A visit to the Equine Affaire

This weekend I enjoyed a wonderful couple of days at the Equine Affaire in Massachusetts. It worked out perfectly because I had to be in Boston for a work-related function Thursday night, and once that was over I jumped on the Massachusetts turnpike to head to Springfield. A bunch of people from our barn were driving down on Friday, so I was able to meet up with them.

When the girls were still showing I think we visited the Equine Affaire at least 3 years in a row. These trips were always great fun with really informative clinics and tons of shopping. This trip was no different; in fact, it was hard to cram everything into the day and a half of time I had there. I really enjoyed presentations on riding skills by Hollie McNeil of Riding Right Farm in New York and veterinarian Chris Bessent on acupuncture; each of their sessions provided lots of food for thought.

The seminars are just so energizing. I get caught up in all the busyness at home, and taking the time to attend the Equine Affaire and listen to so many informative speakers helps me step out of the "rush to the barn, have a ride or half hour lesson" tunnel vision and think about the bigger goal of improving my riding and establishing a partnership with my horse. What a wonderful luxury, to only think about horse-related things during this day and a half!

Over the weekend I ran into some faces from the past; friends from previous barns that I'd lost touch with but so enjoyed catching up with at the EA. And Friday night, our group from my current barn went out to dinner and had a wonderful meal and great time laughing and talking. So nice to spend some time with these great people outside of the usual quick few minutes chatting in the aisle at the barn.

And the shopping ... I bought a new saddle pad - a lovely Professional's Choice pad in the right size and thickness for Ms. Bestie; I rode tonight, and I may be crazy, but the whole feel of being in the saddle was different :). I also got Ariat paddock boots - I'd been wearing Maddie's old boots and the zippers have started to pop open (after 7 years of heavy wearing - not bad). And odds-n-ends like Lexol leather cleaning wipes, Sore No More salve, Cowboy Magic leave-in conditioner, a Himalayan salt block. The EA is truly one-stop shopping for every possible need related to horses. Oh, and I got lovely Sanita clogs, at $50 a real steal.

Bestie modeling her new pad ... she was a bit impatient with the photo-taking session and is rather pointedly looking at her stall door, having just come off a ride and eager to get into her stall for dinner.

Ugh, November

I suppose that technically our November hasn't been too bad. It started off kind of ugly, with snow Halloween weekend, then some up and down temperatures and some rain. But we're currently enjoying a series of sunny days with fairly warm days. If you don't have horses, it's awesome. But with horses, the problem is that the early wetness made the fields muddy, and it's not warm enough to really dry them out.

Dude's field seems to have dried a bit in the last couple days, since he's not coming in with mud up to his pasterns anymore. But Bestie, who is definitely more of a swamp monster anyway, is still coming in with mud plastered up to her hocks. Yesterday it was warm enough that I took her out and hosed her legs and scrubbed them with Betadine. I feel like every fall I deal with scratches, particularly with Dude. Can't actually remember Bestie ever having them. But the scratches are such a pain to deal with I'm being extra vigilant and trying to keep their legs clean. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle, though. Rain in the forecast for Thursday means the mud will appear again in the fields. Ugh, November. Waiting impatiently for snow cover!

A scary few days with Dude under the weather

Last Saturday Katie went to the barn around mid-day to ride. When she got home she remarked that Dude seemed a little lethargic and not quite himself. He didn't come to the gate when she called him, like he usually does, and when she rode, he wasn't too energetic. Just about the time we finished talking, barn owner Julie called to say that something was definitely going on with him, he was standing in his stall with his head hanging and completely uninterested in what was going on around him. She had taken his temperature, and it was 99.6, then about an hour later, 100.8. So not super high, but combined with his lethargy, concerning.

I headed off to the barn by myself, as I had planned to ride Bestie that afternoon. I called the vet shortly after arriving; Dude just didn't look right, and it turned out he hadn't eaten his grain or hay that morning prior to going out. He swung his head when I approached the stall, but didn't move, and when I tried to get him out of the stall, I couldn't budge him. He'd been in by then for a couple hours and hadn't pooped or peed.

The vet arrived pretty quickly. Dude wasn't exhibiting classic colic symptoms, but he was stopped up and after sedating him she was able to glove him and pull out some stuff. She also put two bags of fluids into him intravenously. Once the sedation wore off he seemed to perk up, but was definitely not back to normal. We walked him, cleaned his water, and watched him for a while.

Julie and Larry checked on him twice that night. He didn't poop until early the next morning, but seemed pretty comfortable. As Sunday wore on he seemed to tank, and we ended up calling the vet again. His temperature went up and he got sort of dopey looking again. More hand walking and willing him to poop. His blood work came back negative (the vet had thought he might have Potomac). He had a small amount of bran mash, which he wolfed down.

On Monday he pooped early (great rejoicing!), right after I arrived for a pre-work check on him, and the vet stopped by. She thought it would be good to get him out, since he seemed to have rallied again, so he went out in the round pen by himself, within view of the other horses in the paddocks. He had breakfast, lunch and dinner bran and nibbled on a few grass blades he could reach from the pen. He wasn't drinking much water, so it was good he was getting some hydration from the watery mash. When Katie and I got there in the evening, she handwalked him a couple times, and he actually seemed fine, except for only pooping once more. We hung out until about 9:30 that night.

Yesterday he was cleared for watery grain and some hand-grazing (which seemed to prompt him to drink), and today he had watered hay. Knock on wood, he seems to be rebounding and getting back to his normal self. I'm hesitant to say he's fine (feeling like I might jinx the recovery) - at the barn yesterday and today I found myself peering at him for any little sign that he might be going downhill again. By the time I left the barn tonight at 6:15 pm, he had pooped twice since turn in, a new record :). Over the next couple of days the vet feels we can ease him back to his regular feeding routine.

Needless to say, it's been scary; we've never really dealt with anything like this. The uncertainty and the worry was nerve-wracking. Support from the vet and from Julie and Larry at the barn was awesome - they had some late night shifts as well as conscientious daytime nursing, for which I'm so very grateful.

Lesson time again

This week I was off from work so it seemed like a good time to get a lesson in. It had been a while since my last one; other events and activities kept getting in the way. Bestie hasn't been ridden much recently for the same reason. I had a hockey tournament this past weekend, so I rode Friday, but then didn't ride again until Tuesday, right before my Wednesday lesson.

When all was said and done, I ended up being on her for about an hour and ten minutes ... slightly (!) more than the half hour originally scheduled. We trotted a bit at the outset, then Caitlin set up some markers to follow for patterns. But we started doing turns on the forehand and turns on the haunches and never got back to the patterns.

After about 40 minutes of mostly unsuccessful attempts at these turns, I called it quits, feeling like my head was going to explode. For some reason, none of the aids necessary for either movement were intuitive to me, and flip-flopping from practicing forehand to practicing haunches over and over just got them all jumbled in my head. And if they were jumbled in my head, I can only imagine what Bestie was thinking ... most likely, something along the lines of "what the heck is she asking me??"

I used to do turns on the haunches with Dude, and I was remembering it as a fairly simple maneuver.  I finally told Caitlin I just needed to take a break and read about it at home to get it straight in my head. But then, to complicate things, one article I read online said that turning on the forehand is a waste of time; that generally riders are trying to get horses OFF their forehand, so why waste time teaching them to turn on it? Or maybe that uncomplicates things, giving me an excuse to be DONE with forehand turns. :)

The bottom line is that I need to get the how-to's straight in my head before I get back on Bestie and make her crazy with my fumbling.

Do I need the $150 saddle pad?

Julie at the barn asked me about my saddle a few weeks ago as she is in the market for a Western saddle. Her question led me to realize that I've now had the saddle four years (where did the time go??), and the saddle pad for the same amount of time. No complaints with the saddle; I love it. But the saddle pad is another story.

When I originally bought the pad, I selected that particular one because I couldn't find anything else in the stores in our area, the print went well with the saddle, and I didn't want to spend a lot of money since I wasn't really convinced that I'd be riding a lot. I believe I paid about $35 for the pad. It's nothing great, just a typical Western looking pad with a woven print top and faux fleece bottom with some sort of padding in between.

Now that I'm riding more, and another person is also riding Bestie, I am not liking the pad. In fact, it's gotten to the point where I feel kind of irritated whenever I look at it. Why? A) The fleece is fake - not breathable at all and it has gotten sort of crusty feeling in spots. B) The pad is quilted, so it has flat spots and poofy spots, and the fill seems to be redistributing oddly, all of which I wouldn't imagine would be comfortable to Ms. Bestie. C) It is 32 x 32 inches, and while she is indeed short-backed, I think a slightly bigger pad would hold its place more securely under the saddle.

So I've been poking around the internet for weeks looking for a pad. I want wool. Real wool. I want it to have a snappy pattern that makes me happy when I look at it. It needs to be sized something like 33 x 33 or 33 x 34. I want wool fleece, real wool fleece, on the bottom. All those tacky bottomed pads kind of give me the willies. And it can't weigh too much. I've seen some pad descriptions proudly proclaiming a weight of 5 pounds or heavier, and that just seems like too much for my dainty mare.

Which brings me back to the $150 pad. It meets all of my criteria. Every single one of them. But I'm hung up on the price. It just seems like a lot of money to pay for a pad. But it IS the only one I've found where I've been able to say "check, check, check" as I run through my criteria. And the construction does seem more equine back-friendly, hopefully hedging against future chiropractic expenses. And presumably a $150 pad is of great quality and will be around forever. I think I'm talking myself into taking the plunge.

Perfect

This is what Tuesday looked like in northern Vermont ...

... so, needless to say, I was itching to head to the barn after work and ride Bestie. All through the afternoon hours, I thought about it with anticipation. Got to the barn, saddled her up, and off we went. It wasn't a long ride, or a ride where we perfected something that had been a challenge. But it was a great ride. Really fun. Maybe Bestie was pleased about the beautiful day, too. Maybe she fed off my happiness and feeling of relaxation. In any case, it felt like we were both "walking on sunshine."

I thought back to Tuesday afternoon at my yoga class last night. Our teacher was talking about meditation, and how it may allow you to have these insights that flash at a moment's notice. She described a recent instance where this had happened to her, and how it was a perfect moment. That's how I felt on Tuesday. Perfect. And I'm going to try to just accept it and be grateful and not be too greedy for such moments. I'm sure there will be more.

Horse Dad

That's my husband on the right, with his mom and older brother. I'm guessing he was maybe about two years old. He sent me the photo in an email with the subject line "my first horse." When I opened the message, the only words were, "guess I never found another one so nice." I'd venture to say that's probably a true statement, given his horsey experiences. That faintly alarmed look on his little face might be due to the fact that he was having some premonition of what the future would bring: a succession of horsey misadventures.

These have included going on a trail ride with a raging fever rather than telling his mom he was sick and missing the ride; going on a trail ride -with pneumonia- to celebrate one of our wedding anniversaries (he actually didn't know he had pneumonia, he just felt really really bad and rode anyway); suffering a torn Achilles while hanging from a horse that took off with him in the process of getting into the saddle (on a multi-day trail ride to celebrate another anniversary); and being on the receiving end of a sound kick to the thigh as an innocent bystander near two ponies who went from nosing each other to expressing their dissatisfaction at each other's proximity by Kicking Out. Ow.

Given all this, I can't really blame him for not exactly embracing the horse experience. But he has ridden Dude a couple times with no ill effects, and when the kids were showing he could be counted on to hold the reins when one of them needed to eat lunch or run to the bathroom, or to give a leg up when mounting blocks were MIA. He might have done all this with the same slightly unsettled, perplexed "what's this all about??" expression captured above, but he did it. Thanks, Horse Dad. :)