Using His Brain

I headed out to see TC on Friday morning fairly early so that I could get up to the Western States Horse Expo to meet my parents and approve of a saddle for Rico. I was glad that I got to see him, as I wasn't sure if I'd make it, since it was a lot little out of my way.

Look at that hippo!

I asked if I could come out (something I always do out of courtesy but they're nice about basically always saying yes) and I was told that I could see TC swim again!!I've seen TC swim once before and he just loves it. I'm so glad that it worked out after the fiasco that was trying to keep TC in the aquapacer.

When I got there, I had about twenty minutes to stuff him full of carrots before the guys came to get him for the pool. Once again, I forgot his brushes, ugh, but I didn't have a ton of time anyway. I made him do his tricks and told him that he was almost done with living in the box with no friends and no fun except his swimming and trotting for what I think is probably now longer than ten minutes.

Resting a foot, whaaat?

Someone came to get him and I followed. TC was MUCH better than last time. Before they swim the horses, they hose them down because it's less of a shock to their system getting in the pool and it prevents so much dust from getting into the pool.

Last time I was there, he spooked pretty big walking over there, and then stood ready to GTFO if something went wrong while they hosed him down. This time, he quietly walked over there, stood quietly tied, and even COCKED A FOOT while they were getting him ready. He spooked once and didn't even hit anything before stopping.

Let me tell you why that is relevant- he's a flighty little thing and almost always needs something to get in his way before he gets his brain back after spooking. This could be a human yanking on his face, a fence in his way, or pulling back and hitting the end of the lead rope. But this spook, nothing got in his way to make him stop. He spooked like he always does, but then stopped spooking without smashing into the fence, getting smacked by the guy working with him (they don't smack him but I would), or pulling back and hitting the end of the rope. He just used his brain.

Getting ready to go swim, can't wait to get ahold
of that upside down neck

Ugh his hair

Swimming was great! He was much quieter about the whole thing, just going in, doing his job, and quietly coming out. A lot of the time the horses come out amped and shoot out of the pool (TC did last time), but TC just quietly walked out. He even stayed quiet when a horse in the eurociser he was being lead by was leaping and biting the fence trying to get it to go faster than an amble. I genuinely wondered if he was sick for a few minutes.

TC got in his eurociser and seemed more relaxed about it too. He was still up against the front of it and I saw him bite it a few times because it wasn't going fast enough. Nothing like the cute little quarter horse type who was walking juuuust forward enough to not get his butt smacked by it. But it wasn't as frantic, he wasn't waiting back and then cantering forward and shaking his head to catch up, he wasn't as smashed against the front as he was last time.

Does this mean the magnesium is working? Or is he just getting used to everything? Or the trotting is calming him down? Or he was particularly bad the first time I saw him and particularly good this time? I don't know and I don't care. I just took it that this one day was a good day and I can't wait to get my pony home.

He even lets them hose his feet (and pick them
from both sides)

I headed out before he came off the eurociser. Not before heading to his stall and stacking the rest of his carrots against the wall where he had dismantled his feeder. I wish I could have stayed for him to come off the eurociser so I could have hung out with him more, but like I said Friday, I'm going to see him every day for a long long time (hopefully), so making myself miss him a bit just makes me feel more positive about him coming home.

After a lot of traffic, I completed my 4+ hours of driving that day (well, thirty minutes more waited me that night) and arrived at Horse Expo.

Resting a foot again!

After swimming, going in the eurociser

The first day of expo was only a half day because of TC. I wasn't really planning on going on Friday but my parents were going and we're still shopping for a saddle for my mom to use on Rico. I'm the picky one with the saddle fit, so I went to help them find something.

We went through each booth but I rejected a lot of saddles. Rico is fit now, which is good for him, but if we get something that is custom fit to him now, it won't fit him when I'm not riding him. I suggested a treeless saddle, but my mom said they were hideous. I'm also skeptical about them so that was fine.

We landed at this one place, with weird looking endurance saddles (only 13lbs!). They had trees built for gaited horses, so they were better suited to Rico's back, but then under the tree rather than having regular panels, there were foam panels that could be removed by velcro. They had little inserts you could put wherever the horse lacked muscle to change the fit of it. My mom loved the way it felt to sit in, so we wrote everything down and made tentative plans to haul Rico up closer to the lady so that she could fit him and teach me how to change it for later when he isn't as fit! I'm excited since TC will soon take Rico's saddle (and it will have to be changed to fit him), and I actually didn't hate this saddle. Not going to be easy to do dressage in, but it certainly beats riding him bareback on the trails.

Obviously we got a whinny, he's got to be loud
and obnoxious no matter what

The bulk of Expo will be covered in tomorrow's post, because on Saturday, after epic pony sleepover round two, I went with Peony and L!

Four More Visits?!

A very good thing happened yesterday. I sat and worked on my thesis all day and made massive headway, which felt great! A bad thing also happened yesterday in that I kept myself off blogger not remembering that I hadn't finished/scheduled this post! Oh well, not like very much interesting really happens in my life.

So cute!

On Friday I somehow managed to shove a visit to TC (five hours round trip) into my schedule by getting up early to ride a client's horse, then heading over there, then zipping across the bay to ride another horse and teach lessons. Worth it, I love my baby horse.

Once on the road, I realized that I had forgotten his brushes. Oh well. I still stopped to get him carrots and an apple for us to share.

I can't wait to get a hold of that mane

On Thursday I had tortured Rico and Riot with bombproofing using an umbrella and a tarp. Rico surprised me by being nervous about the umbrella at first, but eventually was fine with it. He was totally fine with the tarp except that he didn't like it dragging on the ground. I felt a million times better about TC that day, because TC let me drag it behind him and next to him no problem, and Rico snorted and skittered sideways away from it.

I brought the umbrella with me to TC because I have a death wish to see how he'd respond to it. Honestly, he handled it better than I expected after what Rico thought of it. I'm glad I worked with Rico on Thursday since he is a horse I'd consider to be as bombproof as they get, but he was nervous about it, so it let me lower my expectations quite a bit for TC.

Extremely tolerant 

Riot took longer to feel okay about the umbrella

Wrapped him up like a present!

The nice thing about bombproofing TC in the stall is that he can't get away from it and has to wrap his little brain around what is happening to him without escaping (that makes me sound like a horrible person, oh well). The bad thing is that obviously this might not translate to when he's in the arena and something spooks him since he can get away. But I'm operating under the hopeful assumption that anything will help him.

He was not bad about the umbrella when it was stationary- open or closed. But when it changed from closed to open or from open to closed, scary! He didn't calm down as quickly as Rico did, and never let me open it anywhere close to him, but he only slammed himself against the wall once.

So cute

The owners came to talk to me real quick and asked me to please not die on their property when they saw the umbrella. I get the feeling that they think he's kind of insane. I don't blame them after having to deal with him at the start of his rehab, I mean that's why he's there! I don't know how much he's trotting, but I think he was at 5 minutes each direction with a walk break in between.

I had ordered supplements from Smartpak- just more MSM and I'm switching him from the Mag 5000 to SmartCalm. He needs two scoops of the Mag 5000 so it's cheaper to do one scoop of the SmartCalm. The SmartCalm also has other stuff in it that might help as well. I fully acknowledge that putting him on a calming supplement is more for my mental health than his, hence trying to be cost effective about it. After this I might try Quiessence if the SmartCalm doesn't seem to help.

I think I'll be switching to smartpaks eventually too, I'm going to have the guys feed him his grain every day when he comes home so that he always gets it. I'm lucky that he doesn't need water added, so I figured I'd just put everything in a bag and they can just dump a bag into his grain bucket. But smartpaks mean that I don't have to obsess over how much grain is set up. We'll see, I want to go through most of his supplements first of course.

He's so awkward, but I think once as he gets some more muscle
on him, maybe his head will look a bit smaller...

We're so close to being done with this rehab shit! I kept trying to tell him that. After riding this weekend at my new barn (that's what happens when rumors go around that a) you're coming back to the barn and b) you're currently semi-part-not-quite-employed), I'm getting excited to bring him back. I love my barn, I love the people there, and I can't wait to be there every day!

It was so fun to ride there. I got to ride in a full size dressage court- first time in a VERY long time, actually possibly the first time since I was in it on TC back in November. I need some practice riding in it again... and I got to ride with mirrors! I can count on one hand the number of times I've used mirrors in the last year and a half. I love riding with mirrors, and I didn't look as awful as I thought I was going to.

I think TC and I are going to have a fun summer there! Hopefully four more visits until TC COMES HOME. WHAT? I can't believe I can say that.

Positive Thinking and Plastic Bags

I had some errands to do on Thursday so spent the entire day in the car, boo. But I got to see TC! I headed straight out to the facility after the gym, lunch, and picking up carrots, which got me there just after 2:00. It wasn't as warm as it could have been, although quite warm in the stalls (even TC's water was warm, poor pony, he still drank it no problem though), so the fan was on. Excellent.

Return of the fan desensitization

I brushed TC and he's still shedding, which is kind of ridiculous. It's probably just warm enough out there where he's trying to lose extra hair to cool himself down. He looks really good, good muscle and even a bit of fat on him. The owner of the facility came over and asked me if he was too fat and I said no. He can be a bit of a hard keeper in work so I'm glad he's got a little extra. And they work with so many racehorses that their bit of extra weight is my throw that starving horse some more hay.

We talked about TC a bit, nothing is very interesting with him. He needs more of all his supplements so I ordered them and then cried. The magnesium may or may not be working so I ordered SmartCalm Ultra to see how that will work. Honestly those supplements are mostly for me at this point.

He's trotting 7 minutes now, and he'll make the move to 10 minutes (in two sets of 5 minutes each) probably this week or next. His leg looks good, no swelling and no heat, other than what I manage to convince myself I see/feel. He hasn't had any problems, and is even letting them walk him down to their third walker down below and he hasn't been an asshole about leaving his comfort zone. Well, not too much of an asshole. It's TC, the five year old, very fit, very nervous hippopotamus, of course he's going to be a little bit of an asshole.

He's never going to look not-awkward, is he?

I worked TC a little bit at liberty in the stall, and actually ordered a book about working horses in hand. TC is so in tune with me on the ground, it's really fun but it's also intimidating. I'm not very good at recognizing when I've made a mistake or he's made a mistake. Mostly because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just guessing at whether it's correct or not.

Either way, he's so sensitive that I feel like he tells me what is right. At this point, all I have to do is a hand signal and he backs up, turns on the forehand, and he's getting better at yielding the shoulders (like a bad turn on the haunches), which is really important to me since he likes to bulge toward his handler. Mostly I just want him used to focusing on me whenever I'm around, but this is actually getting kind of fun.

I love how fast he learns and have had two separate people (a friend who is a trainer who breaks horses and a client who is into NH and does a lot of rescue rehab) offer to help me on the ground with him and bombproof him. I want to let BRH trainer work with me, but I have a feeling that's going to be mostly riding, so I'm excited to bring a friend out to learn a little more about it. But I have an idea for the next bombproofing lesson: umbrellas. Friend who breaks horses was working with a horse this weekend so I got some ideas.

Want carrots

TC's fan was on so I did some plastic bag desensitization. I was SO proud of him. He might be flighty and strong, but he learns fast and trusts me, at least in the stall. I got almost no reaction out of him while it flew across his stall. He definitely watched it, but more with curiosity than worry. The only time he reacted with anything other than oh this lady and her obsession with plastic bags again was when it flew up and landed on his face. Then he sort of backed up and away from it, then snorted at it when it landed on the ground.

At one point it landed on his body and stayed there. He just did this:

Why mom, why?

I fucking love that look on his face. That's his what the fuck is happening to me look. He stayed calm though, and I even got him to lick and chew. I'm super impressed and immediately wanted to bring him home. Like load him up into my car and let me at this horse. After returning to my comfort zone work-wise (still interviewing, so I won't be teaching this much for long), joining a gym, and riding a LOT, I'm feeling more and more confident about TC and my future.

Instead of running, he just watched it, go pony!

After TC I ran a few errands and then texted L since we had talked about hanging out that night at her barn. I was super hungry so offered to go get us dinner while she battled traffic. I picked up burritos for us and we ate while hanging out with Ramone. I took some pictures of her riding, but I literally have so many fucking pictures to edit, it's bad. So those will come out like way too late because I'm the worst.

After riding Ramone (me in my mud boots and jeans lol but he's a good boy and just went to work), we went to put him away and two little horses had escaped and were having a grand old time galloping around the property. FREEDOM! Oh dear. L threw Ramone in a stall and we both grabbed halters. One horse galloped into the paddock they came from so we locked that one in. The other one we managed to grab when he galloped into a turnout. He was NOT okay with me cornering him but eventually let me catch him.

Quite an adrenaline rush so late in the day!

Five Minutes of Trot

Friday I started the day at 5:15 waking up for the horse show. My student rode second in her ring and I had to battle a bit of traffic to make sure I was there exactly on time. We ended up being early, which was good. Both days went well for her, the first day had some unusual mistakes, including one silly one that put her just outside the score range we wanted to be in, boo, but that's why we signed up for two days.

The second day was everything we could have hoped for. She got her score and the horse had five clean changes in the test, and one clean mistake change on centerline, woops, but yay clean changes. She's planning on moving up to 4-2 at the next show, we're officially (and have been for a couple months) in uncharted territory for me as a trainer. Yay almost having an FEI student.

Friday I stuck around a bit to watch two of trainer friend's students before booking it across the bay and the central valley (over 100 miles to get there, I'm dedicated) to see TC!

I'm not sure he'll ever not be kind of an awkward
horse... Can't wait to tackle that mane

I managed to get out to see TC earlier than normal (thanks, funemployment), which meant minimal traffic and the ability to get to the gym for my TRX class that night without having to rush through time with TC.

TC is always quieter the earlier in the day because that's when he gets worked and when he isn't starving for food/attention. Definitely makes me want to arrange to ride in the earlier mornings before work sometimes, as does the traffic I hit before the clock struck 6am.

He's actually always been better to ride in the morning, something I should have taken note of and changed my schedule for. I prefer to ride in the morning too, but not as early as I'll need to. In a perfect world, I'll find an office to work in that's ten minutes away from the barn and I'll take an early lunch break to ride him around 10:30-11ish. Too bad the barn is out in the country and I doubt that any farms have enough data to warrant hiring a data analyst.

He LOVES having his face brushed

He even opens his mouth so you can brush his lips...

Weird

I talked to the owners a little bit, but it's more of the same stuff. He's doing well. He's sort of weird and spooky sometimes. He loves swimming. No news is good news though and I'm glad that he's stopped destroying his stall at least for a little bit, and he only spooked a few times when I was there.

No desensitization this week since the fan was off and I had nothing with me. But we did a little bit of liberty work in the stall. He's really focused on me when I'm in there as he always has been. He wants me to move him around so that he has something to do, which prevents the spooking for the most part. I feel like I go in there and he's just like youuuu you tell me to do things, please tell me what to do, should I move my feet, should I smile, should I stand slightly too close to you? and just stands there staring at me like I should be telling him things. I'm used to a horse like Rico who wants you to say one thing (or nothing) to him and leave him alone.

He's not easy to take selfies with, he's too big 
and he's too tall and sometimes he smacks
my head with his face

At least he put his head down

He's also now trotting five minutes! And his leg looks good. I feel like only miracle vet and I are going to be able to see the difference between the legs (it looks obvious to me, but the owners have rushed over a couple times now to see... nothing, so I am Ricky Bobby). There might always be a bit of thickening and I might be ultrasounding it every year or two just to make sure, but I'm feeling fairly confident that we're in the clear. Well, sort of. Not really. Oh well.

I spent a good long while with him, which was really fun. I felt bad because a lady was there and kept coming over telling me how big TC was and telling me that he was a baby (okay). I don't mind catering to non-horse people like that usually, but I just felt like this was the one hour I get with my horse every week (sometimes skipping weeks) and he's actually being a pleasant creature that I want to spend time with, so please go away and come back when I have him at home and am sort of sick of him.

He ate all his carrots and smiling is becoming a trick that he does with minimal provoking. He even sees my phone and knows to smile and be weird for the camera!

Hey you're holding that little thing, I can smile

I kept telling him to stay back so that I could get
a picture of him, he was sad about that

After he was all brushed and happily full of carrots, I headed out, getting home just in time to change and zip out the door to the TRX class. It isn't quite crossfit, but it's good enough and my wrist doesn't hate me for doing it. Although we did partner work and I'm used to rushing to get done as fast as possible a la for-time workouts. Turns out that if you ended before the rest of the class, you had to do burpees. Lesson. Learned.

Wind Assisted Bombproofing

Thanks everyone for your supportive words on Friday, it wasn't an easy decision but you guys made me feel all warm and fuzzy! Fingers crossed for tomorrow's interview. I'm really nervous but really excited.

This horse's constant state is nervous and excited

On Friday I headed out to see little TC after riding two horses all over the bay (fun fact: I drove 260 miles on Friday). I hadn't seen him in a week and a half! The reason for that was that I found myself being a little crazy and nervous about him trotting, so I figured that stepping back and focusing on riding Rico and getting myself to the gym every day was more important than driving so far to see TC and obsessing over his legs. I really really need to chill.

I've always wanted a lot of control over my competition (pfft ask me how nervous I was when my mom took Rico on a trail ride yesterday) horses, being exceptionally careful about who rides them and who handles them. I literally was afraid that someone would fall off of Rico (what's he going to do, bucking people off is too much work) and that he'd get loose and run around (again, too much work) and hurt himself. I was also afraid of giving him more than two days off in a row. So when I left for more than two days, I'd pay BRH trainer to ride him since he could sit any bucks. Did Rico ever buck? Fuck no. BRH trainer could barely get him to do anything at all.

I know I'm way overprotective and that's just not going to work in life anymore. I need to be able to go on vacation, I need to be able to take a job that's a little further away from the barn (so BRH trainer will fill in the other days), and I NEED TO CHILL.

So my first step toward chilling was recognizing that going to see TC a bunch was just going to make me crazier, and I took a step back and ignored him for ten days.

It was so hard to get a good picture of him, my
phone is failing at pictures lately

The horse noticed. He whinnied at me several times when he heard my voice. I felt terrible! But his leg looked AMAZING and apparently he's really enjoying his trotting.

What he is not enjoying, especially after my exploitation of it, is the fan that has been attached to his stall for the last week or so. It gets really hot in the central valley so all the horses have fans, cool! TC has never had a fan on him though. He doesn't much mind the air, but he minds what the air does to things.

When I stepped into his stall, a moth came in and sort of got caught in the wind of the fan, then landed on the wall. TC threw himself against the back wall and snorted at it. A moth. Later he was nervous about eating his alfalfa because the leaves would move around a bit. Then he was nervous because the plastic carrot bag got caught in the wind and flew against him repeatedly. Oh wait, that was my fault. Because I put it there, over and over again.

I'll give him that last one. He was traumatized by it, but there was no where for him to go to escape the horrible unyielding harassment from the plastic bag. He just froze and let it happen to him with this horrible tortured look on his face. It'd fly under his legs and he was just like this is it, this is how I die. At one point it flew on the other side of him and he leaped away from it into the opposite wall. So I shook it on that side of him until he was okay with it. By the end, he wasn't totally okay with it, but there was no leaving involved, and that's my goal. The horse has a serious flight response to everything, and I need him to learn to use his brain.

Hiding from the fan

Growing up one of my good friends had a young PMU horse. One day I got to the barn, walked around the corner and found my friend chucking a koosh ball at the horse. The horse was just standing there with one leg rested as the ball rolled across her back and dropped under her.

I was like WTF are you doing? And she says "every week, I bring a new thing to the barn and we work all week to get her desensitized to it."

Last week was a plastic bag. This week will probably also be a plastic bag. My friend's pony was a lot smarter than my pony. But one day he will be like Rico, and just roll his eyes whenever I go to open an umbrella into his face or chuck koosh balls at him. I started desensitizing Rico in the same way after talking to my friend that day, and there's basically nothing that bothers him at this point. It just takes time.

A Grand Overreaction

FIRST let me tell you that L over at Viva Carlos hit 1500 posts because she's a blogging bad ass and is holding a contest, so zip over there to enter! Just a few days left! I'm just hanging out here with my just-over-500 posts and feeling only slightly overwhelmed by the idea of hitting quadruple digits.

Baby horse coming in for the carrots 

On Monday I went to see TC!

I didn't go see him on my normal Friday because it seemed a little obsessive to go see him right away after I spent a bunch of time with him last week at the vet clinic. I'm trying not to be that owner even though I probably definitely already am. I bet most owners don't drive an hour and a half (one way) out every week just to give their horse carrots.

But Monday rolled around and I had time so quickly headed out. Man is the drive to the central valley on Monday afternoon completely miserable! I ended up taking the back road through the hills, which saved me apparently 45 minutes of traffic, yikes. I still managed to have time to stop by the fruit stand for carrots (and my new obsession: honey sticks) before seeing TC.

Starting to smile

TC began trotting on Monday. He gets to do 2 minutes per day. He also started his magnesium, and it was hot, and he had eaten a lot of his food, so he was really quiet. Not sure what of that caused the quietness, but I'm going to assume that it's the magnesium I'm spending money on. Even though it was very likely everything else.

We did our normal carrot eating and grooming routine that is becoming something I look forward to way too much. I get sort of desperate for pony time with my own pony. Brushing off other peoples' horses to ride is more of a chore. Everything was going well until I saw his leg, and my mood deflated. It looked bigger than the other one. Sigh. I touched it and it didn't seem warm or anything, but I swear there was a difference. I ran through increasingly crazy thoughts faster than I could take a deep breath and calm myself down:

- it's hot, Rico's injuries always get bigger when it's hot
- he started trotting, maybe we're expecting this
- maybe he played in his stall
- maybe he played in the walker
- maybe he smacked it in the walker
- maybe he's broken forever
- maybe he's not really a horse but a carrot eating machine

Insert carrots here

I sort of freaked out but tried to keep myself all together. Deep breaths. It's okay, it's not like it's enormous, just a tiny bit bigger, it's not like this is a sign of the lameness apocalypse. Horses don't have to have beautifully clean legs to be sound, some horses are sound with ugly legs and some horses with pretty legs are lame forever.

I finished brushing him and fed him all his carrots. He remained super polite the whole time and very in tune with me. I only lost his mind once when he startled and actually almost ran me over. Do not trust the baby horse. Do not lean under his belly to obsessively stare at his legs. It was a bit of a close call.

As I was walking out, I stopped to chat with the owners. I mentioned his leg and tried to play it cool. Yeah it looks a bit puffy but I dunno, he started trotting and it's hot and... the owners looked concerned so they offered to come see it. They could probably see the crazy on my face.

He walked in the stall and TC was glad to have visitors again. He picked up his leg and squished it. Squished the other one. Ran hands down both to check for heat.

And then he takes it a little far... 

Yep, it was nothing.

But last time I thought something was nothing, he had a suspensory injury. So I can't keep it out of my head. Luckily, like the insane person I am, I'm free on Friday to go again.

In His Natural Environment

Friday morning, I headed out to see TC. Yep, morning!

I ended up taking the day off on Friday for a few reasons. One, I had stopped accruing vacation time, which surprised me. At first I was like "meh horse so expensive, can't afford to go anywhere," but then I realized that with my crazy driving schedule, I should take days off when they help me reduce my driving. Taking the day off actually saved me two hours in the car.

Want cookies

Thursday was my dad's birthday so we were all (minus brother who was on a work trip) getting together on Friday night for dinner, then had family coming in from Michigan for Saturday.

This meant that if I wanted to see TC (I did) and wanted to make it to dinner on time, I had to get up SUPER early to start work early, hope beyond hope that nothing was assigned that day that had to be done that day so I didn't get delayed, frantically drive in traffic out to TC, then turn around and drive straight down to the south bay from the rehab place in traffic.

Or. Or... I could just take the day off. And go see TC in the morning, come home and pack everything up, eat lunch at home, relax with my cat a bit, and then head down early for dinner to avoid traffic. That sounds a lot less stressful!

He's so narrow still

Coincidentally, on Wednesday I got a text asking if I could skip my visit on Friday because the owners of the facility wanted to head out early. I told them that I could come in the morning or on Thursday afternoon (was sick, sick of being an adult that is) and they asked whether I wanted to come watch TC swim. UM YES PLEASE I WANT TO SEE IT!

I got there in the morning after a leisurely drive (this weekend was so amazing). TC smelled really great, so it was clear that he'd had a bath recently. He's basically all shed out and is looking really good. Quite strong, although his topline isn't very impressive because he's simply not using those muscles.

LOL fuck you TC, we'll wait until your vet check
to look at that bump

I gave him carrots and hung out with him for about twenty minutes, and then the guys came to get him to swim. It was fun talking to them while they haltered him and picked his feet. The main guy is really enthusiastic about TC, though speaks only a little english. I said that I heard TC liked swimming and he said "yes he charges into the pool, very fast" and then I told him about going out on cross country, saying we had a pond that we played in once and he gestured like pawing and said "I bet he did this, he loves water" and then he said TC was very strong. He kind of said it in a way where he was impressed yet kind of scared. I say it the same way.

And we got to see that strength come out as my baby horse freaked the fuck out about nothing walking over to get his hose down. They hose the horses down before letting them swim, I think mostly just to get them used to the water so it isn't such a shock.

OMG THINGS ON THE LEFT

OH WAIT NO MISTAKE

OMG THINGS ON THE RIGHT
(look how much he can bend his hocks!)

Here's some video of TC going in, he does seem quite excited. I think if he were a kid he'd have done a cannon ball.

He swims about 5-6 laps at this point, which is a LOT, he came out of the pool quite amped.

Then after swimming he goes in the walker for a while. The guys were telling me that he's normally calmer, which made me feel better and worse at the same time. Better because phew I'm glad he's not THIS crazy all the time, since if that was the case, it'd be a miracle that he didn't kill himself. But worse because ugh he definitely acts up more around me. I'm really not sure why.

Stress these days is piling up so I've been crying about everything (I cried because my photographer friend offered to come take pictures of TC and I when he comes back- oh and I'm getting teary right now writing about that lol cortisol, it does a body good). Obviously after that I had a good childish cry session on the way out thinking that I just bring the worst out in this horse.

But the reality is that I take things too personally, it was also windy so that could have contributed to it. And he's an easily distracted horse and I'm not normally there when he swims/walks and he probably sees me as a carrot machine. I mean if a vending machine full of cheesecake was bustling around the office telling me I was cute, I probably wouldn't do my job very well either.

Excuse me walker, I would like to walk faster

okay he shouldn't be cantering but look at how slow
he can canter now!

 After the walker there was one other big spook where he ran sideways but once as he was back in his stall, he was fine. I slowly gave him the rest of the carrots doing carrot stretches and just generally having him be a little more polite about things. This horse is freakishy flexible. He can now reach on both sides back past his flank. Eventually he will be able to literally put his own head up his ass, this fall he could only figuratively do that. Progress, tangible progress.

He's such a sweet fun horse. I left feeling a bit split about him. I was thinking when he was spooking and being over-reactive that I just need to sell him- he isn't the horse I bought and that's okay. It's not admitting defeat, it's a fact that we're probably not a match. I don't like unpredictable horses, and he's a big strong guy with a serious flight mechanism. But then back in his stall he's so sweet and I go back to the amazing rides over thanksgiving when we were having so many problems and all it took was being at the right barn with the right trainer.

Ugh he is so good at this move, I'm going to have to start over
with teaching him to reach downward with his neck again

And this weekend more plans were solidified to guarantee that I can keep him at the right barn with the right trainer long term. And I reminded myself that I once had a much scarier horse who reared and spun and launched me into arena fences. That horse took me to Grand Prix with the right trainer, the right barn, and a lot of hard work. 

Five Years Old

As of yesterday (April 10th), TC is FIVE years old!

It's bittersweet, really. I'm so glad that he is going to grow a brain now, this is the year they get brains, right? But it's also a reminder that he was injured as a four year old. That he still has so much to prove to make all that we're going through worth it. That we still have so long to go before he's the horse I know he can be.

I wish I had known him when he was this little and cute!

He's a little scary looking IMO

He grew up to be only slightly less awkward than this

And it was a reminder that I've now owned TC for seven months. Four of which, over half the time that I've owned him, he has been injured and unrideable. I got three precious months of riding my own horse (and two of those months were terrible at the new barn) before I was paying for vet bills and rehab. A new record!

But I try to stay positive. He'll come back and we'll be at the barn I want to be at anyway. We'll be riding with the two trainers I KNOW can make a massive difference both in our relationship and our capabilities together. I've got a full plan for groundwork, bombproofing, trail riding, and dressage, so that we don't run into the problems we had this fall. This whole winter and spring of rehab has been amazing for his mind and level of experience. I'm so proud of how he is handling everything that he has been presented with.

Sundays I can't go visit him, so we celebrated on Friday.

Uh, thanks.

I got there and the first thing I saw was his bare ass legs. Also two standing wraps and two track wraps were covered in shavings, he was even standing on one set. Nice.

So I looked at his leg and it looks GREAT, slightly filled in as it will always be, but only Megan the Obsessive (who is here to stay apparently, she convinced me to clean my closets out the other day) would notice it. I rewrapped his wraps and was putting them back on when a worker walked by and said "he took them off already?!" so apparently this happens regularly. I assured him that I would put them back on and he seemed relieved.

He got an apple for his birthday. I told him that if this vet bill was his last vet bill other than routine stuff, he could have whatever he wants for his next birthday. I think he'd just request more carrots, which is fine. I'll buy him two tons of carrots if he never makes me write "TC again" in the subject line of an email to my damn vet.

I always seem to make my horses' grain into a "cake" and put their age on it in carrots or cookies. Unfortunately I don't feed TC grain so he got his carrots lined up in a 5 on his hay. He was NOT amused by me laying out carrots and taking a picture of them before letting him have them.

Carrot cake?

He's beginning to really love his grooming time. Not sure if that's because he has no dirt or sides to his stall (he basically lives in a padded clean room) to rub himself on, or whether he's just learning to love being brushed. He was much more polite about grooming this week too- not threatening to smush me into the wall to get scratches- which was nice.

He also learned a valuable lesson. TMI ahead, but you guys are all equestrians. Whenever he gets groomed, he drops, which is fine. Although it occurred to me that he's never had his sheath cleaned so I figured there was a bean in there. I've been trying to get it for a while and he always picks up his foot like he wants to kick me. This time he took a swing and got TOLD. After that he was totally fine and didn't try kicking at me again. A really nice reminder of why I love this horse- he's sensitive but he's not neurotic.

Can only get decent pictures when he's going
through my shit

or eating, he's good at standing still while eating

The rest of the time there was just normal. We hung out, then I talked to the owners. We have a date for the ultrasound! April 26th! That means two more visits and then we have the ultrasound. And after that ultrasound, probably about four or five more visits until he's home. We're in the single digits here, it's almost over.

Hey this was a boring post. I'm excited to read all about what you guys did this weekend, so many people had shows and clinics! I promise I'll be entertaining later when I actually have a horse to ride. Just a few more weeks until "oh my god my horse is crazy I hate baby horses why do I drive so much someone please save me," buckle up.