Five Acres with a View

It wasn’t love at first sight.

When I first saw the tall, leggy mahogany bay Thoroughbred gelding I thought he was kind of cute, though skinny. And I thought it was a pity that his blaze was so asymmetrical, sliding off to one side of his face.

I was no longer too excited when I went to look at horses, because by then I felt I had looked at every big lame horse in Colorado. Why do people even bother to show horses for sale that are obviously lame? Do they think it won’t be noticed?

In this case the owner had brought the horse by the barn where we were boarding Rags. He was immaculately groomed, and seemed very calm for a Thoroughbred. He also seemed alert, so I doubt he had been drugged. In retrospect, though, I suspect he had already been worked hard at least once that day. And probably had been worked hard every day for the previous week. Maybe the previous month.

The owner started riding him around the arena. I liked the way he moved, though I was a little concerned that he carried his head with a slight twist. After she walked, trotted and cantered the horse around the arena for a while, and even jumped a few small obstacles, she asked me if I wanted to try him.

She was a tiny woman, so we had to put a saddle on the gelding that would fit me. I mounted with a certain sense of caution. From my point of view, one of the worst parts of the horse buying process was having to ride strange horses, sometimes even without a proper introduction.

Within five minutes of trotting and cantering around the arena, I was at war with myself. One part of me was trying to stay objective and cool about this horse. The twist had me worried, because I knew that this sort of thing could be hard to fix in a horse. I also wasn’t all that keen on getting a Thoroughbred. My original guideline to the woman who was acting as my agent had been “Anything but a Thoroughbred, anything but a gray.” I had only reluctantly started looking at Thoroughbreds since we had been coming up dry with other breeds.

The other part of me was saying, “This is my horse. This is MY horse. THIS IS MY HORSE!”

I asked my friend D who was there watching if she would ride the horse, because I wanted to see if she could fix the twist. She couldn’t, but said later that the running martingale on the horse interfered with using the direct rein which might have helped. I also took the horse on a short trail ride, and I cantered him beside D on her big Thoroughbred Havoc. (D was not yet my trainer, but she already had a knack for keeping me calm in situations that would normally worry me. Cantering a strange Thoroughbred in the open was guaranteed to worry me.)

The cool, objective part of me told the owner that I wanted to talk to my agent, and of course we would want a pre-purchase exam if we decided to buy him. The cool, objective part of me knew it was folly to bond to the horse before a vet had even seen him. The other part of me wanted to give her a check on the spot, so she wouldn’t put MY HORSE in her trailer and take him away.

After a very long eight days, Hap came home. At least he wasn’t a gray.

June 29, 2008 - Click on image for higher resolution version.

I spent Sunday morning scribing for the stadium jumping at Abbey Ranch Horse Trials between Palmer Lake and Perry Park.

Last week, some friends asked me why I rarely write about my horses anymore. (I have been part of an online journal writing groups with these friends for over ten years.)

Hap was an adventure. As much as I dote on him, I sometimes felt about Hap like the Ashley Brilliant postcard epigram: “We’ve been through so much together, and most of it was your fault.” Hap was so quick that half the time when he ditched me, I would land standing, not really aware there was a problem until I was on the ground. I finally learned to stay with him through most of his big moves, but it never failed to impress the hell out of me each time I managed to do so. (Impressed a fair number of onlookers, too.) Hap was the horse who could be behaving very badly at a show and people would come up and compliment me on how beautiful he was. I would be thanking them through gritted teeth and thinking “handsome is as handsome does.” Hap was good copy even when he was an intimidating mount.

Hap is currently semi-retired on our five acres. I mainly ride Lily, my twelve year old Paint Breeding Stock mare. Lily has been a different sort of frustration. I bought her as a four year old, and things were going quite well, and then we just got stuck. People who do the sports horse types of things that I like to do are very keen on having a horse go “forward.” Lily didn’t. She was lethargic and didn’t seem to be very comfortable. She acted colicky a lot, and we tried all the stuff that the vets recommended, and she didn’t improve. We spent a lot of money on vet visits when she had her spells. My trainer and I thought it might have something to do with her cycles, but no vet ever thought too much of that idea. I had just about made up my mind to haul her to one of the major diagnostic centers here in Colorado when she bowed her tendon while playing one day.

A bowed tendon is a big deal in a horse. Some horses never recover. We nursed her through her immediate convalescence when she had to be kept in a small area while she wore a gel cast, and then through the hand walking endless circuits around the arena. When the vet said I could walk her under saddle I did so once. Then I brought her home and put her out to pasture for six months. It was getting on toward autumn and I couldn’t deal with her any longer.

Unfortunately, right before she bowed her tendon, I came off of her in a rather nasty fall, only the second time I haven’t been able to get right back on the horse. I didn’t ride for several weeks, and then she got hurt, so I had a lot of worries stored up between me getting hurt and her getting hurt.

When I started riding her again in the spring, she was a lot more forward than she had been. However, as she got better I got worse: three summers ago I had so much heel pain that I was unwilling to dismount from a sixteen hand horse. Plus, as she got stronger, I felt more and more over-horsed, and since I wasn’t riding enough to develop my strength we got in this vicious cycle where I would feel intimidated by her and ride even less. One circuit of the arena each direction at a trot and then at a canter doesn’t get you very far. Lily’s spooks were actually easier to deal with than Hap’s, she would just levitate and hang in the air for a while, then carry on whatever she was doing. However, despite the fact that it looked worse than it felt, I didn’t have people lining up for the opportunity to ride her.

This year we finally seem to be getting in sync. There were a few times in the early spring when I decided, after longing her, that I would put her up and go ride another horse, but I progressed to riding her consistently a lot sooner in the year. In past years, I kept telling myself I would lesson with my trainer when I became a little stronger, and ended up taking very few lessons. This year, I decided that I would lesson even if I wasn’t in good enough shape to make it worth while. And I found out that after the first ten minutes when I want to whine and quit and apologize to my horse for being such a crummy, overweight and out of shape rider, that we just get past that and start getting some pretty damn decent work.

And I am sure, from Lily’s point of view, she thinks, “We’ve been through so much together, and most of it was your fault.”

Since Rags had the problem with his annual vaccinations two years ago, I flinch more when he gets his shots than he does. However, they’ve either changed the formulation since then, or the two grams of bute that I now give after he gets his shots helps. He was only moving a little slowly last night when I went out to feed, didn’t have any visible reactions at the injections sites, and had his normal appetite. So it looks as though this year there are no nasty surprises but the vet bill.

June 03, 2008 - Click on image for higher resolution version.

Today I worked from 8 to 3:30 so I could be home for the vet to make her annual visit to give the horses their vaccinations and check whether they need dental work. As usual she made a big fuss over Hap: she likes Thoroughbreds and thinks he is a fine example thereof. As usual, I didn’t argue with her. (More to the point, she also thinks he is in great shape for a 23 year old Thoroughbred.)

She also did the yearly ritual of sedating Rags so she can float his teeth and check a lesion on his sheath. He has had the lesion for years now, without any changes, and the yearly sedation ensures that it isn’t doing anything nasty where we can’t see. As usual, Rags made a pretty good attempt at cow-kicking her despite heavy sedation while she cleaned his sheath. She also said his eyes look good. Since he is the most common breed (Appaloosa) in the most common state (Colorado) for getting sun caused cancers, and won’t wear a fly mask, this was good news.

Magic, the mare I board, was well-behaved and the vet commented on how fat she is for a 28 year old mare. I couldn’t believe she was 28 when I started to do the mental math, but a group of us who were around when her owner bought her agreed that she was close to 12 when she was bought 16 or 17 years ago.

The visit from the vet also led to my yearly ritual of checking my horse medications. I suppose it is a good thing that they expire before I use them, since it means the horses are doing well, but I still have a bit of a twinge when I have to discard them. Despite the cost, I always try to keep the two most commonly used pain-killers on hand.

June 01, 2008 - Click on image for higher resolution version.

I rode Lily yesterday for the first time since the start of winter. When I went to call her out of the mare field, she craned her head and looked at me quizzically, instead of galloping down the hill with a sliding stop inches away from the gate. The sliding stop is impressive, but scary, since I am always afraid she will misjudge the distance. She walked down to meet me when I went out to catch her, so I decided she was just feeling exceptionally mellow.

I tacked her up with her western saddle, and then decided to ride her without longing her first. Why wake her up when she was in such a relaxed mood? Besides, watching Lily on the longe line has been intimidating me. She is no worse than Hap at that age, but I was a lot younger then, and in theory at least, bounced better.

We didn’t do much: a friend was working her young Arab/Percheron cross, and I wanted to stay our of her way. However, I was once again amazed at Lily’s sensitivity. I joke with my trainer that Lily’s philosophy is “we don’t need no stinkin’ aids.” She wants a very light, very consistent feel on the reins, and a very light, very consistent leg. Turning and transitions should all be done with minute shifts of the rider’s weight. I think she plans on teaching her riders to communicate with telepathy next.

March 22, 2008 - Click on image for higher resolution version.

Taken on March 22, 2008.

It may be cheating to say we live in the Rockies, but without a doubt, the Rockies start less than a mile to the west of us.

I haven’t ridden in months, but the weather was nice enough to tempt me outside this afternoon.  When I got to the barn, I found that Lily had already been ridden by R, the young woman who has my permission to ride her.  This astonished me:  when I longed Lily last weekend, I didn’t see a horse I wanted to ride any time soon, so I salute R. I understand Lily only levitated twice: once when a trailer attached to a truck rumbled by the arena, and then on its return trip.  Having both seen and felt the levitation, I know it looks worse than it feels.  However, it still feels pretty impressive.

Indy, a cute little grulla horse that sort of belongs to my trainer, had not been ridden yet.  Indy has a bad case of Sergeant Schultz:  When you first get on him he does his best to convince you that he knows nothing, nothing!  After two minutes I convinced him that straight and forward were not negotiable, and he was very good for me.  Since neither one of us is in great shape, I called it quits after a short session of very nice work.  Indy seemed to appreciate the post-work carrots.

I enjoyed finding out I can still ride.  I may not have any muscle strength, but I still have the muscle memory. I expect I will hurt tomorrow.