Wheels in Motion

sneak preview...

loving this little house

The move has happened, the things have been somewhat unpacked (like, maybe 1/3 unpacked? I can't do much still, and B works full time, so it's slow going with the unpacking), and life has been slowly settling in to a new normal.

this part of the pasture will probably be the primary riding area

Leo is loving his new pasture puff lifestyle. He seems perfectly content to spend his days chilling in the field - he definitely seems to think that pasture life is the best life.  The Equioxx didn't do much for him, so once the bottle runs out he'll go off that, and his super fancy footwear will come off the next time he's due to see the farrier - he was perfectly fine barefoot, and the shoes definitely didn't make enough of a difference for him to justify the cost.

the cutest pasture ornament around

Looking at potential new ponies has definitely helped to soothe the pain of retiring him.  Being able to see his retirement not as "the end" but as a gateway to the next adventure has made things much easier to bear.  I've decided not to pursue another round of injections at this time; after 6 months off, I'll potentially take him in for a check up if he seems like he is starting to do better - if not, he'll get another 6 months, and from there we'll just have to see what happens.  He may be moving home this week - but more on that later.

This post isn't about Leo, though.  I'm thrilled to announce that I have found my next horse!

twisty reins before a session on the lunge line

A few weeks ago, completely by accident, I found a post on OTTB Connect that caught my eye.  It was a sale ad for a stunning 6-year-old OTTB mare, and she was located about 6 minutes away from my current barn.  She was a little out of my price range, but the ad was several months old, so I decided to message the owner on the off chance that she was still available, thinking that if nothing else it was worth a shot.  The owner messaged me back later that day, saying she was still available, and then it was radio silence for over a week.  During that time, I mostly forgot about the pretty little mare and moved on to looking at other ads - and started a conversation with a girl who had a really neat OTTB up for a free lease.

slightly derpy, super sweet.

Due to the timing of my surgery, I wasn't able to try the lease horse out right away - although I had planned to try him on Friday of this past week (spoiler alert - this didn't happen; he actually came up lame on Wednesday and had to have stifle injections done, and then Other Things happened and now I don't need to try him).  A few days after the surgery - 10 days after the initial messages with the owner of the OTTB mare - she got back in touch with me.  She had been super busy, she said, and had some family stuff come up.  She readily answered all of my questions about the mare, and put me in contact with her sister, who lives in the area; her the reason for selling the mare is because she's had to move back to California due to circumstances beyond her control.  I started texting her sister, J, and made plans to try the mare out on Thursday of this week (a rough estimate of when I would be physically capable of sitting on a horse again).

photo stolen from her sale ad

J mentioned that if I wanted to come out sooner, I was more than welcome to do so - an opportunity that I took her up on immediately.  On Monday, I made my first solo driving trip since my surgery to go meet the mare, whose Jockey Club name is African Spring.

I'm not a huge TB pedigree nerd, but I think hers looks pretty solid

What I found was a delicate, dainty little mare with one of the sweetest puppy dog personalities that I've ever encountered. She hung out in crossties for an hour, politely begging for attention while J and I talked about her - her history, her training, her feed, etc.  She's been off the track since she was three; she retired with a small tendon bow in her front left leg.  She had a year off to recover from that, and was then restarted by a trainer down in Florida, where she learned to do things like dressage and jumping.  She was purchased by J's sister in the fall of last year, shortly before her sister had to move away, and at this point has been out of work for over 9 months.  People keep passing on her because of her size (she's smaller than the ad says - I'm pretty sure she's only 15.1), her 'typical TB feet,' the old bow, and the fact that after her first Missouri winter she dropped a significant amount of weight and has been slow to gain it back.  About a month ago someone was interested enough to do a PPE, which she passed, but the sale fell through and she's been sitting ever since.

slightly underweight, but THAT SHOULDER. 

I immediately liked her - despite her small size, she was just SO SWEET .  Conformationally, she seemed to be pretty well built - I'm not at all an expert, but nothing was screaming "fatal flaw!" at me - she was just skinny.  The leg with the old bow was almost identical to the leg with no bow; both are well-formed, tight, and cool.  J turned out to be around my age - she's a third year vet student at the University, and is friends with one of my favorite boarders at CEC.  I found out that Spring's price had dropped significantly from the original ad, putting her well under my budget, and I left feeling incredibly excited.

Photo - Eisaman Equine, 2011 Keeneland Sale Ad

Naturally, I spent a fair amount of time between Monday and Thursday obsessively stalking the mare online, and spamming all of my friends with questions/photos/requests for opinions.  I was able to find her sale ad from when she was a 2-year-old, which was pretty awesome.  There's some cool video of her running on the track, and pictures of her looking stunning.  I talked to Trainer K about her on Wednesday, and we made plans to meet J at her barn on Saturday so that Trainer could meet her / try her out / take her over some jumps (the plan for Thursday was all flatwork; I probably won't be able to jump for another week or two).

I'm so stiff -_-

For a young horse that hadn't been ridden in 4 months, Spring seriously impressed me with her quiet demeanor under saddle.  J rode her first so that I could watch her move / to make sure I'd be comfortable riding her as I hadn't ridden in A While, and she was ridiculously calm.  She clearly had some pretty solid training when she was restarted, and despite being out of shape she was trying her hardest to bend/stay on the bit/carry herself.  She picked up the correct lead every time, and seemed eager to please and happy to work.  After establishing that riding her was probably not going to result in a major setback, I eagerly climbed aboard.

she's so cute

Riding her was like riding a cloud - she was super comfortable, and incredibly tolerant of my complete lack of core strength.  I rode her for about five minutes and was fully enamored by the end.  She cooled out pretty quickly, and I left even more excited for Trainer K to meet her.

I picked Trainer up around 10:45 this morning, and we headed over to the other barn, where my friends M and A met us - they both wanted to watch.  J wasn't there when we arrived - she mixed up the times, and told me to go ahead and bring Spring in / start grooming her so that she'd be ready to go when she got there.  Spring immediately came up to me when I walked up to her pasture, and happily came in.  Trainer looked her over - she was impressed by her shoulder, but felt that she was a little long in the back, and a little post-legged behind; her one concern was that she may need stifle maintenance in the future because of her hind end conformation - although she did comment that she had an excellent hip angle, which could help balance that out, and that any flaws she was seeing might be less obvious/somewhat corrected as the mare gains weight.

She jumps!

Trainer got on first - she wanted to see how she was when she was fresh.  She worked her for 10-15 minutes on the flat in the upper ring, and then we headed to the lower ring to see what she would do over fences.  During that transition, Trainer commented that she felt amazing under saddle - better than expected given her hind end conformation.  She seemed to be working hard and offered no bad behavior.  Spring hadn't been ridden in the lower ring before, and she started off a little nervous - she was looking around and less focused than she had been before, but was still listening and still behaving herself.  After a few laps on the flat to help her settle, Trainer asked her to jump a single crossrail.  Completely confused, the mare stopped - not in a mean way, but in a "wait...you want me to do WHAT?!" kind of way.  It was pretty adorable.  Trainer let her sniff the crossrail, then brought her back around for another attempt - she slammed on the brakes and then popped over it.

Naturally, I caught this on camera

And that, apparently, was all it took for her to remember that she does, in fact, know how to jump.  Although we stuck with crossrails, she jumped everything else without much fuss.  It wasn't necessarily always the most graceful - she hasn't had to do this in a year / she's out of shape and underweight - but she was willing to try her best.  Trainer popped over a few more fences and then got off - it was time for me to ride!   I don't have any video of that, but it felt great; I was a little stronger today than I had been on Thursday, and having my friends and trainer there helped me relax a little bit.  Spring was again very forgiving, and quite fancy - I still don't entirely know what to do with myself when I ride a horse that actually knows how to dressage, so it was great to have Trainer there to talk me through it.  I hadn't been planning on jumping, but she wanted to see how Spring did with me on her over fences, so she had me go over a couple things and the mare was great - a little rushed through the line we had set up, but was absolutely willing and didn't hesitate at all.

such a good girl

The consensus from Trainer, M, and A was this - BUY HER.  She's smart, she's willing, she's brave, she's chill AF, and she does the things.  She wasn't at all bothered by my current lack of stability in the saddle, and aside from the initial confusion about jumping she did everything that was asked of her on the first try.  Everyone absolutely loved her, and Trainer even mentioned that if I passed on her, she might buy her.  She's just a cool little horse, and she has a lot of potential.

camera shy

We had to leave in a hurry because we were running late to our next appointment - Trainer needed to get to another barn in the area, where we were scheduled to look at MOAR SALE HORSES - for the lesson program - and I told J that I'd get in touch with her later today with a final decision.  Trainer and I chatted about Spring the entire drive to the other barn, and kept coming back to this - there is truly no reason for me not to buy her.  I honestly feel like she is a better fit for me than Leo ever was (Trainer K agrees) - something that I have struggled with off and on throughout the entire time that I've owned him.  I felt completely comfortable on her, and I'm not even remotely in shape to ride at the moment.  

The plan now is to try and get Leo moved home ASAP - my landlord has given permission for him to come any time - and then to move Spring to take his place at CEC for the rest of the month so that I can start fattening her up and get her working again.  Although the barn at my new place isn't completely perfect, the pastures are fantastic and he'll have the bonus ponies for company.  I'm texting her owner as I type this to work out the details of the sale, and I couldn't be more excited.

I'm contemplating changing her barn name to something else - possibly River - and I'm not completely sold on using African Spring as her show name.  If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!