The Repurposed Horse

Last week, B and I traveled 1.5 hours southeast to pick up a Western saddle that I had found on Facebook for cheap. It's a 17" (because he is a very tall person) Wintec that came with a pad for $115 - too good a deal to pass by. We tried it on Leo when we got home, and it fit nicely. I also put him in a random western headstall because aesthetics are everything, and then Leo was being so chill that I decided to hop on and see what would happen. To my immense surprise, Leo was pretty well behaved - he didn't exhibit any of his normal herd sour behaviors, and seemed to be really happy with his new western apparel. Then the weather changed dramatically and it started to rain, so I hopped off and untacked pretty quickly. Last week was quite busy, and I didn't get the chance to ride Leo again until Saturday. KG lent us a smaller western saddle, and I tacked Leo up excitedly. He seemed a little more lit than he had the previous week, and this continued under saddle...

For almost as long as B and I have been dating, he's wanted to get into riding. He doesn't want to do anything competitive - he loves horses, and wants one that he can trail ride around for the joy of it. When I retired Leo and got Spring, we hoped that he would settle enough to be a trail horse for B. Unfortunately, Leo has made it pretty clear that although he's ready to come back to work, he's not quite boyfriend horse material at this point in his life. So, we've been hoping that a more suitable mount would come along. We found a nice western saddle for B thanks to a local tack Facebook group, and we've been crossing our fingers that a horse would soon follow. I don't talk about it much on this blog, but I work at a local therapeutic riding center one day a week and have for some time; I met the executive director ((KG)) through B's former boss when we first started dating, and have worked for her since before I had ever even been to CEC. S...

Wow, I am really failing at this whole blogging thing lately. My apologies, everyone (if anyone out there still reads this, thanks for sticking with me!) Winter is here Where do I even start? Spring has been back in under saddle work now for about a month, and has been doing amazingly well - she feels like a completely different horse after her two month groundwork boot camp. She is better balanced, her hind end is stronger, and her overall demeanor is much calmer. The headshaking seems to be completely under control, which I think is due to a combination of factors including her overall fitness, my figuring out how to stay out of her face when riding her, and the Quiessence supplement ((I did an experiment where I took her off the supplement for a week to see if anything changed, and at 6 days without she was starting to exhibit some of her former behaviors, so she's back on it now)). Spring has actually been doing so well that she's going to spend this week trying ...