The Repurposed Horse

Spring has been using Leo's blanket this winter, because he is a hairy feral monster and his girlfriend would help him destroy a blanket in approximately .02 seconds.  It fits her okay, but now that she's not a scrawny mess any more it's not fitting her quite as well as it was at the beginning of the winter - she's grown in pretty much every possible way, and she's just started to get faint rubs from it. I've been putting coconut oil on the rubs, and I'm hoping that helps the hair recover. blurry rub!  Because the end-of-winter blanket sales are rapidly approaching, and because it's fitting Spring quite well otherwise, I'm holding off on buying her a new blanket for now.  Instead, I took to scouring the internet in search of a decent/affordable shoulder guard that would get us through the rest of the season (although since the temperature for the next week is apparently staying above 40 degrees, this may have been unnecessary).  m...

I was super excited about posting today, guys - Assistant Trainer A took a bunch of video during my lesson with Spring, and we jumped the Scary Boxes and did a small course and generally had an excellent time...BUT THEN MY PHONE DIDN'T BACK THEM UP (even though it said it had), and I lost them because technology.  Naturally, the 800 photos I took of my ME boots for a planned upcoming product review are all still there. I am so mad.  Thankfully I still have a fair amount of media from the last month! but of course it saved all the pictures I took once I was on the ground -_- I've been taking weekly private lessons for the last month because Spring seems to prefer to be on her own or in a small group, and the Monday night lesson that I was a part of forever has grown to regularly be 6-7 people large, which is A LOT when you're riding in a relatively small indoor that also contains a shavings mountain .  I'm hoping that as my Thursday afternoon slot becomes a more re...

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 ...

This week's lesson - after the flat, Trainer K took our saddles away. And it was a freaking blast! Halo is a 7ish y/o appaloosa/paint cross, and he was such a good boy. On Thursday, Spring and I have a private lesson with Trainer K! If all goes well, we'll be jumping a bit - although she's letting me keep the saddle for that.

In case the title of this post alarmed you, never fear - this is not about Spring! It's also not about Leo, who is still getting the winter off before hopefully starting his own rehab journey in the actual spring. Both my babies are happy, healthy, and sound *knocks on all the wood*. This post is about Nigel, the horse I'm rehabbing for Trainer K! Nigel is one of CEC's two single-eyed horses Nigel is a 21 year old lesson horse. He's a TB cross of some sort - the kind of fancy mover with auto changes and a heart of gold that has always made him a lesson favorite, and he's spent the last 6 years packing riders of all levels and ages around lessons and lower level hunter shows.  He came up lame in the summer, and has spent the last six months growing fuzzy and fat as his tendon injury healed. Before he lost his eye to an infection, he was a talented upper level show horse. Two weeks ago, the vet cleared him to start his rehab.  We got to skip the hand wal...