The Repurposed Horse

Spring's vet appointment at the University was scheduled for this past Monday.  The Monday before, I was involved in a pasture accident while working a feed shift at the barn - a storm came up out of nowhere and the horse I was trying to bring in lost his mind and landed on the middle of my foot.  I've been in an air cast ever since, though I got clearance from my doctor to start weaning off of it. at least I got to use my ice boots for something useful? Bright and early this past Monday morning I met my friend E at the therapeutic riding center to pick up a trailer.  Because Spring had been so adamant about not getting on E's trailer the last time we tried to load her, we thought that KG's more open, stock-style trailer might be more inviting for the mare and less of a headache for us.  We headed to CEC and began the process of attempting to get my horse to load. At this point I noticed that she had thrown a front shoe sometime between Saturday and Monday....

One of the barn moms (KM) took some lovely photographs of Leo and me a while back. She reached out to me this week to ask if I'd be interested in doing a quick shoot with Spring so that she could test out her new camera, and I happily accepted. Spring was a trooper for a good 15 minutes before she got bored with us, but KM was able to get some beautiful shots! I want to get this one framed I'm so happy with the way Spring is looking right now - she has decent muscle tone despite her very light work schedule, her weight is good, her coat is ridiculously shiny, and she's (finally) completely shed out.  Monday I am calling the University to go ahead and schedule a lameness workup with Dr. Keegan, and a friend has already offered to haul. I do love this horse.

As I briefly mentioned in my last post, things with Spring haven't been the best lately.  After an incident about two months ago with another rider, her behavior under saddle has gradually gotten worse - to the point that during our last ride she reared three times when asked to go forward (after a perfectly normal warm up).  Trainer A, who had been giving us private lessons for the past few months, no longer felt comfortable with the situation until we figured something out because she has not had much experience with horses that rear (totally understandable!) and Trainer K is approximately 8.9 months pregnant.  Also, after getting off and then getting back on to quickly w/t/c and reinforce to the mare that rearing =/= getting out of work, I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of riding her right now.  Spring's back palpated sore after that last ride, but she wasn't lame.  The chiro came out this week, and said that aside from a very tight back ...

It only took about a week for someone with serious interest to contact me about Leo - I targeted saddlebred sporthorse groups on Facebook, which generated a ton of interest in a short amount of time. She lives in Louisiana, has been riding for most of her life, has experience with saddlebreds, and Leo checked off just about every box on her list of dream horse qualities. Briefest of brief meetings The only real issue was the 14 hour drive from Missouri to Louisiana. I spent hours talking to her, telling her the good and the bad (complete with video evidence), and gave her the link to this blog. Nothing made her run away screaming, so I offered her a 30 day trial to see if she and Leo would make a good team. My friend E had the week off for Spring Break and offered to haul, so Leo spent a weekend at CEC (we figured separating him from Saja was best done in stages) and then headed south. A brief reunion of former bffs Despite minor anxiety all around, Leo handled the trip l...

I've been putting off writing this post for weeks now, because several of the contributing factors are not things that I wish to disclose on my blog. But, the time has come for steps to be taken, and so this post must go up. As Leo has come back to work, it's become increasingly clear that the "no limitations" stamp the vet gave when discussing what would happen if his soundness returned is a definite reality. Which is great - the best possible outcome for the entire lameness saga! But. Because there's always a but, isn't there? But, I don't have time for two working horses. I am about to start an intensive nursing program, and money is going to become increasingly tight. But, Leo needs a job. But, but, but. After long talks with trainers, friends, and family, I have come to the decision that it is time to start looking for a new home for Leo. When it comes down to which of my two horses is the better fit for me, the answer is easily Spring....

Although Spring's official birthday is January 1, her foal date is March 4th, aka today! Naturally, I had to make a trip to the dollar store to pick up some birthday decorations and multiple bags of mints, and then head to the barn to have a "party." Sundays are normally pretty quiet but for whatever reason today was a little crazy. Spring had plenty of people around to give her snacks and scritches, and everyone got a kick out of seeing her with a little party hat on! It was a super fun afternoon, and I even got to squeeze in a quick ride in the outdoor for the first time since last November - which was surprisingly uneventful! Happy birthday, Spring!!!

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...