Cody

Lily has what my trainer and I suspect is a slight stone bruise so I didn’t ride her today. In a day or so it should either clear up on its own or get bad enough that we can tell which foot it is in.

So I rode little Cody today. Cody isn’t really that little, just an inch or so shorter than Lily, but I have been in the habit of thinking poor little Cody, and it sort of stuck.

Unlike most of the horses at my trainer’s boarding barn, Cody came in fairly recently: late last summer. His owner had not been pleased with his former boarding situation, and he was about a hundred pounds underweight. He seemed a pleasant enough gelding: very much the Quarter Horse type, and the same bright sorrel as Lily. He doesn’t have papers, and was supposedly about 13 or 14. (For geldings, I think the main benefit of papers is you know how old they are.)

The day after Cody moved to the barn, his owner was in an automobile accident which left her with serious neurological problems. Not long after that Cody suffered colic caused by a torsion, which fortunately untwisted before he had to be put down.
Continue reading Cody

Too True

Seen at Nancy’s “Calligraphic Button Catalog:”:http://www.nancybuttons.com I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

Farrier’s visit

The farrier found a roofing nail in Rags’ foot. We believe these nails are a remnant of our old barn’s (really a shed) former tarpaper roof. This one hadn’t done any apparent damage to Rags, since it seems to have missed any soft areas.

My farrier also pulled Hap’s shoes. We had been debating whether to do so since he won’t get much use for a while. Not only would doing so save me some money, but barefoot horses do better in the snow. She was happy with the way his feet looked, and the ground should be soft from the snow for a few days so he can adjust to his new barefoot status. He had suffered the effects of poor shoeing when I bought him, and it took a long time to get his hooves looking healthy with solid hoof walls and adequate soles. I still think of him as having soft feet, even though he has great feet now, at least for a Thoroughbred. I will probably worry about him for a few days until I see how he is doing.

Smoke was the hardest horse for her to trim. He can’t hold his right front leg up long enough for even a trim, due to apparent stiffness in the knee. My farrier had to lean down a lot further than she would like to be able to trim and file the foot. She thought he looked in good weight. Making sure old horses get enough calories is a challenge since they don’t have any teeth. My farrier only sees him every eight to ten weeks, and she has a better idea of whether he is maintaining his weight than I do, since I see him every day.