The 6 horses lost in the fire at Boyd Martin's

Beautiful pictures of the horses that were killed today in a fire at True Prospect Farm.
So incredibly sad to lose these horses.

Memorial Pictures

Cagney

Five ways to help with the recovery

how fun

This is from Rockley Farm.  I forget exactly what prompted this - some sort of bet about riding bridleless, might have been out on a hunt.   Any way, they have been practicing and put up this video.
Looking good.  

Felix the Wonder Horse from Nic Barker on Vimeo.

one day at a time

Yesterday if you had expressed interest in a black TB mare you could have had her for 25 cents.  I would even have stolen a trailer for you to haul her away with.
Yesterday she was nasty (as in aiming for me with her head) and high (as in repeatedly trying to bolt) and being the contrary b---h that she is, sucked back and reluctant to trot.
I finally got off and let her run and buck for a few minutes in a round pen, got back on and walked around for a little while.
I figured that would have blown her leg out for good.
Today she is a little stiff on her RF but only until she walks it out in about 5 minutes.
I tried something today to see if it will help.  That leg appears sound, but there is a little heat after I ride.  So today I wrapped her leg in Arctic Blast.  I thought it might at least offset the heat generated by the jumping boots that she wears anytime she leaves her cell.
We just walked today, she was much better, able to walk out and when the head flinging started at the touch of my leg she managed to get it under control quickly.
I feel like we are back to.... maybe not step 1, but no farther than step 2.   It is discouraging, but today was better than yesterday.

countdown

Our barn fun show is at the end of June.  Last year I judged the English classes, this year I told the barn manager that I didn't want to judge because I wanted to show.  I also rewrote the classes so they are typical hunter divisions. 
Nina has not been worked since the end of February and she has spent the last month injuring one leg at a time, 3 out of 4. 
I will settle for trotting the crossrails class in some sort of reasonable order, not in total disarray or bolt mode.  More would be wonderful. 
Will we make it?

please read

Mustang Makeover Trainer wants to keep her wild horse, can you help?
Diary of a Wild Horse

cranky today

Me, not Nina.  Nina was fine, we did a little trotting.  Apparently rearing is back on her menu, but it is back to what she used to do with about 5 minutes of warning, so she got kicked a couple of times.  She would like to buck and gallop.  I object to bucking at any time and galloping would not be good. 
I might stop on the way to the barn tomorrow and pick up some VitaCalm. 

No, I was the cranky one.  People at work were cranky, including me.  At the barn there were THREE of us riding in a huge outdoor arena and try as I might to just walk and trot ON THE RAIL  I had to dodge some really bad stops from a reining rider who never looks where she is going and nearly slid into us once.  At that point I did tell her to move and later when she asked me about it I told her to give us a little room.  Another rider managed to canter between us and the rail (and on our right!), which meant that Nina had to scoot over because there wasn't room.   She was wound up and a little explosive and I just have no patience with riders who insist on riding on top of others.  Take your eyes off of your horse's mane and LOOK WHERE YOU ARE GOING!

So then I stopped at the grocery on the way home and people were nearly mowing each other down.  Really really rude.  Some old fat man yelled at someone else in the parking lot to 'get the F out of the way'  Really?  There are plenty of groceries to go around.

Phase of the moon?  Gravitational shifts?  Time warp?
I am safely home and not speaking to anyone but the dogs.

This needs to go viral

This asshat is threatening to sue Epona TV for posting this video.  Although he was not at all ashamed to ride like this in front of an international audience.
I think we should all share this.
I also posted it on the FEI Facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/the.fei?sk=wall
--------
I did a little more digging into the FEI site and found that this video is getting a lot of air time there.  The FEI is looking into it and there is a committee reviewing and hopefully rewriting the rules.
http://twww.fei.org/Reining/FEI-World-Reining-Final/bokebergs

what a difference

What a difference a real Nina correction with Nina's weight behind it makes vs.  my wimpy corrections.  If you have been following along you have heard that Nina and I have been having some tacking up problems.  Yes, I caused it but she doesn't get to be an ass forever for one small mistake that I made.

What she has been doing is being quite agreeable about being bridled, but then when I go to adjust straps etc. she starts slinging her head around, then she just walks over top of me.  Annoying, rude and makes me want to break my rule about not killing her.  She will back off when I correct her until I go to adjust her tack again.  It's a game and I am tired of it.

So yesterday the grooming area where I tack her up was full of horses, so I tied her in the round pen to tack up.  I left her tied while I bridled her, just slipped the halter down her neck.  When she turned to walk over me I stepped back and she hit the tie - hard.  Backed up and tried to sit or rear but she was tied too short.  Tried to walk over top of me again, this time with more enthusiasm and hit the tie really hard, it rocked her.   She threw a little fit, but tied short she didn't have much room to play.

So today I decided to tie her and tack her up in the pen again.  I can't do this in the grooming area, the only place to tie is a hitching rail that is way too low to work.  I can tie her high in the round pen.

So today she was an angel.  ONE time of hitting that rope with her full weight behind it had made more of an impression than all the corrections (including with a whip) that I had made.   Took all the fun out of it (for Nina).

Had a good walking ride.  Walked about four times as far as yesterday.  More tomorrow.

Riding, sort of

Finally got on Nina today.  Between not wanting her to flip around and injure her leg and not wanting her to flip around and injure me; the previous rearing session;  her being more obnoxiously in heat than I have ever seen her - it took a while to walk her around until she took a deep breath.
She was a jerk about being tacked up.  I think she is setting a timer, anything over 5 minutes and her alarm goes off.  Then she was fine until I started adjusting things to get on, then she didn't want to stand still.  We just walked around until she let go of a lot of tension.
By this time, I had the adrenaline rush going and then when I got on her she lumbered around like an old plow horse.
On the good side, her leg seems fine and she was obedient and we got another 'first day back' out of the way. 

EHV state by state

If you are interested in a state by state breakdown of what is going on with the EHV outbreak, here is it from the Dept of Agriculture.  The charts are on page 2 and 3.  19 states are affected.  The count here in Colorado is up by one confirmed case this weekend.  Many many people here are just staying put and hopefully the virus will run its course and we will be done with it.
PDF here.

nearly a summer coat

You know those lovely moments when your horse is alert, head up, ears pricked, eyes fixed on something in the distance, body tall? 
Yeah, well, I don't get those with Nina when I have a camera in my hand.  I get fidgeting and the ole nose in the lens and floppy mule ears.  I also get how's-my-butt-look and face-in-the-feed-bucket.  She just cannot stand still and pose, it is way too hard.
So in honor of her nearly shed out coat and the re-emergence of my black horse from her henna red cocoon here are some pics.

news and news

I watched some news coverage about the EHV this morning on TV.  The script was basically the same, probably a press release from a state veterinarian converted into a short news story.

The story on Good Morning America was filmed at the LA Equestrian Center and had a hunter show as a backdrop and lots of nice looking horses peering over stall doors.  It included a short interview with a veterinarian.

The local news was basically the same story but the backdrop video was of a rodeo and featured bull riders.  I don't think there was a picture of a horse anywhere in the story.
And people wonder why I say I think the local news is really really bad.  Like One-Whistle-Stop-Town bad.

OMG!

What a horse's ass!  
The tall dark one with the horse's ass, not the shorter windblown one.
I don't think that dear little Nina is going to put up with much more standing around and hand walking.

shhhh, don't tell anyone....

The sun is out!!!!!

thought for the day about EHV

For those of you trying to decided about shows and competitions and weighing the risk to your horse.... consider the other side of the coin.
If your horse is exposed and does not get sick, it can still be shedding the virus and exposing all the horses that it comes in contact with for the next 21 days.

Lots of big shows are still in full swing, I think most of them have too much invested to just pull the plug and decide at the last minute to cancel a show.
All the conversation that I have seen so far is owners trying to figure out if their horse is at risk.  We also need to consider whether we are becoming part of the problem by spreading the virus.  MOST horses exhibit no more than a snotty nose, but they are spreading the virus.

I have yet to attend any horse competition in my whole life where somebody didn't show up with a horse with a snotty nose.  I always assume that my horse is being put at risk of every disease riddled horse with an idiot owner.   Normally that is a tiny risk of disease that most horses have immunity to.
This time it might not be.

the clouds parted

and we got a brief time of sunshine today.  Nina got out of her pen and got a very little exercise.  Then she got a laser treatment on her leg.  Pen cleaned, beet pulp delivered, sheet back on.
And it was raining when I left.
It is supposed to rain tonight and then be nice Saturday and Sunday.  Not enough time to dry things out before the next rain session on Monday, but still ... we really need some sunshine.

Rain, still, again...

We may not be near the mighty Mississippi, but if you pour enough water on any piece of land eventually the land is underwater.  I saw on the news last night that roads near the Platte River are starting to wash out.  The roads here in town are just water paths, and it keeps raining.
The next person who says 'well, we need the water' I may slap.

I really feel sorry for the people over at Diary of a Wild Horse.  Doing the Mustang Makeover with a darling mustang called Marley.  He is making fabulous progress and they are rained out too.  They are just around the corner from where Nina is.  The clock is ticking down, I think the program is 90 days and they are approaching 70 with no end in sight to this weather.  I hope things clear up or perhaps with the EHV shutting everything down they will delay the ending a little. 

The forecast is a whopping 60 degrees with a little sunshine this weekend and back to more rain next week.  I really hope they are really wrong. 

rain

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What it comes down to...

We have pulled up the drawbridge and filled the moat with alligators to ward off the EHV-1. 
There are big, dark, wet, winter-ish looking clouds coming over the mountains bringing 24 hours of rain and wind and cold temps.
Nina thinks being forced to walk around in the sprinkling rain today was barbaric.
Spring Gulch HT this weekend has been canceled. 
Looks like the rest of the week will look like this...

EHV (equine herpes virus)

Seems to be spreading fast in this area.  Narrowed down to a cutting horse show in Utah over the weekend but now in all surrounding states.  There is also an outbreak along the east coast that apparently started in New Jersey. 
A lot of us at my barn have been very concerned because we have quite a few members of a drill team that is kids with honestly little adult supervision.  There are adults training the drill team, but most of the parents are pretty clueless about horses and kids are....kids. 
They trailer out at least once a week, often more, for practice and shows and would be excellent candidates for unsupervised mingling with strange horses where ever they go. 
The barn just put this statement out on FB and I am so glad to see it.  It is bad for everyone who is just starting to show this year, and I have two friends who are also students who are waiting to move in (but I guess they can't move in until someone moves out!) but better safe than sorry. 
6 horses were identified with EHV in Utah this weekend at a show and 2 died.  This is nothing to mess with - no vaccine and no treatment.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING MOVEMENT OF HORSES

by Bibber Creek Stables on Monday, May 16, 2011 at 7:36pm

After careful consideration regarding the EHV-1 Virus we will not be allowing trailering out or in coming horses until further notice. We do not have this virus at our facility, but we want to take a proactive approach to keeping our horses safe. We are sure as responsible horse owners you can understand our position on this. If a horse leaves the facility it will not be allowed to come back for 30 days. We will evaluate this situation daily and keep you posted.

rain and rain and rain

We had a couple of hours of weak sunshine today and things tried to dry out a little.  Suppose to rain tomorrow off and on and Tuesday night and Wednesday......... I could be living in Seattle!

so now I'm glad I'm not riding....

.. so sick of all the mud.  It was so wet and slippery that I didn't even take Nina out to hand walk her.  I did the day before and ended up slipping under her, grabbing mane to stop from falling on my butt in the mud.  Thank you Nina for your change in attitude (when I first got her she would have killed me for sliding into her and grabbing her) and for having 4 legs to keep you upright in the muck.

Saturday afternoon she had scratched her back in the mud....

After about an hour of chipping away at the dried mud...

When I left she was cleaner, drier and happier ....

just wanted to share...

... it is 42 degrees and pouring down rain. 

lessons and light bulb moments #1

Since Nina and I aren't doing anything I decided I would try to review some of my big light bulb moments in learning about horses.  After all, they aren't lessons if you forget about them.

I do promise a picture of Nina as soon as I get the rest of her winter coat off - maybe before as she has an interesting coat pattern going right now.


Ride the Horse You Brought Today

I have heard this expression endlessly.  I thought I took it in, but apparently only on a very superficial level.  I suppose I thought it was just one of those rah-rah coaching things to get past some bad behavior without over reacting.  And I guess it is, but it is soooo much more.  Scotty taught me this.

Scotty was a big powerful guy, 17h, 1500# and convinced that 120% was the way to go.  He was trusting and enthusiastic and always ready to try something new.  After a week or so of punting poles around trying to clear the debris he figured out going OVER stuff and never looked back.  He loved to jump, dragged me to jumps when I was unsure, sailed around over 4ft with my trainer, and the only time he ever hit a rail or stopped it was because the rider was making it impossible for him to jump even off one foot and sideways.   Here is pic of him schooling on the flat, you can see how powerful this guy was.

So off we go to our first horse trial, traveling with a more experienced friend, we are both going Beginner Novice.  Scotty is a little excited but more interested in all the activity than spooky.  We put in a good dressage test and we are in 2nd or 3rd afterward.

We walk the course and it all looks doable, sandy footing, good view of each jump, a couple of drops which should slow him down a bit.  I am fully expecting him to run away with me and I am looking for places to circle on course.  In the warm up he is over jumping everything, other riders are teasing me about being in the wrong division and I am hoping to get him a little tired.  I am starting to get concerned about my fire breathing dragon, but I figure we can just get out of the way of following riders and circle endlessly.  My goal is to make it around clean and not think about time.

We go to the start box and he walks around calmly until the starter says 'go' and we calmly trot out of the box and head toward the first jump, a simple inviting log on level ground.
At this point Scotty realizes that we are LEAVING the horses in the warm up, trots up to the log, and to my amazement just stops, looking over his shoulder at the warm up.  Small circle, smack with the whip and he pops over and canters to the next jump.  Rinse - repeat.  Ok, this has to be me and I ride very strongly to the next jump.
At this point a horse galloping into the finish line passes us on the right and Scotty loses it.  The beginning of the course and the end of the course are two parallel lanes separated by a rope.  That galloping horse is going TOWARD the other horses and we are moving away!  Scotty spins, screams and tries to bolt after the galloping horse, who by now has crossed the finish line and stopped.  We return to our course only now the circling we are doing is Scotty trying to get away from me and not me trying to slow down my over eager horse.
We have two stops at the next jump, each time he tries to bolt after a horse heading to the finish line and then a total melt down at a drop with a log at the bottom.
By this time I have totally lost my nerve and don't honestly think I can force him down a drop and over a small jump - I hate drops anyway!
I don't know if we were eliminated or retired, I know the judge's radios were full of chatter about us.  It's always nice to be the entertainment of the day.

Ride the Horse You Brought Today.

I had a plan for riding Scotty, based on his personality and previous experiences.  I was totally locked in on the horse that I knew and had left no room for anything but my normal and fairly minor adjustments for excited horses.  I was fully expecting my fire breathing dragon and the idea of him being the gigantic chicken of the day had never crossed my mind.  I had no idea, at the time, of how to switch gears and sooth his concerns and coax him along.  My mind was in the slow-down-the-runaway mode and unable to adjust.

I gained a whole new perspective for the importance of making a plan but remaining open for ANYTHING to happen, not things within my experience or this horse's past, but literally ANYTHING.  

Ride the Horse You Brought Today.

Blogger is back!

It really put a crimp in my morning to not be able to drink coffee and read blogs.  Glad it is back up and running.  I am missing some comments, other than that everything appears to be working.
Nina is out of her blanket, warm, and has rolled in the mud to complete her day.  She even has mud on top of her head.  I left it.
Tomorrow I will try to carve a horse out of the raw lump of clay.  I am hoping this might take the last of the winter coat off.
I let her trot around in one of the small round pens today, fine going left, just not quite right going to the right.  Maybe we can get a laser treatment tomorrow and see if that helps.

cold rain, cold horse

I am SO glad I left a blanket at the barn.  When I got to the barn today, around 2pm, it was 39 degrees, raining and blowing and it had been just like this all day.  I noticed that Nina looked cold and my first thought was that I had left her sheet at home and the only thing at the barn was a medium weight blanket, I took everything else home to wash and store.  I had intended to bring the sheet back out.
I stood there for a minute watching her, thinking that I should run home and get the sheet and bring it out, the blanket would be too hot.  Then I realized that she was shivering from head to foot... the blanket would not be too hot.  I dug it out of my trunk, threw it on her and then we took a walk in the rain to try to warm her up.  That and a bucket of beet pulp and she was looking much happier by the time I left. 
Now I get to warm ME up.
When is winter over?

stirring things up

I am going to try some more laser therapy on Nina's RF.  It helped before in getting the swelling down to one spot, now we will see if it will do any more.
I have been scrubbing her RR, hosing it and putting furazone on it.  Now it is a little swollen,, hot and oozing.  She definitely had a little pocket of infection in there.  Hopefully this will clear it up this time, I don't want to have to lance it or put her on oral antibiotics.  I have a hard enough time keeping her digestion happy. 
What I don't get is that she can walk/trot/run around on her own and look perfectly sound, but I get on her at the walk and she throws a fit.  I don't weight THAT much. 
AND the wind is whipping sand around again.  AND is it supposed to warm up all the way to 40 degrees tomorrow, after 3 days in the 80s.   If I go back to bed will somebody wake me up when Nina is sound and the weather ditto?

walking

We have walked about 20 minutes or about a mile and half on the hard pack two days in a row.  Doesn't seem to be making any difference in either leg, but at least it's not hurting anything and it will increase circulation.  Yesterday Nina thought it was kind of fun, today she was bored after a few minutes.  She would lag behind, then surge ahead, lean on me a little, pin her ears every time I told her to quit whatever it was she was doing.  Once I glanced down and realized that she was very silently and with great stealth about to bite me on the forearm.  She went sideways a few feet when she realized I was looking at her, I didn't do anything, just caught her eye and her guilt did her in. 
The wind was howling, about the fourth time we stomped through a dust devil she gave me the evil eye for about 5 minutes. 
Gad, horses are fun.
oh and PS - SICK OF THE WIND

better living through chemistry

I thought about a lot of ways to address Miss Nina today; change the bit back to a gag, work her in the round pen, work her hard in the arena, etc etc.
I finally decided to make sure that she was just being, um, difficult and not sore somewhere.  So I gave her some bute and worked her the same as yesterday.
With the bute she gave me a much better walk AND she let me know she was sore on the right front.

Typical TB to throw a hissy instead of doing something simple like LIMPING.
Running in turnout and lunging in the roundpen she has given no indication of anything wrong, other than being a little stiff for a couple of days.  She gets stiff when she has played hard the day before, so do I, we don't pay much attention as long as it goes away with exercise.
So, on bute she was apparently sound being lunged, felt absolutely fine walking out, but nearly tipped over on a fairly tight right turn.  Several times. 
So we jut walked without much turning for a while.  She did consider being 'in charge' again and twice pinned her ears and grabbed the bit, which was the only signal I got yesterday when she stood up.
Both times I took the bit back, not very gently and chewed her out a little and that seemed to be the end of that. 
So I think she is sore and being Nina she reverted to her old method of making people go away and leave her alone. 
Her right front leg is the one she bruised whacking it on something when I think she got cast.  It still has a little swelling but no heat and it is not sensitive to poking and prodding. 
I also found, when I did an alcohol rubdown on all legs that her right hind, which she cut over the winter is apparently not really healed.  It got a little infection and took a while to heal and the hair did not grow back.  She was very unhappy with the rub, which means that it is not healed either, the alcohol was stinging. 
I think I may give her some bute for a few days and do some steady walking, maybe alternate hand walking and getting on her, which will get her ridden and may help get things moving and healing and see if there is any improvement.

Never never never

post something on Facebook that you don't want to eat.

Yesterday I posted on the barn page that Nina was nowadays going forward instead of up and I will be double damned if she didn't rear with me today.  TWICE!
The first one caught me so off guard I nearly tumbled off her butt.  I was on the buckle, she was being a little bit of a shit and I was ignoring her, wrong choice.  She stood up and balanced there.  I nearly fell off and I'm surprised I didn't pull her over backwards, all I had was reins in my hands.  I managed to get myself forward enough to help her balance a bit and when she landed she started to take off. 
I wanted to grab some mane in case she went up again and pull her around with one rein.  Unfortunately, I dropped the wrong rein when I grabbed mane and was flapping around trying to FIND the other rein for what seems forever but was probably a few seconds. 
I got her stopped, caught my breath, told her to walk and she took about 2 steps and went up again.  This time I was ready for her, grabbed mane and pulled her around hard.  When we stood still she gave me that stupid "go ahead and get off now" look that I haven't seen in over a year. 
Excuse me, but...you BITCH!!!!!
So we worked a little more, longer than I wanted because I was about to get off when she had her tantrum.  
She has had WAY too much time off and I am not going back to last spring.  Tomorrow she is going to be much more tired before I get on and she is going to work instead of strolling around thinking up trouble.

goals

Just a short thought on my goals this year.
I was trying to make a schedule taking Nina and myself through some schooling shows and learning experiences.  That got somewhat shot to hell by our long time out this spring.  I have been kind of floundering around trying to reset some goals and realized that I was starting from the wrong end with micromanaging (one of my talents) the calendar.  So I decided to step back and see what the real goals are.  They are not quite as bold as they used to be.
My ultimate goal with Scotty was to do a Training 3-Day.  (He could have packed me around against my will and given me the credit!)
I think my ultimate goal with Nina is to make it around a cross country course, at any level, going between the flags and finishing together.  I think that is realistic but challenging for this year.

What are your real goals?  Not the next show, but what you want to have accomplished by the end of the year?

girls can be SO sensitive

By the time I got Nina tacked up and ready to ride I was getting fed up with the weather.  I went back to my car and put a jacket on.  The wind was very cold off and on.  A few raindrops like someone spitting at you and between that and the cold I was grumpy by the time I got on.
Nina instantly picked up on that and decided that she was grumpy too and declined any suggestions from me about little things like direction or speed.  She even did a wild head tossing thing, threatened to rear - thought better of it, more head tossing.  I thought her head was going to spin around like in the Exorcist. 
Eventually we did a little walk/trot in the general direction that I wanted to go.  Eventually I remembered to put more leg on when she got pissy and she remembered that the way to make me stop annoying her with my leg was to just truck along like a good girl and things settled down.
I think we are both out of practice.

Finally!

Finally got a good ride in on my horse.
First I got run over.  Then when I wanted to start riding again Nina injured (let me try to get the order right) her right hind leg (cut), her left front foot (shoe and half the hoof) and her right front leg (mystery swelling).
Then the weather and lack of discipline had had her acting up and we started WWIII over tacking up with me taking the idiot lead.
I had begun to dread trying to get through all the drama and get back into a work routine.
So today I tacked her up, assuming she would pitch a fit and I was just going to wait it out.  She did consider walking off dragging me with her when I was putting the bridle on but I did my 'just ignore her' act and she got it together and was fine.
In the arena she started jumping around as I tried to adjust tack and get on so I just ignored her again, talked to a friend standing there with her horse and waiting for Nina to find her brain.
Oops - there it is!
When I finally got on she was wonderful, soft, relaxed, walking out with big strides.  All we did was walk, did some spirals and a lot of leg yields, worked our way in and around the other horses.  She was totally fine, cheerful and acting like we had been working on this stuff everyday forever.  Sometimes I do think it is a good idea to just let them think about things they are finding difficult.  She had been highly resistant to any leg yields and today acting like perfection.
I was so relieved.  I was happy, she was happy, looking forward to tomorrow.

this weather!

Saturday I froze all day up in Fort Collins at the horse show mostly because of the hard winds.  Sunday my lesson canceled which was fine with me because it was cold and blowing again.  I puttered around the house and went to feed Nina her beet pulp late, still cold.
Yesterday when I got to the barn it was cold and blowing again.  I got Nina out and lunged her a bit, thinking that I would get warmed up and ride.  She was a little surly every time she turned into the wind, so was I.  While I was deciding whether or not to ride it started pelting us with snow and rain.  Not a lot but pretty miserable driven by the wind.

Nina is no happier with the weather than I am.

I said that was enough and went to sit in my car and warm up while Nina rolled and scratched her back.  While I was sitting there one of my students pulled in and asked if she could get a lesson, also commenting that it was a lot colder than she thought.  I told her to get tacked up and if she still wanted a lesson I would be glad to.
So I put Nina away, groomed her a bit and tried to decide if I should put a sheet on her.  In about 20 minutes the wind stopped, the sun came out and suddenly I was way too hot in my jacket.

I gave a lesson, we all enjoyed the sunshine and the lesson and just about the time we got done the clouds rolled back in again.  Here is Ned and rider cooling off and you can see that the wind is kicking up again putting dust in the air and the clouds are moving in.  Timing is every thing - they got lucky, Nina and I, not so much.

Here is another hysterical one!