to graze by the round pen and he was hurting. One more week ought to do it. Fingers crossed, at least.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to saddle him up for some no stirrup riding in the indoor. My broken foot was feeling better at the end of last week, so I helped Hubby move furniture. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Now it hurts worse than it did before. Healing is so fucking boring.

In better news, the camera that Hubby dropped in the creek on our trail ride a few weeks ago was replaced this weekend. Holla! Always buy a warranty plan, kids. Best Buy didn't have our Sony anymore, so we got a higher quality Nikon instead. Okay, Best Buy. If you insist. I'm not a professional photographer by any means, and all we really want a camera for is Facebook quality pony pictures and various other fun things we  do (like....?). Look for high quality hoof pictures to replace my cell phone pictures soon. Because things are that interesting around here.

recovered pics from trail ride off of old camera.

hubby and dollar.

Aaaand that concludes one of the most boring posts ever.

You're welcome.

Barefoot.

So of course NF didn't pull Bobby's shoes when he returned Thursday. He did leave me a very endearing note on the board in response to my plea to take them off himself:

"Not today, but soon."

Soon, NF? Would soon be in three weeks when Bobby was due for a reset? Or would soon be six weeks when you actually got around to showing up? I can only assume that regardless of a time frame, soon really means when he's ripped his shoes off and taken half his foot with them.

Raging with hormones, I dug out my rasp and accepted BM's pair of nail pullers from under her car seat (proving to be a true horsewoman, especially since all of her ponies are barefoot), and I got to work on yanking steel. I was sweating like I had just run a marathon in the Amazon, but they eventually all came off. It helped that Bobby put up with my awkward maneuvering of his legs. Eventually I just set his hind legs on an overturned water bucket and he rested them there as I pulled out nails. It also helped that when I got around to the LF, I pulled out one nail, pulled the second nail, and the whole shoe came with it. Yeah, he definitely could have waited.

bitch, please.

Bobby's feet smelled awful once the shoes were off--like rotting foot. I know some people at the barn don't agree with me pulling his shoes, but I am so glad I did. I have both Farrier Barrier and Double Strength Farrier's Formula on the way. BO also suggested Knox Gelatine, so I bought a big box of that yesterday and started him on two packets a day. I'd never heard of using it before, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.

front feet. 

Yesterday I freed him from his pen and he went bucking around the arena like a wild man without a short step. At least that footing agrees with him. I took him for a field trip to the barn and he was a little short walking up the driveway, but not nearly as bad as I thought he was going to be.

visiting with friends. 

I jumped on him once we were back in the indoor with just his halter and lead on and we walked around for ten minutes. He didn't feel off, so I'm hopeful that once my foot is better we can do some work in there. In the meantime, I've begun the painful search for a legitimate barefoot farrier. Not holding my breath, though maybe I'll get lucky.

his current "stall"

In the meantime, Bobby is enjoying wandering in and out of his pen at free will, eating extra hay to make up for lack of grazing time, and getting fed cookies for no reason.

More Foot Troubles

A quick update to my Equine Aid post: I brought Bobby in around 11 for the farrier and in the hour he hung out in his stall waiting for his turn, he drank his entire bucket of Equine Aid and didn't touch the plain water. Definitely investing!

When I last updated on Robert-doings, we were cruising around the arena all by ourselves in the cart. Okay, so we only walked, but we walked with no header and no tantrums. My horse is kind of a big deal. I decided to follow that up by heading up the road the next day to the local state park and explore their horse trails. Hubby wanted to take the canoe out on the lake, so Bobby and I hitched a ride.

I can tell you right now that whoever designated the equestrian trails at this park has clearly never seen a horse before. Not that it was impossible to ride, but it was a two mile uphill climb that was almost solid rock. Not ideal pony prancing circumstances. It was, however, apparently excellent training circumstances as I met three women almost to the summit (like we were scaling Mt Kilimanjaro or something). Two of them were in the Army, and the other one was doing reps up this particular trail to get in shape for climbing Mt Everest. I mean, really.

I ended up leading Bobby up the last part of the trail and I had to lead him all the way down. Bobby was a perfect gentleman the entire time, despite being by himself somewhere he'd never been before. He plodded along at the end of the reins behind me unless we were going down a seriously steep section. Then he was able to slide down faster, but once he got his footing secure again, he stopped and waited for me to catch up on his own. No screaming, no trying to get back to the trailer, just accepting his poor pony fate.

at the top of the trail.

We both came back slightly worse for wear. Bobby lost a hind shoe in the trailer on the ride home, and I annoyed my right foot enough that I now have a stress fracture.

All of that leads to Wednesday's farrier appointment. Warning: there will be copious amounts of swearing.

NF has been harping to me for months about how if he has to keep nailing missing shoes into Bobby's feet that the hoof is going to be useless and it's never going to be salvageable and so on and so on. I can't afford glue-ons so that's never been an option. However, pulling his shoes and letting his hoof grow out to something semi-respectable has been. I've just been pushing it off to keep competing. Well, competing got kicked to the curb awhile ago and now that my foot is broken, riding has temporarily been kicked to the curb.

So I told NF that instead of putting the pulled shoe back onto a hoof that was torn to shreds, I wanted to pull all of his shoes. NF said no. NF said that his hind feet aren't really that bad and that he refuses to pull his front shoes. NF said Bobby was going to be dead lame if we pulled them and he might never truly be sound barefoot. So NF put his hind shoe back on.

Ok, let's break this down really quick before I continue with the story.

Here's the RH that got the shoe put back on:

looks like a hoof i'd want to keep sticking nails in!

Secondly, obviously he's going to be lame. He's going to be so fucking sore that he probably won't be able to walk on hard ground for at least a month. I'm not fucking delusional here. I'm not expecting him to get his shoes pulled and his feet magically go "Tah dah! We're all better now!"

And as far as being completely sound barefoot--that's not my goal either. I would like him to grow a healthy enough foot so that he can hold a shoe for more than three weeks next year and I don't have to scratch shows because he got a loose shoe tacked back on the day before competition and he's sore.

Needless to say, I was really pissed. I waited for BM to arrive because NF also said that our turnout plan is not acceptable and I was ready to cry and then punch someone out at that point. I told BM that NF wanted to change the turnout again and BM went stomping over to NF to ask WTF he wanted her to do. I was really happy to have BM on my side. I wouldn't want her yelling at me.

BM: What do you want me to do with this horse, NF?!

NF: Do you want me to tell you what my first preferred option would be? I would pull all his shoes and keep him in his stall 24/7.

At which point I almost walked away.

WTF DID I JUST ASK YOU TO DO?!?! WHAT DID NOT GET ACROSS IN THAT HOUR LONG CONVERSATION???

In another circuitous conversation, BM and I agreed that Bobby could live in the big (like 12'x60') pen off the back of the indoor. There's a tiny little paddock off the back of it that he can get locked out of when it's raining, and he can get turned loose in the indoor at night. BM was even going to try to come up with a buddy he could get turned out with at night. That way he could go from a foot of shavings to a foot of arena footing without ever coming in contact with hard ground until his feet toughen up. Great plan, yes?

I repeated for the hundredth time to NF that Bobby could have as much time off as he needed and he was going to live in the arena so he wouldn't be walking on stone. So what did NF do?

He left.

With my horse's shoes still on.

Granted, he's supposed to be coming back today to finish up the rest of his horses, but what are the chances Bobby's shoes will actually be off? I'm going to say zero. And then I'm just going to pull them off myself. Bobby is going to be barefoot. Period.

Product Review: Equine Aid

Every spring, I compile a giant list of things I need to get ready for the show season. Occasionally big items crop up: a new saddle (or two), a helmet to replace the one I landed on my head in, or new galloping boots. Mostly, though, it's a grocery list of smaller items:

• Black gloves--because although I start each year with several pairs and keep adding more throughout the months, once I clean out my show trunk they're just...gone. 
• Knee socks--because like black gloves, their soul mates tend to leave them all by themselves. One time I even found a loner in the back (as in bed) of Hubby's truck like a month after a show.
• Hair nets--because I inevitably skewer them with bobby pins to try to tame my very thick, very long hair and then I get frustrated at how long it takes to remove them and just rip the hair net to shreds.
• And speaking of bobby pins....

i mean, really.

Last year on my list of things to replace was my bucket of Horse Quencher. Bobby loved the taste of this when I first bought it in 2011, but by the end of 2012, he slowly began ignoring it and opting for his plain ole H2O. When he wouldn't go near the stuff this year, I started to keep my eye out on something else that would encourage him to drink.

Bobby is an excessive sweater. He stands around when it's hot, swishes his tail, and BAM--he's lathered in sweat. He's never been a bad drinker, but doesn't drink like a horse who sweats so much should. This turns into a bit of a war at horse shows when he doesn't have access to nonstop water on the trailer and he's only had half a bucket to drink in the six-plus hours he's been away from the barn. 

While he does drink a good amount coming off of cross country, he doesn't drink at all after dressage, and usually he doesn't drink while waiting for the jumping phases to start. In PA, where the chances of running an event in 90* heat is high, that's no bueno. 

Back in July, I saw this blog post on Equine Aid. I like any concept of getting my horse to drink, and I bookmarked the page. Then I saw Kate's giveaway on her blog. Free samples? Heck yes! Unfortunately, I didn't win, but fortunately, the wonderful people at Equine Aid contacted me and offered some samples anyway. Ballin'!

I got them today and took them to the barn. It's cool today--in the seventies--so this was definitely going to be a good test if Mr I Don't Drink Unless It's Five Thousand Degrees Out and I Just Ran For Ten Minutes would like the product. I brought him in just before his dinner and dumped the packet in. He was very interested in the crinkly wrapper, but once in the water, he ignored me and took a good chug of his plain water. To be fair, it does kind of make the water look like a Louisiana swamp.

As I was grooming him, he started to lip at the Equine Aid water, and then he started playing in it. It was like he loved the smell of it (sooo good--it smells like delicious muffins!), but couldn't bring himself to drink funky looking water. 

I hung around while he ate his grain, helped BM turn out horses, and then glanced into his stall again. A quarter of the green water was gone! He continued to choose the Equine Aid water over his plain water as he went to work on his hay. Mission accomplished.

I'll definitely be adding these to the show list next spring. I like how compact the packets are so I don't have to lug around a bucket, and I also love the price of them. I really think these will really help Bobby drink more which will hopefully keep him from coming back from a BN or N event looking like he instead ran around the Grand National. Twice. 

because who goes so slow around a BN course that they
pick up time faults, but looks like they just made time at A?