warm up ???

I got Nina out of her pen for the first time in 3 days.  She just went in turnout, still bundled up and spooked and jumped at everything including the tractor that she sees... oh... 10 times a day.  Got some circulation going.

But as far as it warming up .....

warm up coming

Tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 30s and Thursday in the 50s.  While this warm up is much appreciated by people, it is very hard on the horses.  Fortunately (knock on wood) Nina seems to be able to take these temperature swings in stride. 
Looking forward to riding weather, and for all of you in the path of this arctic blast.... at least it is moving fast. 
Rita, I'm sure you get these arctic blasts too, you just can't tell because once you are cold cold cold, you can't tell. 

mile high heat

The radiate power of the sun in a clear sky at over a mile high is impressive.  It can turn skating rinks into relatively drivable streets in just hours.  But it does nothing for the temperature of the air in an arctic cold front.  I was reminded of this when after unzipping my jacket because I was pleasantly warm in the sun, I got the finger tips of my gloves wet and they instantly froze to my fingers.  Ouch!  Sun or no sun, it was still 13 degrees F.

Nina was making do in the boring cold, scarfing down a bucket of beet pulp.

And what is this?   Despite the fact that it looks like snow in the pics (I did my best) this is actually a cluster of tiny tiny spiral icicles on her cheek.  She has them on her cheeks, chin and ears.  I think they must be just the moisture coming off of her body and freezing into little icicles.

ballet on ice

I have lived in Colorado for almost 30 years as a car driving adult and never had a lot of trouble getting around.  I have never owned a 4x4.  I have had some white knuckle drives and more often, slow slow drives where you wish you had packed a lunch and a book.
Today was a very scary drive to the barn.  The weather report said that the snow was coming into the area in 'bands' which is kind of normal I think, but this was a little different.
I left the house around noon to give Nina her beet pulp and change her blanket,  in light snow, the side roads were slippery and the main roads were not too bad, there was enough traffic to keep the snow mostly churned up into slush.  It was 25 degrees.  I stopped at Walmart to pick up wiper blades....long overdue, and when I came out it started snowing hard.  The temps dropped in a few minutes to 18 degrees and suddenly the roads were solid ice, no snow to be found. 
I found myself driving down a four lane road in way too much traffic and suddenly one at a time we were all hitting a frozen rut in the road where a big vehicle had changed lanes while the snow was wet and soft.  A couple of vehicle bounced off at angles, hitting curbs on BOTH sides of the street.  I found myself doing lovely slow motion pirouettes down the road with no more control than if I had been sitting on the roof.  Eventually I got enough control to swing off into a side street where the deeper snow helped me stop.  Miraculously nobody appeared to have hit anybody.  We all regrouped and proceeded on, now at about 5mph, down from our speedy 20mph that we were travelling before.
I drove all the rest of the way to the barn on this thick layer of polished ice.
I then spent much more time than I needed at the barn, feeding Nina, changing her blanket and talking to her about the feasibility of walking down to Burger King for dinner and spending the night in my car.
I REALLY did not want to go back out on the skating rink.
Then the heavy snow stopped, the temps bounced back up to around 25, the cars started churning up the ice into slush again and the roads were fine.  I made it NEARLY home and the cycle started again.  This time a couple of roads were blocked off by police where traffic had spun out and come to a standstill on hills, not very big hills.
I mentally computed the most flat route and crawled safely home.
I am having a cup of coffee, reading and writing on blogs and trying to decipher the cryptic directions on the package for changing the wiper blade.  I think I will bag the directions and just do it myself, I'm feeling fairly invincible.

here it comes...

It is very mild out right now but the front is moving in and the cold weather is coming.  We are supposed to have about 3 days with highs in the teens and then another warm up.
Nina has been working well all week.  She felt a little stiff today so she is ready for a couple of days off anyway.  I will catch up on things around the house and hope it doesn't get toooooo cold.

almost routine

It would be getting routine except that once again, next week will be time off for the horses.  Bad weather is rolling in on Sunday and next week the highs are going to be in the 20s.  No riding for me.
Today, however, I rode in a T-shirt and hoody.

Nina was very good, very relaxed.  Yesterday she was a little grumpy, today she was quite cheerful.

AND we managed to not get whacked in the head by the carrot-stick wielding NH guru who rides with the damn thing, swinging it over her head and chasing her horse through turns by whacking him on the shoulder.
She is a menace, but Nina and I just kept one eye on her and were able to stay out of her way.

Nina and I have been working on getting a nice forward trot from a halt by starting just a few strides from some trot poles.  She has figured out that she is supposed to stretch through the poles and not mince along so she has to power up from a halt to make the striding work with only a short distance to find her rhythm.  She seems to think this is a good game and gets better each time we do it. Today she was bouncing in place, ears pricked at the poles, waiting to be told to go.  She is so enthusiastic about anything that hasn't been ruined for her, it is such a shame that no one took advantage of that attitude instead of, apparently, trying to beat it out of her.  But then we would never have met so I guess it turned out well for me.
She is making such progress, I wish the weather would hold.  But at least we are having several nice days in a row and then a few days off in a row.  I guess it is working out fine.

yay me

When I got to the barn it was about 40F, the sun kept going behind some clouds and the wind was blowing.  I just heard the news report and it said breezy in Denver.  Well, it may be breezy there, but right up against the foothills that breeze is a full blown icy wind.
The first person I saw at the barn said "are you riding today?"  "I dunno" I replied.  I'm not riding in this, I thought.
Walking back to Nina's pen another boarder said "are you riding today?" "I dunno" I replied.  My feet are cold already and the wind is blowing down my neck, I thought.
I got Nina out of her pen and walked up the the area where I tack up.  I'm not riding in this wind, this sucks.
I tacked her up and another boarder said "are you riding today?"  "I dunno" I replied.   I will just lunge her and be done, I thought.
So I lunged her (and we had the first of what promises to be many discussions about her disappearing ground manners).  Walked over to the arena and got on.
As a reward, the wind dropped to almost nothing and the sun peaked out between clouds.  We worked for about 20 minutes.  The wind picked up again and we quit for the day.
Now this might not seem like much to those of you who are much tougher than I am, but I HATE being cold and I never did warm up today, even riding.  My feet are still cold as I sit here and write this.
Now I am going to have a hot cup of coffee and go watch TV.
Somebody pat me on the back.

first-day-back-itis

Seems to be getting better, although we still need to discuss her ground manners when she is excited.  I got to the barn yesterday at 3:30 and did not, in spite of my best intentions, ride.  It was cold, windy and since the barn is right up against the foothills, about to be dark.  I fed, patted and ran for home.
Today I got there in time to ride.  The first few minutes of balking, head swinging and teeth grinding had me grinding my teeth.  But in a reasonably short time she was trucking along nicely.  Turned into a good ride, did a little work over poles on the ground and I was happy with it.
I did have to tell another rider to get the hell out of my way.  There were four of us in an enormous outdoor arena and within 5 minutes of getting on her horse she had managed to stop directly in front of me twice.  At the time I was trotting a circle, about 30m, off the rail, digging a path in the damp footing.  We had been on this same circle since before she came into the arena.  How can you not know where I am going!  She did get better although she seemed to have to work in exactly the same area and when I moved over to the other side she did too.  This is lemming-like behavior, this lady is a nice person not somebody trying to get in the way, just clueless.  Nina pinned her ears at the poor horse a couple of times and he got out of her way.   I don't want to encourage that behavior but it does seem to work better to have her talk to the other horse than to have me talk to the other rider.
Still a good ride and a good day.

all things are relative

After spending most of the fall whining about how cold and miserable I was at temps in the 30s, 40s and even 50s.... I had to giggle this afternoon.  I was shedding jackets and scarves and gloves at the barn like I had been transported to Florida.  The sun was out and it was a balmy 34 degrees.  After a few days at 13 degrees we were all enjoying the heat wave.  And I think most of the snow evaporated, there isn't even a whole lot of mud.
The turnout arena is the one exception.  While it was so cold (and dry!) the snow was powdery and fluffy.  The dirt and sand was also frozen and powdery and fluffy.  Walking in there was like walking in a foot of brown and white sugar.  Now that it is warm enough to melt the snow it is a muddy mess.
Nina got a little exercise in a round pen and was considerate enough to chose a dry spot to roll.  She has lost a little weight over the weekend, they burn a lot of calories staying warm and the wind chills were -25 overnight for 3 nights.  They have to eat round the clock to maintain their weight when it is that cold and she is kind of a slow, picky eater.   Horses are really efficient at maintaining body temps, as long as they have food.
I eat more than my share and it doesn't help me keep warm one little bit, hardly seems fair.

January 1st and Thoroughbreds

On January 1st all Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds (and probably others) celebrate their communal birthday and turn another year old.
In this age of computer records the actual birthday is usually available as well.  At the very least most horses have a verbal record of their history that follows them through life.  It might not be terribly accurate, but it tends to be fairly consistent.
Nina has none of these.  Oh, she has a tattoo on her upper lip, a combination of letters and numbers that indicate that she is a Thoroughbred and at least went to the track even if she never raced.  It also tells her birth year.
The problem is that the tattoo is illegible.  Several vets experienced with track tattoos have given it a good shot.  Many others have tried.  As one vet put it.... she was apparently never considered a potential star, it's a cheap tattoo, not done to be long lasting.
Horses can also be aged by their teeth, which changed drastically every year until the age of ten, when they don't change much except for wear. 
Her previous owner told me that they did decipher the tattoo several years ago, when she first bought Nina and sent the info off to the Jockey Club to get her history.  The information came back on a "dark bay or dark brown" filly.  They discarded this info, assumed they got the number wrong and forgot about it.
They didn't know that most black Thoroughbreds are registered as "dark bay or dark brown."  The JC is reluctant to register a horse as black because black is genetically a different color and getting it wrong could mean questions of parentage in future generations where a horse turns out a color it shouldn't be.
Nowadays you can do DNA testing and find out the genetic roots of your horse's color, but "dark bay or dark brown" is the well used and safe option on JC papers.
Her previous owner also handed me assorted Coggins tests on Nina (or not) that make her anywhere from 12 to 19 at the time I bought her.
So why is this an issue?   It's because I am making plans to compete with her later in the year and competing means filling out entry forms and that means entering an age.  Horses with an unknown date of birth and over the age of 10 are considered 'Aged' (another horse specific term).  But, again, in the era of computers...'aged' doesn't fit in that slot for a one or two digit number. 
I think Nina and I are a pair of dinosaurs, caught between traditional descriptions and modern (unforgiving) computer records.
When it comes to actually filling out forms, I will just ask a couple of event organizers what their solution is.  I have a feeling that I will need to pick a reasonable age and stick with it.
I wonder exactly how vain Nina is.....this might be a good bargaining chip.  A flattering age for good behavior?