So here are the things some of you were right about!

I have a feeling some of you will enjoy this post very, very much. Yes, you get to say you told me so, on a couple of points!

As long as my horse is ridden hunt seat only, he’s sound. I myself hypothesized this was going to be the case. Snazzywildpony said it perfectly: “I’ve gone on to learn a lot about how horses’ legs and feet work and if they aren’t striding out and landing heel first or at least flat footed, then they are hitting toe first, which pops the DDFT and over time causes navicular. If you watch WP classes, you see lots of dust clouds in front of the toes and that is just not good.”

Snazzywildpony, you are right. Jogging makes my horse lame. There is not a thing wrong with my horse except that western pleasure has evolved into something that is very hard for horses to stay sound doing. I have noted to multiple people that it was a lot harder to keep a western pleasure horse sound than, say, a polo pony. They were surprised to hear that but I am utterly convinced it is a fact. Horses can pack elk in the mountains, play 2 chukkers of polo or do 50 mile endurance rides and have fewer leg issues than they acquire trying to go super super slow with their heads down.

Here is another thing some of you were right about: No matter how trustworthy the trainer, it’s still best to have your horse close to home and be able to micromanage his care the way YOU want to. Everyone in the horse world has an opinion and there may not be one right way, but any of us who have been at this for a long time have got opinions about things like hoof angles that we feel more strongly about than who gets elected President. I know I do. So now my horse is close to home and I have gotten to micromanage him for a year. I LOVE how his feet look. He’s sound as a dollar barefoot. He’s getting exactly the amount of walking and trotting that I want him to have because I’m doing it. He gets his feed soaked because I want it done and I’m doing it. His water is always clean because I’m doing that too. He’s boarded and it is full care but I can still micromanage him to my heart’s content because I can be there every day. It is totally worth it.

He is going back into training and back to the shows eventually but now the pressure’s off. He’s a gelding, so who gives a crap if he wins or loses? I don’t have to spend a zillion dollars. I can show him when I feel like it and if he sucks, we can just stop. I can let my friends show him who don’t have a horse to show because it doesn’t matter any more if he has a bad class or looks bad in front of people or God forbid raises his poll above his withers or pokes his nose out from the vertical. Heck, I may even show him myself. It’s nice to have the value gone and the pressure off. Not that he’s turned into a $500 horse but, you know, he’s a gelding. In my mind it just doesn’t matter anymore if he has some great show record – since he’s not ever going to be for sale, the concern about building value via the show ring is nonexistent. He’s gone from being a business venture and an investment, albeit one that always got a lot of carrots, to a big shiny pet.

Did his personality change from when he was a stallion? Interestingly, he has more energy and is a higher energy horse as a gelding. I have been joking that removing the testicles made him more aerodynamic. Other than that, same horse.

There was a late-teens rescued TB stallion that I worked with for a while this past fall, before and after he was gelded, and he was yet more proof to me that it isn’t testicles that make a horse badly-behaved. It was all about discipline and boundaries. He came in screaming like a fool and dragging me and kicking at me and all sorts of fun stuff. It was 80% fixed in 48 hours. It was 95% fixed in a week. The other 5% came after gelding – he stopped nickering. But 95% of the bad behavior was quickly halted, despite his age and history of (I am sure) being used for breeding, with very simple tactics. I put a rope halter on him so I had a little more control (couldn’t go with a chain because he was scared of them), and every time he was bad, I growled and we stopped and backed up a few steps. Sometimes we did this quite a few times. I used the “no talking” verbal command that I’d used with Cecil and he figured it out. It’s amazing how much you can get done with growling, stopping and backing, without having to use a whip or a chain. At this point, I’m pretty convinced that unless something is really hormonally wacky, that most spoiled older stallions can be re-routed into good behavior with a minimum of effort. He got gelded and got a lovely home — a nice happy ending after auctioning for $50.

I will close this post with a video of the Big Yellow Money Vacuum doing what he does best…

http://www.facebook.com/v/3664076205856

This one’s for my old Fugly followers…

I know this is supposed to just be my VLC blog, but he approved this post and is happy his Mommy never sent him to a douchebag like Randy Byers.  For anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Byers (consider yourself lucky), here is my original blog on him:

One Down, Way Too Many To Go!

Today I got an awesome update on what Mr. Byers has been doing – cooling his heels in a Canadian jail.

Randy Byers Caught By Police Hiding In Horse Trailer

Also, Katherine Swan wrote a great follow-up blog on Randy.  She did good research so check it out!

And remember, friends don’t let friends send their horses to Randy the Murderer Byers! If you know about an abusive trainer, it’s your job to get the word out and prevent another horse from suffering and possibly dying. Don’t keep quiet!

FINALLY!

So I (a) found my password and (b) have something to talk about.

The damn horse is FINALLY SOUND AGAIN and BACK IN WORK.  I am stunned.  I had sort of resigned myself to the idea that it was only a matter of time before he headed to Paradigm Farm and walked around for the next 25 years or so being shiny and begging for cookies.  But no, completely ignoring him all summer except for turning him out daily seemed to be the magic cure.  He’s fine now.  He flex tested fine.  His x-rays are fine.  I’m also super happy that his feet look like they used to again after a year of barefoot.  I am far from being a barefoot-only person, but in this case, this horse needed to be barefoot so that his feet could regain their natural shape.  My vet swears she has some farrier suggestions for me that won’t screw him up, so I’m going to put some front shoes back on him now so that we can trail ride. It’s pretty rocky here and I don’t see the Princess being able to hack it barefoot.  I have Cavallo boots but they always seem to cause rubs – any thoughts on that from those of you who use them?  At any rate, I’m beyond ecstatic that I can ride him again, because he really is one of the best darn things I’ve ever sat on in my life.

My other piece of exciting news is that his first son, Bullwinkle (aka Caddis Cool Dorado) is under saddle!  Bullwinkle was an oops from a night of freedom the Big Yellow Money Vacuum enjoyed the year before I purchased him.  He turned three in May and his first ride was yesterday.  The trainer reported no spook or buck, acted like he’d done it a million times.  I said, yeah, chip off the old block for sure.  Conformationally, he has a better hip than his sire, but a worse neck.  Sort of what I expected from looking at the dam.

That’s Bullwinkle, above.  I’ll have to add a picture of the dam, Ima Cool Success, later, but basically he has her conformation with the Big Yellow Money Vacuum’s color.  She is a really calm mare, too, although no one will ever know how she would have ridden as she got hurt young and was unsound ever since.  The nice thing about having a better hip and worse neck  is that you can’t change a hip that much, but you can change a neck a lot – or the appearance of a neck – with work.    Then there are things you can’t change at all, like the shoulder, which thank heavens is pretty darn nice.  I suspect he’ll be as much of a couch to ride as his dad.  You can sit the BYMV’s fast trot without even trying, a big plus for people like me with crappy, chronic lower back pain!

So that is about the update for now…Thanks for all the messages about missing my writing on the Fuglyblog. I will probably write some guest blogs. I have a topic right now I’m dying to attack – trainers thinking the client horses are THEIR horses and forgetting those horses HAVE an owner who ultimately gets to make all the decisions about the horse.  That’ll be a lively one, won’t it? 

 

 

 

They’re right, long distance relationships don’t work!

As many of you know, I live a thousand miles away from my horses.  The reason is pretty simple:  I needed to make more money to fund the VLC’s show career.  When a fantastic offer came in from Los Angeles, I had to take it and move back.  Not that I minded moving back one bit, I love Southern California, but I hated the idea of moving so far away from my horse.  Moving him wasn’t an option at the time; I have yet to identify a stock-type trainer in So-Cal who doesn’t subscribe to the yank, crank & fix the tails method.  There may be one, I simply haven’t met that person yet.  Anyway, the plan was to leave him in Washington, and that is what I did, flying up regularly for visits and to attend his horseshows. 

It worked out fine until he got hurt.  You will remember that the VLC hurt himself at the Buckskin World Show and rendered himself three-legged lame.  He came home, got better, was sound enough to go to one more show for halter only, and then got worse again.  Vet came out, did x-rays, x-rays looked fine as they always do with him.  Why was he lame?   What exactly had he done to himself in that stall?  My trainer thought that he had stretched his back leg out, as he tends to do, and hit his hoof forcefully into the stall wall, possibly while lying down and trying to get comfy, but why was that still causing lameness two months later?   The vet wanted to do some combination of steroids and hyaluronic acid in his hocks.  I hate joint injections.  Hate them.  And I hate steroids.  And no horse of mine is getting any of that crap.  I veto’ed that idea and got on a plane to check the situation out for myself. 

I had decided it was time to get the shoes off.  After all, he wasn’t showing or working, and I wanted to get an opinion from Mark Plumlee at Mission Farrier School.  For those who missed my earlier blogs mentioning it, I basically think these people are geniuses when it comes to soundness.  They have gotten so many horses sound that have hideous x-rays.   So I figured it’d be great to give them a shot at evaluating my mysteriously lame horse.Unsurprisingly, they figured it out in, oh ten minutes.  Mark watched him walk and trot, tweaked him with the hoof testers, and said he was sore in the deep digital flexor tendon.  I have never had to deal with this particular injury before, but it makes perfect sense.  The DDFT extends down to the pedal bone so if you decided to be a big dumb yellow horse and whack your hoofie forcefully enough into a wall, you could absolutely hurt the tendon by doing so.The next step will be to ultrasound the tendon and see exactly what we’re dealing with, but at this point he’s just resting ’til he moves to California later this year.  The long distance relationship was worth a shot, but ultimately it just didn’t work out when things went wrong.  I’m far too frustrated with the inability to see my horse every day, see how he’s moving, and evaluate problems with my own two eyes.  No matter how great people are – and I don’t have anything but good things to say about my trainer, who has been awesome about caring for him – it’s never like doing it yourself.   I need to micro-manage this and I can’t wait to get him down to L.A. so that I can do that again. I’ve often noted that horses are not a good investment.  You cannot predict what will happen with them, and they can lose value in the blink of an eye.  Ultimately, putting a lot of money and time into a stallion prospect is just like going to Vegas.  Sometimes you come home empty handed but in most cases, you at least had some fun along the way.  I wanted to see if you could get a horse to be competitive as a stock-type pleasure horse without any of the abuse and keep him fresh-minded and happy.  I found out that you can — the VLC learned to do the AQHA thing, head down, collected and slow, without any abuse whatsoever.  Every time I visited him, he was his same old self – ears perky, happy, snuggly, and not a mark on him, the same as he’d been the previous year when he was doing nothing more complicated than cruising around with me in a bitless bridle.  It was great to see.  The only pleasure horse barns I’d been in previously had used all the cranking, yanking and crap to achieve this result.  It was nice to see it can be done without any of that!Of course, what I really wanted was for him to continue his show career and win at a higher level, in order to really make a point about abuse-free training, but he whacked his foot and that is pretty much the end of that.  I could go through all of the rehab on this and then try again, but I’ve concluded that is not the best thing for the horse.  Further stock-type pleasure work is going to be hard on that tendon.  I don’t want to risk crippling him.  If I saw him as an investment, I’d be doing anything I could to get him back in the ring so that he could stay a stallion, but I don’t.  I see him as a pet, and I’m going to geld him and keep him as a pet.  Next summer he’ll probably be ponying polo ponies instead of going to horseshows, and I can’t help but think he’s going to like it better than all of the clipping (which he tolerates) and the mane-pulling (which he despises).  He would miss his massages…I will have to keep those up!  Maybe he will even play a little bit of polo…he’s kinda big but I bet he will bump like a mack truck  After all of this, I really do get it.  I understand, logically, how people justify standing horses at stud that haven’t won enough in the show ring (or haven’t been shown at all).  I could have bred this horse to a ton of mares already, collected the money, and laughed all the way to the bank.  I won’t do it.  I could list off all the possible justifications:  He has a wonderful disposition (true); it’s not his fault he got hurt (true); he’s already accomplished a lot more than a lot of horses standing at stud  (true); hell, he’s leading the nation in breeding stock pinto halter stallions (true, amusingly enough)…but it’s not enough.  I’m not going to have a stallion unless his get are going to be hugely in demand so that I don’t have to worry very much about them.  As I’ve observed before, I have actually never found any get of a big name horse like, say, Invitation Only or Luke At Me, in the kill pen  (sure, they’ll show up when they are 20 + year old barren broodmares, but you know what I mean).   Without that factor, no stallion should stay intact.  In this economy, and in these days when slaughter is still a very real threat, we need to be producing foals that are Porsches, not Kias, not even Toyotas, if we are producing foals at all.Of course, the adventures of what is going to be the VLG will continue in 2011!  Honestly, I can’t wait to hit a polo ball off of him.  I’ve stick and balled him with a broom and a beach ball and he was great.    We’ll see how he does but there’s also been some discussion about him getting some more show ring miles, but this time at the hunter shows with my friend’s nine year old.  Stay tuned…his story is far from over!

Murphy’s Law of Horses

As Lucy from Peanuts used to say, AUGH!

So the VLC and his entourage, myself included, headed all the way to Tulsa for the ABRA (Buckskin) World Show. He was going great, and it was his last year as a junior horse, so why not? At the very least he’d get to see the arena and we’d find out how he dealt with a long trip to a show.

The good news: He traveled great! Not a single problem – eating well, drinking tons. Arrived fresh and happy. Well, a bit too fresh. He hit the air conditioning in the arena coming in from high-90s heat and bucked for the first time in his entire life under saddle. He wasn’t the only one – seems like this is a common reaction! Fortunately, he settled down. He had a near perfect ride in his western pleasure at the pre-show on Tuesday, but spooked once when someone dropped a water bottle in the stands. Of course, all three judges were watching so there went that class. He was pretty good for trail but some of the obstacles were set tight for a big horse and he had some problems navigating those cleanly so it just wasn’t good enough to get in the ribbons. But hey, he was behaving well, and most of all he was happy and enjoying the experience.

The World Show started and while he didn’t have a great go in the Junior Trail (he needed to pee, hadn’t done so and was uptight and a little antsy as a result), he did still get 5th so that was cool. He got worked Wednesday night and looked wonderful. We got a lot of compliments and tucked him in for the night.

Next morning? Dead lame. The physical evidence suggested that he had somehow managed to wedge his hind left somewhere (how he managed it, we don’t know as the stalls truly are pretty safe looking) and gave it a really good yank. He was sore all the way up to his pelvis. My best guess is that he did it stretching out while lying down. The princess absolutely must lie down flat every night – no standing up and sleeping for him! – and he didn’t really fit in the 10 x 10 stalls at the fairgrounds.

After I got done banging my head against the wall, we started cold hosing it and walking him periodically, and just a day later, he was much better. Of course, there went the rest of the show but I am trying to be grateful that I am not one of the two people whose horses died at the show (one from a drug reaction and one from flipping over on the concrete). He seemed to think this was the best thing ever – he did not have to work, and everybody petted him and felt sorry for him.

Oh, and he threw stuff all over the aisle to entertain himself if I dared turn my back for a minute.  He figured out that you can collapse those chairs if you just give them one good yank at the right spot!

Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, there is always next year and you ARE going back!

Seriously. Horses. AUGH!

So what major event/important show has YOUR horse manage to screw up for you? Misery loves company, so please tell me your stories and make me feel better!

The seven, er, one deadly sin of showing…

First of all – welcome everybody!  Yes, I finally decided it was time to move the VLC blog to WordPress and start updating it again, so here you go.

The old posts migrated just fine.  The comments, not so much.  Sorry, but that’s pretty much the same thing that happened with the Fugly Blog.  We have comments from about the past year and that’s it.  Now on to the topic:

The VLC (and yes, I know that he is now the VLS, but I don’t care.  VLC is a nickname as far as I’m concerned and he’ll have it til he’s 30, so I’m sorry if it bugs you but it’s staying) turned five in May and I couldn’t be more pleased with him.  He is still just a joy to ride, everybody in the barn loves him and he has started showing.  Which brings up my topic for today.

I realized recently that there’s something horsepeople talk about even less than they talk about fear.  When I started this blog, I observed that it is considered beyond uncool in the horse world to admit to having any fear issues and that while most riders have them from time to time, they keep their lips zipped for fear of having to deal with exactly the feedback I got from the trolls when I started this blog – the chorus of “you shouldn’t be training if you’re scared/you’re going to ruin your horse” and the weird idea that if one admitted to fear, that meant one was therefore incompetent.  (Confidence and competence are not synonymous. I know of SUPER confident folks who can’t ride their way out of a paper bag, and I bet you have met some, too!)  As most of you know, everything turned out fine – this particular horse, though larger than I was used to, was a piece of cake to break out and I rode him for a year before sending him off to be finished for the show ring, something I realized was beyond my own abilities.

Now, another year later, I realize that there’s something horsepeople admit to even more rarely than fear.  It’s the one thing that is the cause of most of the problems in the horseshow world.  It cripples horses by the time they are four and it fries their brains and it sends plenty of them to the slaughterhouse. It drives good people out of the show horse world and draws bad people into it.  You can’t get rid of it because it’s an essential part of any competition with horses, and it is the rare person who is not afflicted with it from time to time.

Greed.

I realized I had it at the VLC’s second show.  He was about 10x better than he was at his first show (and he wasn’t bad at the first show – he was just really inconsistent and distracted, and whinnied for Mommy if he heard me talking in the stands.  He got nervous every time a horse got snatched in the face or spurred around near him.  Apparently we failed to properly desensitize him to abuse and he’d never seen anything like that before, so it rattled him.  And then the guy who was beating his mare the worst ran her into him in the warm-up ring, that was awesome too…)  Anyway, at the second show, he was almost perfect with his head.  Still jogging a little faster than at home, but fine in traffic, even after numerous incidents of horses hitting the walls near him, cutting him off and getting way too close. Yes, this was an open show so he had to contend with all breeds and lots of super green horses (and chronically green runaway horses).

My trainer was absolutely thrilled with him.

Me?  I was annoyed as hell.  He didn’t place once.  Two horseshows, and all we had asked him to do was walk-trot pleasure, and not so much as a measly 5th place ribbon.  I glared at him from the stands, thinking that perhaps my blog trolls were right and he was just a piece of shit who was never going to amount to anything.  How dare he jog faster than he does at home!  Did that damn horse have any idea of how much money I was spending?  I could sell him and get something that actually wins.  Hell, I could sell him and buy the rescue pony that actually wins blue ribbons when I show her.

I was freezing cold, which didn’t help my grumpy attitude any.  Someone ought to warn you that when you have a trainer and they have an assistant and you don’t do anything all day except maybe longe your horse once, that it’s really freaking cold.  I am used to working at shows, running my butt off.  Not sitting around being cold, stiff, bored and miserable.

Oh, and then my trainer pointed out that it was a schooling show and we weren’t trying to win.  My mental reaction was a great big WTF.  How much money am I spending and we’re not even trying to win?  If we’re not going to even try to win, why don’t I stop paying for training and start buying cute shoes?  WTF!  This sucks.

And then I realized it:

This is why all of this bad stuff happens to horses. Heck, this is why you see parents yelling at their kid because the kid screwed up in Little League or messed up at their piano recital.  There’s just something about competition that makes all rational thought go out the window and only one thing matter – winning.  I am fully aware my thoughts were similar to that of a five year old who was angry she couldn’t have a cookie.  I would never actually sell the VLC or send him to another trainer, and if he turned out to be a crappy show horse, I’d just geld him and life would go on — but do I have the same thoughts as the people who send their horse to someone like Cleve Wells to get results fast?

Apparently, I do. I want X dollars to result in X ribbons, just like those people.

And while it’s easy to make that flip “winning isn’t everything” comment, when your training and show expenses are cutting into your monthly budget deeper than a new Mercedes payment would, it sure feels like everything!

I get it now, I really do.  I still don’t think it’s okay to give in to these feelings and act upon them in any way that is detrimental to the horse, like sending him to some “results in 30 days” sort of trainer, but I get them.  I finally understand why it is that so many people leave their horses in situations that they know are not good for the horse, and accept rationalizations for everything from tail blocking to soring to plastic surgery on halter horses.

So I went down and took my horse and patted him on the neck and took him back to his stall and untacked him and fed him a cookie.  I thought about the fact that we were doing this by choice, and that I had the freedom at any time to pull out of it, geld him and spend the rest of our mutual lives together running barrels at fun shows and chasing cows.  While I was still contemplating his fate and whether or not I was cut out for this, he went to his third show and was Reserve Champion halter, 2nd in trail, 2nd in hunter under saddle and 3rd in western pleasure.  The next weekend, he went to his fourth show, which was his first ABRA show, and won the 1st Year Green Western Pleasure.

I had to wait longer than I expected for it, but now I never have to look at it and feel guilty about how we treated the horse to get it.  Nor am I worried there won’t be more.  He’s settling into it now.  He still makes mistakes but not big ones.  He’s pretty consistent out there, assuming you don’t have a trail course with actual hay bales in it. 

Greed is inevitable when it comes to competition…we just have to make sure it is complemented with a much larger serving of patience.  Sometimes that’s not easy but it’s always going to be the right decision, whether you’re at a horse show, watching your kid’s spelling bee or even trying to get a promotion at work.  Blowing up because you’re not getting the instant gratification you desire ruins horses, messes up kids’ heads and can ruin your own life.  Take a breath, have a cold beer…life goes on and failing one day doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.  The blue ribbon might be just around the corner!

The dilemma every horse rescuer faces eventually

The reason I’ve been so quiet here is that I’m saving up on my VLC stories for my Horse Illustrated column. He’s going to be prominently featured later this year in a column so you’ll get to read the update there! For those of you who can’t wait, he is doing great. We have had numerous delays in getting to our first show for various reasons but this month for sure.

I do have an update about another of my rescues. You may recall previous posts about Lucy, the black Thoroughbred mare from the July 2008 Enumclaw auction. Lucy came back to me because of a job loss this past fall (she had been adopted out to someone very experienced, but he got deployed to Iraq and then his dad lost his job), and I really had that dilemma all rescuers face eventually. Here was a mare with a fairly serious fear bucking issue. I’d ridden her once and she didn’t buck but she felt to me like she thought she had a cougar sitting on her back – she was waiting for the axe to fall. I didn’t feel comfortable giving her another try, and I didn’t know of anyone else who wanted to take that on. Was it time to give up and put her to sleep? Or was that person out there who could get through to her? I don’t have an easier time making these decisions than any of you — I procrastinated, rationalizing that she wasn’t costing me much because she was on pasture board, and, well, I’d think about making a decision on her next month.

I’m glad I waited. I’ve had a young trainer offer to give Lucy a try, and she’s really clicking with the mare. They had a successful first ride yesterday and now I’m hopeful that things will continue to progress. We’ll see. I don’t have a moral issue about putting down a horse that is unsafe to ride. There aren’t enough homes for horses that ARE safe to ride. Conversely, I’ve seen the right person turn a horse into a rideable horse enough times that I don’t feel right about not giving a horse plenty of chances with different people. Look at Whiskey, that SAFE horse – once pronounced unrideable, she is now a terrific trail horse for her current owner. All she needed was some hard work and a job to do. So this is another chance for Lucy, and we will see how it goes!

Who else has been faced with this dilemma? Did you find Mr. or Ms. Right for a difficult horse, or did someone just get hurt and then you regretted it? Mugwump has blogged a lot about an unpredictable horse she had like this – I think his name was Captain. She thought she had him sorted out, and then he put someone in the hospital. It’s just the worst “rock and a hard place” situation to be in, isn’t it? But the fact is, they’re not kittens…most people don’t want to feed them if they can’t do a job, so sometimes you wind up right where I am – asking myself how many chances to give, how much risk to take, and how much risk to let others take.

Your thoughts?

Long time no post!

I keep waiting to get GOOD pictures of him, but the ones in the indoor turn out blurry and we don’t have an outdoor, so I’m just going to do an update post for now and pictures will come later. I have a lot of updates on all of the horses.

The VLC, who, it is true, is technically the VLS at this point, is doing very, very well. He has no problems with his headset and “gets” collection, but things like sidepassing have come hard for him because he’s so big and not exactly catty, LOL. He gets kind of baffled at where his feet are and where they are supposed to be, and then he gets frustrated and would prefer to skip the whole thing, but he is learning! He remains calm, quiet and lovable and is a barn favorite. He’ll go to his first schooling show soon, and I’ll report back how that goes.

I cannot say enough how glad I am that I was super, super, super picky about trainers and only let him go to a barn where every horse looked happy. As a result, he is fresh, happy and has not developed any sour behaviors – and I am delighted. I have a horse who has learned to be round and learned to move laterally and hasn’t learned to wring his tail, pin his ears or throw his head. Hooray!

Then there’s the difference in my own riding. I have taken lessons on and off my entire riding career but I saw instruction as a second set of eyes – someone to pick on my equitation. I’d ridden with people who were fabulous riders but couldn’t explain things enough to help me at all, and people who were not that great but could at least tune me up enough that I would go win an equitation class. And then of course I just exercised horses for years, didn’t show, and didn’t try to really progress in my riding – at my age, I figured I was good if I didn’t slip any further. Well, I finally got that trainer who explains things well enough that I am actually improving. I’m kind of shocked. I kind of figured a lot of my riding flaws were there to stay, and I was stiff and old and set in my ways. Uh, no. A few lessons with her and I went back out and won an equitation class, something I haven’t done in 15 years. Yeah, just a schooling show but still – I was excited! Now I’m starting to feel like I might really be able to ride like I used to. Wow.

So the next step – remember the Small Spotted Pony that offloaded me last year? Well, he is in training now and I’m going to take lessons on him just as soon as possible. May even show him at the end of October if he’s ready. I am fired up – I’m going to win this one. The noodle-necked bucking pony will not triumph!

Some more updates – the Cute Spotted Stallion became a Cute Spotted Gelding and is riding great and out on lease to someone who may buy him. His buddy, Chaser, who I was working with this winter, went to training to get further along and got purchased before his 60 days were even up! His registered name is Sure to be Spotted and he will be at the Pinto shows next year.

The Drama pony is jumping and going to lessons and available for anybody in the PNW wanting a talented but quirky medium pony. E-mail Jessica if interested. I rode the Gossip pony in the SAFE show and she and I are taking lessons together with an eye to hitting some POA shows and she is also available for adoption (large pony, great to ride, challenging on the ground – you have to be the alpha). She is available through Pony Up Rescue. Class, the red pony I rode in last year’s SAFE show, is still looking for a home – she showed again this year and even took 3rd in Hunter Hack! She is available through Cowgirl Spirit.

Bullwinkle is with Karen V. and the last time I saw him, he was over 15 hands. He is the spitting image of his sire. Karen still has Honey, who is a much loved pasture pet due to her old pelvis issues. Libby, the VLC’s other oops baby from before I owned him, is growing up to be a beautiful girl and her mom, Bessie, has been enjoying the good life in one of those amazingly picturesque pastures. Lucy is the companion to a 17 hand dark bay Thoroughbred gelding and seems to be very much enjoying that job and relieved no one is trying to ride her. I still have the Crabby Old Bat, who is fat and happy, and Thai, who finally found her “perfect” herd – two llamas and a weanling. She just can’t hack it with anything bigger or tougher. Thai got ridden quite a bit this summer and is quiet, easy and available for adoption. The Big Moving Horse I blogged about is fat, happy, and his owner decided to take some lessons on him and give mastering him another shot, which I’m really happy about as I think he’s an awesome horse and they could be a great team with a little help.

The gelding who held his breath, unfortunately, turned out to have Wobblers and was put to sleep this summer. It was the right thing to do. The lack of balance explained his fear about picking up his feet, and he was never going to be comfortable enough to enjoy life.

The Moosealoosa got sold to a teenage girl who loves him and I am sure his fat is turning to muscle as we speak. My Big Gold Yearling, now a 2 year old (I must stop with these age-related names), was almost sold and then tore up a muck bucket with his forelegs and re-injured his radial nerve. So he is going out to sit and eat for the winter and we’ll re-evaluate in the spring. He is over 16 hands already and looking to outgrow the VLC. Just hoping he comes sound so he can do something with his life!

So that’s MY update…how about yours?

What does it take for you to throw in the towel?

A couple of recent incidents with people I know have prompted me to ask this question, as I’m interested in your perspectives and experiences. When do you give up and pass along a horse (green OR trained) to someone more talented than yourself for that horse’s own good? What sorts of behaviors cause you to throw in the towel and stop trying to get back on?

Or are you the person who says, hell no, I AM going to ride this horse – whether or not that means more than one trip to the E.R.?

For me, I know I am no bronc rider. I will get back on if I get bucked off and am not hurt, but I will probably do some longeing first and try to wear down the horse to the point where the incident will not be repeated. If something got me off twice in a day, I’m pretty sure I’d be done getting back on and would absolutely pass that horse along to a trainer that I know has more of a velcro butt than I do. I think it’s extremely bad news for a horse to succeed in offloading riders on a regular basis…every time your butt hits the dirt, they win and the behavior is reinforced. To me, it’s really smart to just pay the money to stick someone on the horse that the horse cannot throw. Most horses will respond to that by giving up, and usually in surprisingly short order. The few that don’t may really have a screw loose (or undiscovered pain – always, always, always look for pain first.)

There are other behaviors I’d be more likely to keep working with myself. Spooking, not usually a big deal. Bolting, hey, go back to the round pen and go back to basics and make sure you have a working whoa – bolting is often a sign of missed basic training – like with track horses who were never really broke, just learned to carry a rider and run. (Not true of all OTTB’s – all trainers differ! Some trainers have them pretty well broke and transitioning them is a snap. I applaud those trainers!) Rearing is not something I like to deal with and if I can’t find a source of pain (back, teeth?) that explains it, I’m likely to pass that horse along to someone else.

I will throw in the towel quicker at a public event like a show than I would at home. Let’s face it, a crowded warm up ring is no place to resolve a serious problem. You’re likely to interfere with other riders (which is rude and can cause someone else to have an accident) and you can’t concentrate on your horse when there are other riders everywhere and you have to worry about not running into little kids on ponies.

I know horsepeople are split on this. Some will tell you that if you don’t work through the problem AT the show, the horse learns he can misbehave at shows and get away with it. I don’t know if that’s completely true. I do think that when you fail to punish misbehavior in the show ring the same way you would at home, they do figure that out, but I also think that you don’t have the right to screw up everybody else’s ride bronc-busting in a flat class (or getting tossed and having a loose, bolting horse getting other people tossed) and that the polite thing to do is come to the center and wait to be excused.

If you’re in a dressage ring by yourself or jumping a course and you want to do your best to fix the behavior, knowing that the ribbons are already out of your reach, go for it and I applaud your guts! I don’t know who the rider is in the picture, but they are doing a fabulous job on a hard bucker – their position is just exemplary. They may not win a ribbon, but they are going to win that round with their horse.

I can watch that halfpassgal video all day and just go, OMG, I wish I could stick like that and wish I had her courage. (If you’ve never seen it before, beautiful example of a rider sticking and then NOT freaking out and NOT changing their riding and NOT having a temper. She proceeds as though nothing bad happened. Ah, youth…)

Do you look down on a trainer for deciding to pass along a horse? I don’t at all. I think that if you train professionally and that’s what pays your bills, it’s only intelligent to draw some lines about what you will and won’t get on. After all, if you get seriously hurt, you are out of business. Also, I don’t think the most talented trainer is necessarily the person who can stick like glue, and most horses don’t need the person who can stick like glue. Those people do exist, for those horses who need it, and often it just takes a few weeks or a month before they can be passed back to the regular trainer or the owner with the problem resolved.

Have you sent a horse off to fix a specific problem that was a bit too much for you, whether that was a misbehavior or a “fine tuning” issue? Did it work? Was the problem cured or did the horse still display the problem with you even though the trainer did not have the problem? Were you able to regain your confidence with a horse who had scared you off by seeing the trainer succeed with him and then working with the trainer to learn how to ride through the problem? Or did you simply learn that the horse had your number and it was not going to be the right horse for you?

Welcome to the real world and real work!

Ignore the funny looking haircut – we are in the middle of teaching him to have his mane pulled, plus it likes to fall on both sides. I swear I’ll have him looking normal eventually!

So, my very large son is at boarding school, AKA the trainer’s, and is learning to work hard for a living (I hear he actually sweated today) and give to the bit and that he has to lead quietly for people who are not me. I am surprised to hear he is being a shit about the latter, but as my trainer says, she has seen him lead quietly for me so she KNOWS this is b.s. and she is doing all the same things I would to correct it.

I do remind myself that I have ridden lots of four year olds who still have their moments, under saddle and on the ground, and a little misbehavior is normal – it’s just that this horse has had so little misbehavior that I am the one who is spoiled. I think of him as an old broke 12 year old and am terribly disappointed when he acts his age in any way. I am like that parent who has fits when their child gets a B+ instead of an A.

I am going to head out tomorrow and work him myself and see if he really is playing a game or if he’s got a bad case of four-year-old-stallion spring fever. My trainer has trained and shown many stallions, so I trust her judgment. I know there are those who will be positively gleeful if he ends up getting cut and I’ll tell you now – I don’t care one way or the other. I’m not obsessed with the idea of this horse staying a stallion and if my trainer says to cut him, we’ll cut him. If she says his behavior is normal and can be fixed, we’ll work through it. She’s the pro and her opinion is part of what I’m paying her for.

Meanwhile, the Big Gold Yearling, now a Big Gold Two Year Old, is being fitted up for sale at a friend’s barn. I don’t have time for two greenies and I feel like I’ve done my job in his life (raising him up from orphan-hood) and it is time for him to move on. My dressage rider friend drools over his short-backed build and beautiful shoulder and we both feel that his niche will be dressage/jumping. He is quiet enough to make a great amateur eventer – nothing spooks this guy. I will have pics as soon as he’s completely shed out and we’ve convinced him that clipping his ears out will not kill him. I am looking for a home with someone who won’t push him too young – he is 15.3 at 25 months and I think I can safely say he’ll finish out around 16.2 so he definitely needs to finish growing before he is asked to carry weight. Fortunately, those people are more easily found in the sport horse world and he’s the type to appeal to them.

Winter’s finally over and my Crabby Old Bat and Thai, the old TB broodmare, are coming home soon to share a large pasture. Belle found herself a job – my friend who has boarded her this winter asked to keep her for the summer as she’s proving to be a stabilizing influence on a more spirited mare, so she will stay where she is for now.

Now that I am done with the BIG mustang project (see the other blog!) I can get back to the SMALL mustang project. It should be warm enough soon to give baths and that is a big part of progressing with the two I’ve been working with. They are just too yucky with Washington state mud on their underbellies to clean it off without soap and water (they do not care for currying there, and currying isn’t enough to do the job anyway), so I got them both longeing nicely and then couldn’t move forward to carrying tack til they got all the way clean. I also need to rig up a high line in the arena to teach the scared one to tie so I’m going to try to get to that this week.

I have also started working with my friend’s very sweet red dun overo stallion (he’s been mentioned here before) again. I rode him for the first time this year last week and he was just perfect. As I’ve noted before, he’s Sonny Dee Bar bred and while I just hated those horses 15 years ago, now I sing their praises. They don’t go fast, but BOY are they safe and comfy. This guy makes the VLC look like a hot potato. I’ve also been doing ground work with my other friend’s ex-stallion and he’s learning to long-line beautifully and to wear a bit. He does not like the bit and does need more work on lowering his head for it – he is no fool and knows that despite only being about 15.1, he’s still way taller than me when he puts his head up. I have been busy trying to convince him that the whole process is easier on both of us when he lowers his head. Note to self, buy some baby carrots. (And yes, I am grateful that the 16.2 one never went through a hard to bridle phase!)

So that’s my update. I may hit some schooling shows on a rescued POA this year and am toying with fitting Thai up for the SAFE show if I can squeeze her into the work schedule and don’t get too lazy about having to actually, you know, go out to the pasture and drag her in. (I confess! I’m SO much better about riding horses that are in stalls or paddocks near the barn! I know I’m not the only one…fess up!) I’d like to do it because I always promote the idea of retraining broodmares and now I have a completely sound 24 year old who could make a perfect example! I’ve ridden her once and she was so good. She is still out at Karen V’s awaiting a ride home.

How are the rest of you doing? Got something to show this year? Still working? Still deciding if you are ready to take that step? Who has a new rescue they are working on?

For those of you are looking for your serious trail horse and don’t have one lined up, I have to recommend Whiskey, who’s a SAFE rescue. She has been in a foster home that has been using her for mountain trail rides and packing and it is TOTALLY her niche. She is super happy on the trails and not at all spooky. She is fit and ready to go and if you’re in the Seattle or Portland area, you should definitely consider her! I have ALWAYS liked this mare and it is so cool to see her find her true calling thanks to her excellent foster home. It will be even cooler if she finds a permanent home. She has been on the kill buyer’s lot twice and I want to know that she never has to fear that again.