That Time I Moved TC to a Horse Torture Factory

TC has been at his new barn for maybe 48 hours and has complained about being there what seems like ten thousand times.

Luckily, he settled in well to his stall on Wednesday. I a bit just dumped him in there, put up twine so he thought that there was electric wire over the pipe panel at the back of his paddock, and went to unload the trailer. He's not smart enough to know that the twine isn't electric wire within 24 hours. He's a cautious fellow.

Like how he wouldn't come in here for a while,
might be where they torture the horses

I somehow got all of my tack room contents to fit into a much smaller tack locker, though it's a little bit stuffed to the brim and it's bugging me A LOT. I, like TC, and consider this foreshadowing, hate change. I think a lot of it is the feeling of being disorganized and not knowing where things are or what my routine is. So I kept getting annoyed at the tack locker. BUT I will be able to keep stuff in my apartment, so I will be thinking up ways to re-organize it and transfer things into my closet here. The guy who is essentially the barn manager said that if I wanted to change it up, I could just let him know what I wanted changed, which is amazing! I still need ideas though, I might ask you all for suggestions.

After moving all the boxes out of both my car and the trailer into my apartment, I went down to the barn to meet Peony. I didn't want to ride TC because it was getting late, he needed a day off anyway, and it was going to start being sunny starting on Thursday afternoon. No point in riding in the storm in a new place on a horse who hates rain and new places.

TC got some grain and a carrot before we were off to dinner!

Cautiously walking around the arena where they
probably torture horses

Thursday morning I had orientation and was woefully unprepared. Even though they had told me what to bring, the move had totally made me forget absolutely everything I was supposed to bring. I didn't even have a check for direct deposit. Oh well. I did manage to find out that my health insurance is going to be pretty awesome and that I get a day off a week from today! And everyone seemed really nice. I wanted to stop in and find my new boss, but I also wanted to get boba, groceries, and ride my horse.

Boba was good, groceries were also good, and so I got back home and tried to organize more things before getting frustrated that my life was in disarray and walking out to the barn. TC was beside himself that I was there (please let him never find out that I live so close) and I was excited to finally ride him!

I walked him out of his stall and decided to take him on a short walk around first. He was cautious but curious until we got out toward the field. There's a horse that the BO said was a special one, and that horse must have told TC all about how this facility was actually a place where they TORTURE HORSES. TC lost his ever loving mind after that horse riled him up. We finished our walk around the barn with him twitching and slamming himself closer to the ground when anything happened or didn't happen.

Walking on a loose rein because you realize
that this isn't the location they torture horses

Then to make matters worse for him, I tried to get him into the old factory where they torture horses barn where the tack lockers and cross ties were. He said no a few times before cautiously walking in.

He stood there pawing, dancing, and rearing for the entire time I tacked him up. I know him well enough now to know that this bad behavior was due to 1) hating being tied up when he's anxious and 2) he can't see any horses from in there when he's there alone.

I took out my clicker stuff and a longe line, but prepared to ride him. Honestly, this is not a horse you can longe down. He just gets worse and worse and worse. But I figured if I brought it out there, it'd make me feel better just having it, and I was right.

TC's entire demeanor changed once as he got his first click as I led him to the arena. He got clicked every time he went near anything he had decided was scary (a pile of dirt, a cavalletti, ground that looked different than other ground, a horse who was previously outside walking inside, and "arena snakes" which are just tubes coiled by the arena). What he didn't think was scary at all, but what I thought was a bit scary, were the several giant trucks that went barreling on the road by the arena.

Spot, who somehow has survived living in this
place where they torture horses for a while now,
probably just stockholm syndrome

I hopped on and we did a lot of walk to halt transitions to get that whoa button real sharp. When he's nervous, his bolts are like 10x worse than his hilarious playing bolts, so I wanted to make him default to whoa. It was slow and steady-ish, not always calm, but we worked our way through a typical ride. He was a bit coiled up and tight through his back, but for how terrified he had been earlier, he was great! Maybe not steering very well and randomly running sideways at the canter, but he tried really hard. He even randomly gave me a clean change left to right.

In the end I did some sitting trot and both leg yields and shoulder-in. The covered arena is the size of a long court, so I got to play with geometry (sort of, the rain had made parts of it too gushy to ride through) and discovered that my turns onto centerline have gone to shit. Cool. Luckily I'll be riding in here until the ground hardens up outside so we'll have plenty of time to practice.

We stopped after a moderate amount of work, I didn't turn on the equisense because of reasons so I have no idea what we did, but he was sufficiently quiet, so I went with it. I decided to try to ride him around the ranch a bit. I adored our ranch walks at the other place. We had a nice long 15 minute walk to start off every ride and a shorter 10 minute walk to finish (though sometimes we'd backtrack on our 15 minute walk so we'd end with more like 20 minutes). It was fun to ride out and see all the other horses and a lot of the time I'd be talking on the phone with someone or listening to music.

Maybe they torture them out here?

I fully expect my horse to take a second to get comfortable at the new place, but he settled in okay walking around the barn he lives in. Then I tried to walk him past the gates of hell grain room and he really couldn't. After the grain room came this weird rubber thing that TC lost it about, and then a door to a slaughter house garage with glass so he saw a terrifying ghost his reflection, and finally a demon holding container propane tank. I had to get off of him to get him by it. He REALLY isn't okay with that.

We walked down to the pastures and walked out to greet all the horses. TC settled quite a bit when he saw the horses out there, I was able to drop the reins and take some behind the ears pictures. We visited Spot, who wanted nothing to do with us, before walking back to the barn. Once again we had to walk through the corridor of doom, but I was able to stay on this time. Peony and I have plans to ride together on Sunday so we'll see if Spot can convince TC that there's nothing scary about that pathway.

I wish I could say that TC was really good from then on out, but he wasn't. Unfortunately his neighbor came to join us in the cross ties, and then he and his owner (who is super nice!) left to go ride and TC started pawing like he was trying to dig a hole deep enough to hang himself. Then rearing over and over again. Even if you can't longe him down, you can get TC to rear himself down. Eventually his butt starts getting sore, I think, and he reconsiders it as a good way to throw a tantrum. The pawing though, that never makes him sore, he can paw for days.

Wait, how are all these horses not screaming in pain?

Hopefully he continues to settle in well! I will be riding him this morning before going back down to the bay for one last night before packing the rest of my stuff up (just what I need, more disarray) and heading back up on Saturday.

So far everything seems to be going to plan. The apartment is great, the barn seems really great, my limited experience at my new job seems great, my commute is pretty good during non-commute hours (so we'll see), and Peony has been so nice to let me invite myself to everything (got to see her ride Muze last night!). Now all I need is my cat up here so I don't feel so weird being alone. I didn't realize how much I loved having her around until I was completely by myself!

Moving Day

Moving day (for TC) is upon us! Today I'm going to drive to the barn for the final time, collect the rest of my stuff into the trailer, including the pony, and drive 2.5 hours north to his new digs. But as I'm preparing for all of this, I'm really feeling sad about leaving my current barn.

I love this barn so much. It's been the absolute best place to keep TC the last couple of years as he recovered from his suspensory injury. I can always trust that he is taken care of. I never worry about him if I have to leave for a few days. The footing is exemplary and incredibly well maintained. The trail course is super fun, and there's a lot of space for wandering around the ranch. I love all the arenas we have access to, including the covered arena with mirrors and a dressage court set up almost all the time. While I didn't have tons of friends there, I did make some really good friends who I looked forward to chatting with on the weekends.

The barn has seen so much of my riding career. It was where I took nearly all of my lessons with Tracey on Rico. TC came for his first Tracey lesson when he was 3 years old there. He came for bootcamp before he went lame, and he came in July 2016 after being at rehabilitation. The barn has seen me go from a barely 4th level rider to a Gold Medalist. It has seen me go from being afraid of my young horse to winning All Breeds last year.

If I ever end up back at this place, I'll consider myself and my horse very lucky.

Goodbye dressage court 

The plan is to move TC today, then I'll stay a couple nights in my new apartment (on site!) to get TC settled, then head down to teach my final bay area lessons (lies, I'll be back soon enough, but the final ones for now), and pack all my stuff up before driving back up on Saturday morning to move myself and my kitty!

I'm really excited but it's all bittersweet. Here's to new beginnings.

The New Barn

There was no great barn hunt because I had a short list of barns (two) that I'd want to move to, and one of them had an opening in February, so I held the stall even before I interviewed, thinking that it'd be worth it for peace of mind.

The barn is where Peony keeps Spot, and Peony is just as picky, if not pickier, than I am when it comes to her boarding situation. I knew that the care would be exemplary and I really liked the facility.

TC and Spot wandering around, there are so many paths!

Obviously my favorite thing about this barn is that Peony rides there! We are so excited to be able to ride together (and we'll both hopefully have more media!). If anyone remembers, TC stayed the night at this very barn when we went to ride with Jeremy last August. Peony and Spot showed us around and it was SO FUN! We've already planned on doing clinics together, going on trail rides, and riding together at home. Plus we are going to get to hang out more often! Audit clinics, work out at the same gym maybe, and watch FEI TV/Mary videos/obnoxious horse tv shows all the time.

There are other amazing pros to this place as well. TC will be going into a 12x12 stall with about a 48-50 foot paddock. The stall has squishy stall mats, shavings (TC will be STOKED, he hasn't had shavings in over a year), and a fan. Every horse in the stalls gets put on the eurocizer 4x per week, and you can pay for extra days. I figure that 4 days a week to start is great, and if I am gone for a period of time or find that I want him to have more time, I will bump him up.

I get a cute little tack locker, nothing in comparison to my giant tack room at my current barn, but Andy will hopefully help me make it storage-friendly, and I can always keep things in my house (a loft on site!) and eventually in my future trailer.

My hippo gets to hang out in a water complex EVERY DAY
if he wants to! (he wants to)

There are two riding arenas, one covered arena the size of a long dressage court, and one ENORMOUS jump arena (it's a whole acre). Both arenas have jumps in them in the winter, but in the summer the covered is clear of jumps. I'm curious to see how I feel about always riding around jumps, but we'll see. The covered arena has lights for evening riding too.

Surrounding the property, there is a long gallop track that the owner keeps dragged, and a really cool cross country field. TC obviously won't be jumping out there, but he loves the water complex and I think that trotting around in the open every day/week/month would be SUPER good for our relationship.

The only cons with this barn are that TC will be in a smaller paddock than his current barn (though eurocizer will help with that, plus TC could potentially move into a giant private pasture one day if I stay there), there are no mirrors (there is a barn with mirrors nearby that I could probably talk to the owner about hauling into sometimes, and the owner of this barn has wanted mirrors so may put them in soon), and the footing is a little shallower than TC is used to (it's GGT footing though so hopefully this is acceptable for him, if not then I'll talk to the farrier about putting pads on or something).

I also am probably not allowed to bring in a trainer to ride with, but I'm kind of used to that since my current barn rarely allows trainers to come in. That's fine since I'm hopefully going to be in the market for a trailer by the end of this year (hopefully much sooner, gotta get my business set up), so it's just this year where lessoning might be difficult, but Peony has a trailer so hopefully carpooling to lessons will be a thing!

Following Spot to the cross country feild

I'm so excited that I get to move to a barn where I already have an instant barn friend. It's going to make the whole moving experience far less stressful! When I moved TC to his current barn, I had already boarded Rico there so it was low stress, but the barn before that I really had a hard time with. I'm definitely more stressed than I was when I moved him to his current barn, but it gives me peace of mind that I'll be living on the property and have already been there a bunch with Peony!

Onward and upward!