Well, on Saturday my baby boy re-starts the starting process.  I'm finding it quite disturbing.  I have the best professional I know working with him (and I'm involved, even if it's only watching).  So, I was pondering why this was bothering me.  I think it's because right now he's just unlimited potential.  Once he's started, reality kicks in.  Of course I will love him no matter what happens.  If he's not a dressage horse, so be it.  If he's not a high level dressage horse, so be it. …

I was out snuggling my baby boy today, giving him a grooming.  It's shedding season, he's not too bad, but he gets done regularly.  He's a very snuggly sweetie pie.  He is now 16 1/2" hh, growing into a reasonably sized boy.  This spring he'll be started, and this fall he comes to the barn.  He'll get to live inside and learn all the things he needs to know to become a super star show boy.

He lives with an old girl, she's 30 this year.  She's starting to slow down, and I think when he…

So, my sweet Maggie Mae met her end on Monday.  It was not exactly how I thought the day would go.  A routine vet appointment to find out why she was lame ended up with a complete break of the proximal third of her cannon.  It's not often, I think, that one finds comfort in the vet report to the insurance company, but knowing that the vet heard the break and saw it from his spot on the outside of the longe circle, when I didn't, lets me know that even if she'd stopped immediately, the…

Well, my little girl has an owie, I'll call a vet in the morning.  Took me two days to figure out which leg it was in.  She doesn't like to make things easy on me.  She's all clipped up and looking fantastic.  She's the only horse I know that is the same colour clipped as she is not clipped, and just as shiny.  I do love my little angel.

Back to lameness.  She's got a slight swelling on the right fore around the fetlock.  Current theory is that she tweaked herself (doesn't…

Okay, not mud, actually, just wet sand.  Muffin was a bit of a saucy thing in our lesson on Wednesday (by that I mean she had moments where you feel like you are sitting on a barrel of TNT, match at the ready), so my trainer won't make a decision on our show hopes until next lesson.  In her defence, Maggie was in season, and this late in the year, she is INSISTENT in her cycle.  So, it looked like the next couple days were going to be wet, so my instructions were to ride her outside, in the…

So, I wrote last that Miss Muffin moved barns at the beginning of June and was doing well.  Last night my trainer was out to ride her, I'd been telling her how great she'd been (with the exception of our last lesson when her tootsies were much too long).  She was skeptical, and Maggie is never the horse you really want to ride at the end of the day.  But, she was magnificent last night, I mean she rode awhile and asked if I'd drugged her (she was joking).  She actually ended her ride early…

So, two months ago I found a letter in my locker, giving me 30 days notice to find a new spot for my darling Maggie Mae. No reason given. Anyway, after my trainer and got over the shock, I set about finding new accomodations. I know a number of folks were freaked out on my behalf, but I have contingencies at any given time, there are at least two places I could arrive at in the middle of the night with a horse, no questions asked. I set about finding a place. I actually made a call to a…

I've been riding in the same Stubben Avalon forabout 5 years. I get it tended yearly, making sure it fits my darling girl. And her back is just great, she gets a lameness exam yearly too, saddle good, horse good, all good...  well, is it?

Maggie Mae has been in training awhile now, coming along great, fixing her various foibles. Another woman at the barn tries some saddles, as her horse is actually sore because of his 'custom made' saddle (how many times have we heard that?).  Orders…

Sounds weird eh? I mean we all know that riding is fun, that's why we do it, right?  I love my Maggie, always have.  I've had her for 5 1/2 years.  She's had some 'training issues' during that time.  Okay, when I first got her, you picked up the reins and she'd start kicking and bucking.  She actually has a move called the Maggie, it's a buck, leap, rear sort of thing.  She's willful.  She had some really bad training early on, I got her as a 5 year old.  Anyway, we'd made some progress when…

Ah, the innocent words we all hear. Today it was idle chit chat with the cashier. It's a gorgeous day here, going to be 12C, so I mentioned that I was going to take my horse out for a meander.  Oh I love horses is the usual response.  Me too, of course, I have two... and then the phrase...

I admit, I am lucky, I love my little kids, and I have sufficient health and wealth (okay, not much of either), to allow me to have my horses.  But I don't know one horse person that…

Maggie's been in training lately, so all I do is hack her.  Although my trainer was out of town dealing with a personal emergency, I've still just been doing that, so that i don't confuse her.  So, I was out of work early on Friday and headed to the barn for a hack before the sun went down.  We headed to the berry field...

They've finished the fencing of the field next to it, and although the posts have been there for ages, apparently this was a good excuse to spin and bolt,…

Ah, my little Havoc. He doesn't like being up at the barn, so when he was turned out (finally!) after being in for TWENTY FOUR hours, if you can imagine, PLUS he had a farrier appt, everyone had a good romp in the field.  For him, apparently, a good romp includes skewering yourself on something.  So, whether you call it a scratch (other people) or a cut (me, of course), it didn't look too bad.  Well, until the swelling above it started...

Fast forward to Friday, and one…

Well, it's been awhile since I've said much.  Maggie and I are undergoing a complete revision of our lives.

My trainer is a brilliant woman, and we sat down for a chat a month or so ago, after a lesson.  And basically she laid it out... we can continue as we've been going, not seeing much in the way of progress, but no crabbing about it, OR, we could re-vamp the program.  So, her thoughts were:  She takes over and fixes my horse (who has issues, holes in her training, a…

Well, it's summer and, well, Maggie was a bit over due (a week, mind) for the farrier.  I've never seen (heard!) her forge like that.  So, rather than tap tap tap tap tap our way even around the berry field, someone got a few days off. 

Which leads us to Maggie the long of frame.  Lesson last night, and, much to the chagrin of Miss Magnolia, it's time to shorten her up.  Oh sure, she'll go fairly forward in a longer frame.  The comment was sure, she's on the bit and nice, but…

Nothing like the horses...

So, we clipped, full body clip, mind you, the big old girl.  She's 16.2hh of half clyde, so this was rather a large job.  She's 24, and we have blood work being done for Cushings.  She looks 5 years younger and shiny as the baby.  She was a bit resistant on Friday, so I had the brain fart to change her bit.  She's had the same bit for the last decade, so it might be time.  Specifically, as horses age, their incisors tend to slant more forward, which…

It seems every time I look in these days, I see things that make me sick and/or sad. 

Jockey stomps horse

Horse slaughter (which has to be discussed, but oy, there's no good solution)

Neglected horse

MORE neglected horses

Abused horses

Horses die in bee attack

Hendra virus

EHV-1

and other places:

Lost penguin in New Zealand

Owner hangs pit bull after it bites a kid

Tongues.... blue tongues, bleeding tongues,…

So, I have found my child a lovely spot where he can run and play with kids his own age. 

Saturday, I came from the barn he's at, after discussing it with the manager there that he needed a different spot, and I went to the local tack shop for Garlic (bad mosquitoes here) and a tail strap.  I walk into the shop and see a girl I haven't seen in years.  I've known her for closing in on a decade, she was a teenager then.  So, we get to chatting about our various steeds, and she…

So, little Havoc got to go out in the field today.  Perhaps we were a bit naive, thinking he would be fine out there.  I wasn't too sure, but, I'm one of *those* owners, so, I was letting the experienced folks make the call.

One 10 month old baby.... 4 geldings.... one field....  They ran around a couple times, Havoc leading, he can out run them.  Then it looked good, he was by himself, they were up in the one corner, no one was freaking out, big field....  Until one of the…