A Boring Update on Rico

Speaking of Rico, he's doing great! That's the update. He's doing wonderfully on TC's fitness plan, which is basically just that Rico follows TC around and TC moves around a TON. I need to grab updated photos of him, his topline looks really good, his legs are cool and tight, and he doesn't have the ventral edema he used to have. Thank you, TC!

I love their relationship so much, Rico is very attached to TC and apparently has looked for him when TC is off the property for shows or clinics. TC loves Rico but in a little brother type way, where he wants to harass him a bit. But TC is honestly really gentle with Rico, they played a lot harder a couple years ago when Rico was more spry. 

Not the worst place to live out your older years

But honestly, he's still pretty spry. I stare aggressively at him whenever he gets up from laying down, and he's in that age range where when you see them lying down, you rudely interrupt them to make sure they're okay. But he's pretty sound and comfortable as he walks around, and the few times I've seen him play this year at trot and canter, he's looked fairly coordinated too. 

The only major change this year was starting on prascend because he was diagnosed with cushings this spring. He had a couple of quiet days adjusting to the medication, but now he's doing well on it and is back to normal. 

This is a picture of Rico when he just
moved to the ranch back in 2011 before
all the fencing was put up on the road!

My mom is also convinced he is carrying his neck lower, and when you go to give him chest scratches (his favorite), you can hear his neck popping as he lifts it up so you can get to the right spot. I'm considering getting someone out for bodywork at some point. I want to probably first bring them out for TC and see how gentle they are and just talk about Rico and then maybe bring them back for Rico. 

The reason being that I'm mostly looking for him to get more comfortable, not to address any major asymmetries or compensations. However his body is compensating right now is probably for the better. I would hate to release something and then have him crumble because that one part of him being tight was preventing the rest of him from falling apart. I basically want someone who kind of specializes in bodywork for older horses, or just some kind of bodywork that is pretty low manipulation. 

I super trust my acupuncturist with Rico, she has a ton of experience with older horses and knows Rico well, so hopefully she can come out at some point. I'm also considering PEMF or something along those lines. Or maybe finding someone who does massage and can work with him really gently. 

Out in TC's pasture

Honestly, someone could really take me for a ride here, literally if the person just runs their hands over him and tells me how wonderful he is and how he'll feel better now, I'd be sending them money and asking them to come back every week LOL I mean, we all knew I'd get to this point, this should come as no surprise. 

If anyone has any advice on how to find someone to do very older-horse-safe bodywork, that'd be great! I just want him to feel good and be happy in retirement. If that means letting him be, that's also fine! 

WW: Old Photos of Rico and I

As you can probably tell, I'm going through a lot of old photos these days. During this time, I ran across a bunch of old, kind of candid photos of Rico and I! I figured I'd put them here. Realizing what years these were all from was bad for my mental health (hahaha). 

Braiding Rico while chatting with a friend on
my flip phone in 2005 I think?

Wrestling Rico away from grass in 2005 or 2006

Chatting with my trainer while Rico was like "so
are you going to tell her to stop pulling or what?"
I think 2006

Winning things probably 2005

Spooking at a tiny little whirlwind
thingy in 2006

In a clinic with Jeremy Steinberg in 2009

My dad and I walking at Woodside I think 2005?

An Update on Sunny Horse

I gave the pony the winter off, which TC also had off, because of the crazy weather. In the spring when I started bringing TC back, my work schedule was a bit much to have two horses going. Sunny's feet had also taken a turn for the worse and I expressed that I wanted to yank his shoes and get him more comfortable over the course of a couple of trimming cycles. I didn't know if this was just due to the winter or something else, but he's looking WAY better. 

The many different things I've seen behind these
fluffy yellow ears

And so with that and work calming down a bit, I'm starting to get him out again. He's done a turnout and some longeing so far, with the goal being riding him 2-3x per week and keeping him fit enough to do things with but not prioritizing him over TC given that TC and I are surprisingly doing a lot of stuff this year. 

My primary goal for the year is to prep him for his inevitable kid-horse days. My niece is in somewhat consistent lessons over at Kate's barn to get her more comfortable riding on her own. But the goal will be to transition her back to her Sunny Horse probably in the next year or two and until she outgrows him/he retires or we have the capacity to get her another horse. I am not attached to her riding the pony, but my mom sure is. 

Cows!

Sunny doesn't... love the child. But I think I can get him more tolerant of her. This year, I'm going to focus on two things that will help with this: 

1. Getting him comfortable being ponied off of TC.

2. Getting him more tolerant of shenanigans. 

The ponying is so that I can exercise them both at the same time, take them places (such as trail facilities/obstacle shows/bombproofing clinics) at the same time, and general "you need to get on board with what the humans want" training. 

I want so much to respect my pony's feelings. But I also want him to just tell Riot how shit TC is rather than having to confront TC directly. He feels the need to REALLY drive home how much he hates TC. I think I've got a good plan to get him a little better about ponying, but we'll see. My priority is to keep TC safe of course, both from physical injuries and general bullying by a pipsqueak. 

The ranch from above

Shenanigan tolerance something I work on a ton with my personal horses. With TC, I've wanted him to feel confident in pretty much any situation and I do this by making sure that I subject expose him to things that are way beyond anything he'd be faced with in the real world. 

For example, I rode him with a pool noodle for a while, thwapping him with it randomly all over his body. When I started doing mounted archery, he had no problems with the arrows touching him or flying by his face. Not the first things to touch his butt or fly by his face while I've been riding him. So when he's ridden by a child and they drop their crop or they fling themselves onto his neck to hug him or anything children do, I know he won't care because I've both done it all and much worse on him. 

The pony is not tolerant of shenanigans and that plus the fact that he doesn't consider his rider's safety or comfort when shenanigans are going down, means that I don't super trust him with the kid. The kid is going to be the cause of many shenanigans and he is the only one of us who does not care about her safety. 

Back to the barn!

I saw a video of a person bombproofing a horse for children who would trip and fall in front of them and crawl under their legs and hang off of them and I thought, perfect. 

I tried it on TC and he doesn't care other than his one fatal flaw which is not feeling bad about stepping on squishy things, which we are working on. Do not step on humans (he didn't step on me, he just is not particularly careful with his giant feet). But you can do jumping jacks around him while leading him and fall on the ground and crawl all over him and he does not care. 

The pony cared SO MUCH. He spooked really hard at me when I "fell" to the ground leading him and was pretty scared of my jumping jacks. So that's our homework. And all the other shenanigans I have planned, which pretty much coincides with my obstacle training for TC anyway! 

The trails!

I'm excited to get the pony back and hopefully make some real changes in how he interacts with his world/the child/the gray horse he hates. He's not young, he's 18 or 19 now? But he's a Morgan and is unreasonably sound and spry despite still having silicosis. If he says no or is not doing well in my program, he'll happily retire. But I think he'll find that being a little more tolerant leads him to a much better existence. Or at least, that's what TC would say! Although according to the pony, he's been indoctrinated.