The Ramblings of an Artistic Equestrian

I started taking Jasper to get the mail as I did with Tru-D. I should still donit with Tru-D too and work up to riding her down there, but that is for another time.

The first time I took him down, as mentioned before, he wasn't sure he was allowed to leave. Then he was okay until the jets flew by, which triggered some jigginess on his part, but nothing too terrible.

Walk number two he remembered he was a two year-old and did some silly bouncing about, which is much less cute when the horse is 17 hands tall and you're not sure he is paying attention to the huma who is below his line of vision. He did prove he was paying some attention when he spooked and chose to go behind and around me instead of over the top of me. I appreciated that.

Yesterday was his third trip out and he remembered he was The Best Baby Horse and barely thought about jigging, was easily redirected, and only hollered a couple times.

Today we ventured out again and he was even better. He seemed more mindful of my space and only needed a few reminders to wait up for me as we headed home. A couple more times out and I'll consider long lining him out and back.

Tru-D did her first trail ride today.



Staring off into the distance.



Posing for the camera.



She has a pretty face.

I was expecting having to do a lot of circles, but she actually stood really well by the trailer to tack up and was forward, but manageable walking out. When she finally started dropping her head I swung up and we rode out a good ten minutes with me on her before heading back. We got about a quarter mile from the trailhead when she started getting a little antsy so we halted and I popped down.

I need to work on keeping myself relaxed and chill, but it's hard when you don't want to get left behind and know she has some potential for strong forward thrust!

The saguaro cactus without arms were the most concerning thing on trail.

Nelson joined me wirh Skeeter and they were good babysitters. I hope to get her out a couple times a month.

This morning I woke up at 5am from a dream where I had been talking about Zetahra.

And I realized yesterday was her birthday.

And I realized she would have been eight.

And I realized that come the end of the year she will be gone longer than she was here and that felt unbearable.



Her first ever picture, freshly born and on her feet.

It's only easier some of the time.

The truck and trailer were hooked up and I found it really interesting.



I was loaded up in the trailer Saturday and taken somewhere new again. It was strange, but there were other horses so it couldn't be too bad, right?



My handler didn't seem to bothered so other than saying hello and keeping an eye on the cars I was pretty chill.

She took me over to some grass, which was tasty and then the vet came over and gave me a shot. It wasn't too bad, but I got a little sleepy.



... Maybe very sleepy.

I think I was on the ground at some point.



But I don't remember much else.



And then I kindof woke up, but I was still pretty sleepy and it took me a while to get to my feet. I don't know why everyone kept pestering me.



We went back to the trailer and I waited a bit before ahe came back and drove me home. I'm not really sure what happened, but the next day I was pretty sore. I'm feeling good now, though and am back to playing bitey face with Kash.

I was running around today doing all the lessons and the boys helped me sprinkle and drag the arena. I didn't make time to ice Tru-D's foot.

Kevin trimmed her up and said everything felt good. I went to at least put liniment on this evening after I fed the herd and she blew me off and ran around (perfectly sound) and generally being a stink. She finally stopped and when I rubbed down her foot she looked at me like "that's it?" Yes, that's it. Looks like I need to catch her at random while she's loose with the herd. She's fine getting caught in her stall, of course.

Mac downed the whole 30 gallons he had yesterday almost overnight. There might have been 2-3 gallons left. I gave him about the same today. Tomorrow he'll be dropped to the 15 gallon bucket instead of the 40 and the goal is to work him down to filling it once a day.

I'm feeding the neighbor's goats and chickens. The boys helped this afternoon, meaning they played on the jungle gym playset thing they have while I fed and checked the animals' water buckets.

Jasper is coming along. He did better for Kevin trimming him this week. I think I mentioned I lead him around the house and we worked on his fear of the tarped hay piles.



Chris mucked the other day and he did everything except for Chewy and Charm-N's stalls ... do you want to know why?



Yep, sprawled Belgian baby in the way.

Yesterday I harassed a Hanoverian again. I am sure Ellie is wondering why I keep showing up and ruining her day.

As determined after our Pirouette of Doom two weeks ago I am working her on the ground until I feel confident that she will be a sensible creature when I get back on her. This means that she needs to lunge like a sensible creature.

Yesterday she got the whole deal. Surcingle, lungeing cavesson, breastcollar (the driving one), and crupper with attached kicking straps/trace carrier. I put the crupper on after we got into the arena as I had no idea if she had one on before (Kristin confirmed she had not) and having her goose in the crossties or as I led her didn't seem like a good idea. That said she was great to put it on and only seemed bothered by the kicking straps slapping her sides briefly as she was being goofy.

I don't know how you all do it on a regular basis, but I managed a couple photos. Our first few rounds consisted of her making dragon noises as she tore around on the end of the line.



I kept changing directions until she started thinking about being a sensible creature. Her turns have gotten quite good and this time she was pretty even on both sides (last time she was sticky turning in right). When she settled a bit I asked for a brief trot and I had a fire-breathing dragon again, though she turned back into a horse much quicker this time.



I don't know what it is about Ellie. I really do want to like her and her owner loves her and thinks she's a great young horse. I find her to be okay, but feel like there's some gaps that need addressing. She is a little twitchy at times and doesn't feel as broke on the ground as I would like a horse to be before getting on board, which is why I'm back to lungeing her. She's certainly not where I'd want a five year-old to be with a year under saddle. I at least fixed her no brakes issue the second ride, which Kristin was grateful for and now I'm working on getting her to where I feel 100% comfortable swinging back on because I admit I wasn't fully comfortable the three rides I've put on her due to how she handled. Thankfully Kristin is cool with me taking Ellie back to ground school. She understands my reasons for going back to the ground and appreciates Ellie advancing her training in any manner.

She is kindof cute.



As mentioned before I got my new lines in and have been playing with them. I'm using the 5/16" navy line to work Ellie here. I'll do a more thorough review later, but my preliminary impression is I like the thinner lines for long lining and the thicker lines for lungeing. I am also enjoying the feel of the buckles instead of snaps. The snaps are quicker and more convenient, but the buckles fit through everything and don't add a big clunk of weight at the end like the snaps do. I'm glad I was able to sell my other two sets to mitigate the cost of the new ones and happy to have more tools to use.

Of course, working with other people's horses gives me gratitude for my own crew. Especially comparing Tru-D to other young horses.

Speaking of other young horses Keara was out and put a ride on Cinnamon. Despite an opinionated moment while lungeing they went on to have a good ride. The Stink was a little sticky going forward to start, but there was no attitude unlike the first few rides in November. I think once Keara puts another ride or two on her I can start pulling Cinnamon out to ride myself during lessons and perhaps this will be the year I finally get her past greenbroke (with Keara's help).

Today was crazy-busy. I had five lessons starting at 7am and then took a client to pick up her new mare from Casa Grande at 2pm. After all was said and done I got home a bit after 5pm.

I'll talk about my client and her horse later (spent four hours horse shopping Thursday). Today is about Bud! Well, actually it's about Trensen Knebel.

Bud is sporting them, though he wasn't being very photogenic for me.



I don't know if there is even an English word for them, but I guess "bit cheeks" would be the best descriptive words for them. The dictionary wants to call then "bit gags," though trensen refers more to the cheeks of the bit than the whole bit to my understanding.



Sue and Henry were feeling under the weather so I put a ride on Bud today. He goes quite well in the Stark Naked Bit (the purple thing), though I wanted to secure it so if he fussed with it, it would stay secure. For the most part he's good about not messing with it, but that's where the trensen knebel come in.

As you can see they are a small piece of metal with a hook attached. The "cheek" so to speak, goes through the ring on the halter and then hooks to the bit ring.

Bud did well. We reinforced the lesson that if he goes straight past home without changing pace or wriggling he gets home faster.

The Trensen Knebel are an awesome thing to have in the toolkit. You can use a regular bit on a horse who might have issues with its ears being handled (buckle the halter on, slide the bit in). It is an easy way to try multiple bits without having to fuss with buckles. It basically makes any halter a halter-bridle.

I picked up three pair from pferdeladen.eu . They were happy to take my order and it was about $30 for the three pair including shipping, which was quite reasonable! The only downside is that you have to speak German in order to naviagte the website. A few places I looked at wouldn't ship to the USA so I was happy to find one that would!

I plan on messing with them a bit more here and there. I haven't tried them with the rope halters and I don't think it would be very feasible since it wouldn't have a good place to lock into, but I'll play with it and see!

So we're taking a slight gamble, but hoping it plays out well.

Tuesday we took the little gelding to have a vet check. We used Roach because Chatham broke his hip last week. They went ahead and gave him a whole hip replacement and he thinks he'll be back to it after Christmas (I think he's pushing 80, tough old guy).

There was nothing major outside. She did think he had a lot of sand in his gut as it was making some swooshy noises and suggested an intense round of psyllium. She also thought he might have some ulcers because he was sensitive around the girth, but with as enthusiastically as she was poking around his girth area I don't blame him for being a little flinchy.

He had some hooks and will need his teeth done. She then looked at his eyes and went straight to suggesting squamous cell carcinoma. I explained the previous owner's story with the fly exposure and how the spots were supposedly much worse previously. After some reading I suspect he may have had the misfortune of having summer sores in his eyes (ulcers created by a stomach parasite that flies end up depositing in wounds, pretty nasty). Dr. Roach suggested sending pictures to another vet who does a lot of work with eyes. We took pictures and got the email from his office staff and sent them along.

We did flexion tests and he came up with a vague bob when his right fore was flexed, but moved perfect on the other three. We did two flexions in the hind after the front right and he trotted even so it was very slight and only when aggravated. When we tried him out Sunday I had poked around his front suspensories and he had twitched a little high on the right so I wasn't terribly surprised that he showed a slight positive on the right front. She was talking about xrays and nerve blocks or just doing a round of bute and retesting in a month or so.

We initially called the owner and said we'd be taking him back. The prospect of eye surgery was more than we wanted to invest ontop of his purchase price. She offered to drop $500 off the price right away and we politely declined. I told her we had sent in pictures and were waiting to hear back on a second opinion, but we were pretty sure he was going to be heading back North.

Needless to say we were not looking forward to a six or seven hour roundtrip to take him back. Chris and I did a lot of serious talking and hoping that the other vet would get back with us.

Since this pony was 100% for the lesson program we shifted to the business angle. How long would it take for him to earn back his cost? We had dropped the initial price from $2500 to $2300 already on account of his eyes being questionable. She was willing to knock off another $500, which would put him at $1800. At what price point could we potentially make back his costs and be even financially if it were a big issue?

I figured the eye issue wouldn't be more than $1500 to deal with, even if they completely removed his third eyelid on the left side. The eyes weren't bothering him and the tissue wasn't red and angry at all. I want to take the previous owner at her word about the flies and that the part on his actual eyeballs is just scar tissue and nothing too nefarious.

I called her back Tuesday evening and offered $1500. I don't think she even batted an eye. She admitted with the knowledge we shared she'd have a hard time moving him on at their original asking price and would rather see him in a place that sounded like they would get it taken care of and use him well than not. She will send us back the check and then I'll mail her a new one for the agreed upon price and there's that. We have another Haflinger pony. We're calling him McLintock after the John Wayne movie (Kelhan's favorite) or Mac for short.

During the vet exam he was extremely good and showed what a nice-natured pony he is, which can be hard to come by.

Yesterday morning after her regular lesson I had Susanne climb on him and give him a test ride for me. He was a little sticky here and there (really wanted to sniff all the new poop), but not at all phased by the new environment. His mouth was a bit noisy, but new bit plus teeth needing to be done makes it understandable. I wasn't quite going to throw Susanne on him in a bitless bridle since he has never been worked in one before, but we'll work up to that and see how it goes. Chewy's bridle and bit fit him pretty well. He moved well under Susanne and was not a runaway by any stretch of the imagination. I have a couple other students I can use to feel him out until I am ready to get back in the saddle, which is a nice place to be in.

Yesterday I got an email back from the other vet saying that the spots most likely won't vanish on their own and should be removed. Depending on the treatment chosen it would be between $750 and $1500 for all three spots done at once, right on the money.

( Eye pictures )

The current plan is to get his teeth taken care of and perhaps have a second (third) opinion from Chatham about the eyes. We will get it treated, but how soon is going to depend and since he's gone at least a year I don't suspect putting it off a few weeks or a month will hurt. The other vet said it could require a second treatment four weeks out so he could top out at $4500 in costs with purchase and treatment outside of his basic care, but hopefully he can earn that back in the coming year and then some.

Yesterday I dewormed him, which he was okay with once he realized he couldn't back out of it. It rained last night so I went from five lessons today to zero. We moved Mac into the spare stall Dave and Marty had. Once it dries out a little more we'll move him into the turnout and he can start getting acclimated to the herd. Cinnamon apparently thinks we've brought her a handsome man as she has been standing by his gate sniffing and squealing while lifting her tail.

We'll see what the weather looks like tomorrow and whether we'll have dry space to work. Saturday was already cleared out being Christmas Eve. There is also a 100% chance of rain Saturday so it is just as well!

By the way, Mac sports a pretty spiffy mustache.

Tru-D has been doing well in her training and I'd like to get her put to the cart this coming year.

She'll be three in April and while she is probably close to her full height I imagine she has some filling out to do. Unlike Zetahra she doesn't quite fit in Kitt's harness. I tried it today and she still looks like a little kid wearing her mom's sweater.





Not nearly so bad as it was this spring when the top of the hip strap was down by her tailhead. It is still way more adjusting than I want to do back and forth and the collar is definitely too large for her. I'm sizing up my options as I don't want to be stuck with a harness that ends up being too small!

Speaking of driving I ordered the last two parts of the Parelli/Nate Bowers DVD series for driving. I wasn't super impressed with the value of the first one for the money, but they had a really good sale and I picked up both of them for less than one of them normally retails. We'll see how they are.

Tristan helping fill Zetahra's water bucket four months before.

I'm okay when I don't think about the end too much.

As Tru-D comes along I can't help but compare the two. Z had a bit more sass and self-confidence, but she was ultimately respectful and wanted to please (though I am sure in other hands she may have been more self-serving!) Tru-D is more cautious and a little more reactive, but she lacked the 10 months of handling that Zetahra had from the start. She is coming around and is much more social and wanting attention and is always seeking the answer to the questions I ask her.

They have a surprisingly similar build (I need to get some good conformation shots of Tru-D as it cools down) and I think Tru-D's mane is going to be almost as ridiculous and is in desperate need of a good brushing, but there's more pressing things I need to do while sweating it out outside like mucking, teaching, and doing general care of the herd.

I'm hoping Tru-D comes along just as well as Zetahra did and I look forward to seeing her develop and mature, fingers crossed. Tru-D and Zetahra are four years and two days apart in age and I can't help but think that there isn't some purpose and connection in there somewhere. There's no replacing Zetahra, certainly, but Tru-D has been helping to fill the gaping hole that Z left behind.

Short update on Chewy. We have had some poop! Three piles yesterday even, but nothing yet today, however her input has pretty much sucked so there isn't much passing through. Yesterday we took her in for her teeth and they are definitely showing her age. She doesn't have much chewing surface left on the top and had some points that were starting to cause some cheek ulcers, which probably weren't helping. Dr. Roach (filling in for Chatham since his knee surgery three weeks ago) also found two small abcesses that had started. The vibration caused by the electric float caused them to rupture slightly so we're looking at a long course of antibiotics. I have some SMZs left over from Dakota last year and they are good until October so I will be using them up. The timing is surprisingly good and while Chewy hates that I'm shoving more stuff in her mouth twice a day hopefully it'll make her more comfortable in her mouth and get everything back in order. I'd love to have her healthy and sound another five years, but at twenty-five already I know it is going to take conscientious maintenance a bit of luck to get there.