The Ups and Downs of Life

Today’s Tip: The right horse for you, right now, might not be the perfect horse or even the horse you’re looking for. Read about where I’ve been for the last week and who has been buying horses!

This is what a lot of our weather has been like lately. Yesterday and today it was actually about 80*! It makes for nice weather for cat naps in the sunshine.

No, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth. I haven’t even been off on some fun spring break vacation like so many others I know.

Actually, I’ve just been busy…mostly with homework. As much as I thought school took over my life when I was a full time student, it seems to have more of an impact, at least on my well-being, now that I have to work AND do school.

Anyway, last weekend I actually rode more horses in two days than I have in any one weekend for a long time, maybe, possibly even ever.

Really I just got a good ride in on Classy. I got the new-to-me saddle cleaned up Saturday morning and took that out to RideAbility for some real arena work. The jury’s still out on the actual fit, but I was using a thicker pad than normal, so using my regular pad may make it just right. We’ll see.

As nice as the weather has mostly been, yesterday was quite windy (about 25 mph I think). I went in the shed to get some hay for the horses and all four of the cats were passed out on the new hay. By the time I got the camera, they'd woken up (and their "demon eyes" came out), but they were stil in their kitty pyramid.

The ride itself was great. He was working well, I decided to start increasing his strength by waiting longer to do a free walk (let him stretch his neck) and by riding a little longer. It started raining a little bit when we were out there, but not too bad.

When we were done, the two other riders who were out that day and I played musical ponies. They were going to switch to get the horse in need of strengthening some trot work, I wanted to ride the new one to correct a glitch in her behavior that I had seen, and there was just a third horse and rider to complete the circle. Then since one got to ride my horse, the other wanted to as well, so we switched again. So I got to ride a Morgan/Clydesdale cross (she’s like a mini-Clydesdale – adorable!!) and a Quarter Horse. While I love the smooth ride of my TWHs, it was kinda fun to do a little nice trotting.

Sunday I went out to a woman’s house to look at a foxtrotter mare she got last fall. She’s an experienced horsewoman, but not with gaited horses. I don’t have a ton of experience with foxtrotters, but I went to take a look anyway. She’s a nice little mare…well, not so little…but it is a transition from a perfect, reliable, elderly Appaloosa. I think she just doesn’t see any point in wandering around in circles in an arena when she could be outside. I can’t say I blame her!

Had this been a test ride for a prospective horse purchase, I probably wouldn’t have recommended this horse. She isn’t really nervous, but a little jumpy at times, and the woman can’t really afford to get hurt so seems a tiny bit nervous of a spooky horse. Also, she doesn’t seem to have much of a foxtrot. That may change when we get somewhere with a longer, more open stretch. It does, however, make life slightly more difficult if you have to mess around much with gait and you don’t know much about the gait to begin with. The horse seems safe, though, so we may find that although she’s not the perfect horse, she may be the right horse. That’s how Pretty was for me – not what I was looking for, but has turned out to be what I needed! This woman, her horse, and I will get together to get some more work done with her, and hopefully they’ll become a pair just like the woman was with her last horse.

Since the weekend, today’s the first day I really got to do anything with the horses. I probably could have yesterday, but with 25 mph winds, I didn’t even want to be outside. I had hoped to ride two tonight, but time got away from me and I just got in a ride on Classy.

If I didn’t know better, I’d swear someone switched horses on me over the winter. I’ve mentioned in other posts that he’s been doing really well with things like setting his head, collection, and responding to the snaffle (which he doesn’t always do so well). Today I rode him in the pasture. Normally he’s all skeptical about the distance from the other horses, the trees by the fence, the corn (or remnants of it) in the field on the other side, whatever might be across the road and on the other side of the field on the other side of the road. Oh, and did I mention that grass might be growing, and therefore ready to eat him? Today, though, he just went about his business. Sometimes he’d pick his head up and look at something, but generally he just did what he was supposed to. Next to impossible! Toward the end of the ride a woman came walking down the road with her little white horse-eating dog. That kinda threw us for a loop for a little while, but eventually he calmed down all over again.

Know Your Own Horse

Today’s Tip: You have to know your own horse, it’s more valuable than any vet’s evaluation…Sorta. Read on to figure out what I mean.

Life is getting busy again. I’m taking online classes and we’re getting busy with one right now that I swear expects us to read a whole novel just to understand what we’re supposed to do for the class. Honestly, I’ve heard more concise explanations of collecting a horse than how to do an annotated bibliography!

Anyway, that meant that my only horsey time yesterday was running errands and today it was just feeding. On the plus side – yesterday my saddle came! It’s a used Tennessean, and it’s very used. Watch for updates on what I hope will be the miracles of saddlesoap and leather conditioner. I also have a barn stocked full of grain, cat food, supplements, and salt blocks. Not nearly as exciting for me, but the critters were rather pleased.

So my point about knowing your own horse…The other day I thought it would be good do some exercises for the horses even when I just have a minute or two. A dressage instructor long ago taught me to apply pressure under their bellies to get them to round their back up. If you’ve never done this, stand on the side of your horse facing them (like you were grooming). My preferred method is to put my hands palms up, stick all my fingers straight up, put them on the underneath side of the horse’s barrel, and push up and wiggle my fingers. It will be a little closer to you than their center, so I do it on both sides to make sure they get an even stretch/muscle builder. Classy was just fine with this exercise, especially since he’s done it plenty of times before. Both my mares, at least one of whom I know has done it before, pinned their ears and generally expressed dissatisfaction with the whole thing. Although I have two mares and only one gelding, I’m really more experienced with the boys. Part of me wonders if they’re just “being mares.” They probably would have preferred to have just been left alone to nibble hay and sun themselves, but here I was sticking them with my pokey fingers. On the other hand, there could also be a physical problem.

Most of the time when I read about responses like this, “experts” say, “Ask your vet.” I’ve done that. Evee has been cinchy for a long time. She didn’t used to be and I’ve tried several different approaches and I can’t help but think there’s a physical problem. It’s just an instinct. Several vets, though, have said, “No, it’s just bad behavior.” I feel kind of stuck because short of spending tons of money and energy hauling her around to specialists, I’m kind of out of resources.

What now? My plan is to wait a week or so, try the exercises again, continue pushing and prodding (gently) in different contexts, and see if I can isolate the issues myself. For all I know, they could even bee in heat and it’s just a “time of the month” pain. Again…less experience with the girls, so I have no idea… If I ever find any trends, any specifics, I’ll share them with my vet. If I don’t, I’ll be happy to chalk it up to bad behavior. I can fix that! (maybe…)

Moral of the story: Know your horse because your vet doesn’t have the daily interaction you do, so you have to be the one to speak up for them. Years of education and experience give them one advantage, but not the whole package.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Today’s Tip: Never underestimate the importance of good fitting tack. Read on for my mistake and my recent solution!

My actual confession should probably be that I don’t normally shop as much as I have been lately. This is the second post this week about buying horse-related stuff, and that doesn’t count the time I spent at the mall today!

The other confession I have is that I found a way to cheat the system!!! Maybe it’s not really cheating, but it’s kind of against the intended system.

I love Craigslist – free online posting with no frills or much skill needed, you can sell almost anything to give new life to items rather than sending them to the dump, and you can buy things they need that may be more unique that what they’d find in the store or simply cheaper than they’d buy new. What I don’t love is that there is a limit to what is practical to search. You search by location, usually a single city and its surrounding area. It’s mean for finding local stuff,  but sometimes you want something specific and it’s just hard to find it locally. The site will search nearby areas, but that’s it. There is no way to search ALL of Craigslist.

Then along came Google. I searched “search all of Craigslist” and there were results! My favorite of those I tried was CraigLook.com With this fabulous site, you can search the whole country in one simple step. And thanks to this, I was finally able to find the Western saddle I’ve been looking for!!

A number of years ago I purchased a nice Western saddle – nice as in my color of preference, decent tooling, a little bit of silver, and decent quality. Unfortunately it never fit Classy very well, especially since he’s put on a few pounds since I bought it. This became particularly evident after a trip to South Dakota a couple of years ago. My husband rode Classy for a whole week. That fall, when his winter coat came in, he had two distinct white spots on either side where the saddle caused too much pressure. Poor baby!

Since that trip I’ve been looking for a new saddle. Tennessee Walking Horses are often tough to fit with a Western saddle. You frequently need a rounded (or otherwise shortened) skirt so it doesn’t interfere with the hip of this (ideally) short-backed, long-strided horse. Also, the trees of Arab saddles and other saddles typically designed with smaller skirts often don’t fit in the tree. I’m no saddle-fitting expert, but it’s not hard to tell that the front part of the saddle is pinching when you can’t fit your fingers underneath it no matter how hard you try. Pads can help, but they never solve a poor-fitting saddle.

As a general rule, I wouldn’t recommend purchasing a saddle without trying it on your horse and seeing for yourself that it’s in good condition (not just the look of the leather, but how well it has been cared for, if the tree is still solid, etc.). However, I was looking for a Tennessean saddle since I’ve used them on Classy before and know they fit. The one I found was a decent price and I saw photos demonstrating the quality, so I know even if for some reason it doesn’t fit, I should be able to resell.

As I sit here counting the hours until my new (used) saddle arrives at my doorstep, I can’t stress enough the importance of good fitting tack. Classy might be 15 years old, but I expect to get a LOT of good riding years out of him still. Just as people start to become less resilient to beating up their bodies, so do horses. No horse should have to work in pain or risk injury due to the wait of your entire body pushing down on a couple small points on their back. A horse whose body is no longer as young as it once was possibly even has more to lose by being subjected to poor-fitting tack.

As a footnote, and additional confession for today is that I totally missed a perfect day for being outside and working with the horses. It’s the season of Lent, so we wanted to be at church. Too bad Mother Nature wasted her dreary day on a Tuesday and a gorgeous day on a Wednesday! Even if the weather isn’t as good tomorrow I will get out with the horses. Hold me to it!