Have You Met Your Stallions?

Magnum's Status: Tired from running laps for three hours outside

My Status: Cleaning bridles, going to the working student olympics

GG is obsessed with the X-Factor - I've secondhand watched at least three episodes today. 

More of the same, sick horses and sick trainers. I've been much happier here with CPL gone for clinics, the barn runs much quieter but the BO still manages to make things very inefficient and stressful every time she comes out. I did get a chuckle out of her today because I turned Magnum out in a paddock she didn't want him in so she moved him herself, then she came to me and told me how unmannerly he was and that he needed parelli work as soon as CPL came back. My self control over keeping a straight face is growing here. She said that just Magnum needing a chain was a sign that he needed parelli and that even her stallions could lead in and out without a chain. Has she seen her stallions? They're absolutely awful and we carry whips to lead them in and out, and use them fairly often - not just to warn them. How is that better than a chain? All in all, dealing with these horses have made me much more appreciative of the Otterbarn's horses' manners - it will be nice to lead horses again without them attacking or walking on their hind legs for half the trip, even the geldings are questionable here. All of the horses are either in rope halters (they call them western halters or parellis), or they are in these wide, feltish noseband and crownpeice nylon contraptions that have no bite to them.

 I rode Magnum this morning, same exercise we've been doing, I think for the first time ever Magnum was out of breath before I was and wanted to stop - I'm going to pretend it was my great timing on him today that let me win but it's probably that he's still recovering from the last bit of flu. He has been much easier to flex right yesterday and today in this exercise, it's left that has been giving us trouble. He gives his jaw to the left but doesn't like to bend through the base of his neck which is really showing in the lower stretch (Magnum's version of a stretch, not their's) and his shoulder-in left. Magnum also bucked three times today and a few times yesterday, Florida is making him a bit too sassy. 

I also rode Tanz again in draw reins, I was told to keep him very low and deep - I felt like I was channeling my inner Anky for the first part of the ride, then the BO started giving me a mini lesson and was having me bring him up, his rhythm immediately became very quick and I couldn't get him relaxed in his higher frame. I also couldn't get a clean change and our lateral work started to fall apart. Then TGT came over and changed us back to the lower frame and we worked through some cleaner changes doing 4 and 3 time changes. She told me to count down out loud to my change and make the changes in my leg very dramatic, I feel like I'm missing because other than making the horse straight as we come out of the corner to cross the diagonal I'm not giving him any warning about the change. Tanz got a bit wild in front and was going crooked rather than changing, then would change quite hard - very much like Magnum when he's mad. TGT said my half pass is improved since I arrived. Also since I've arrived I experienced my first true canter pirouettes on the grand prix horse - yesterday when everyone was sick I was told I could take him out and play since he's one of the few that is still ridable at the moment and the trainers have also been absent. He made it so easy that it made me want to attempt them on Magnum today, but we have a long way to go until we're that soft. Life goals.

Garlic Anyone?

Magnum's Status: Almost Normal

My Status: Sick of waking up to take temperatures every three hours, and fell asleep before I posted this last night, that's fairly telling, right?

GFF: TGT drives a bug, my amusement level is completely irrational

On top the barn being sick, TGT is down with something as well, CPL is gone teaching at a clinic and the final trainer that we don't work for left for vacation with us responsible for her horses now as well. Only about three horses in the barn are ridable, quite the feat considering the number; even the foals in the far, far away fields look terrible. I hacked Magnum today walk/trot, he was a combination of not feeling 100% and  a PITA to ride, so I did the brave thing and gave up for the day once we had some decent trot work. I did the same exercise we've been working on, but I felt like he was just rubbernecking around the arena today and bulging his shoulder. Whether this is a result of him having two days off or me not using the exercise properly I'm not sure. I also tried to ride Eli now that he is over his abscess and had his shoe put back on, but now he's footsore from the new shoes, so no riding there either. It was truly a thrilling day of taking 50 horses temperatures before breakfast and dosing them with the craziest combinations possible, than taking 50 more before bed. 

Some of the strange things we gave them. Entire syringes of shredded garlic - I gave some to the andalusian stallion, jammed the syringe, spilt it all over him and now he smells like an italian chef. They also had some crazy herb mixtures, belladonna, arnica and a variety of pills that looks like they came from Whole Foods. One horse wasn't eating and  he was given kelation, which was new to me. It was a mix of vitamin c and several other things, mixed with a drip bag of fluids and given IV. Everything I am finding online shows it in relation to heavy metal poisoning, so I am not sure what it's specific purpose was with a flu-like horse with no appetite. 

First Grand Prix Horse

The blog from last night that the internet refused..

Magnum's Status: Getting Sick

My Status: Exhausted

Fun German Fact of the Day: Germans say squeezing the floor instead of sweeping it. Not sure if this an a mispronunciation or if they mean it, either way I'm adopting it because it's awesome and it makes sweeping better. 

The entire barn is sick - the vet says it's just the flu and to wait it out, but he also said the older horses wouldn't get it and they're all getting hit about 48 hours in. Magnum is lethargic, never left the corner of his stall today, dehydrated and running at 102.6. He has a bit of a runny nose but not as bad as some and he's not coughing yet. Florida and Magnum really aren't agreeing, this is issue number four. Magnum didn't get ridden on Christmas since I went to meet family I'd never met before; spending Christmas on the beach is definitely better than spending it on the ice. Probably a good thing he had the day off though, maybe he built up some strength to fight off this bug. 

We're really limited on what we can do in the barn since almost all of them are showing some symptoms, I rode my jumper horse for about 20 minutes and she started coughing - she even lives in the field and hasn't been touching noses with anyone else. Then I got to ride Walter, the horse with the strange shoes. He is the first Grand Prix horse I've sat on, TGT gave me a mini lesson with him, a few lead changes, shoulder in, haunches in, half pass and what was almost a canter pirouette if we had collected just a bit more. TGT told me to stop doing a haunches in with my body, I need to keep my outside elbow by my side and sit up straight so I'm not twisting with him, then just put my outside leg back and play with my inside rein - essentially the same thing with the half pass, once I stopped twisting my shoulders and giving away my outside rein it was clean and easy. I don't know what I'm missing on the change with this horse, I slide my leg like she tells me, but she's having a hard time explaining anything to do with timing to me and I'm having a tough time figuring it out. This is my big issue with a lot of their gadgets - the timing isn't so important to them because it's so much harder for the horse to make a mistake, I can already feel my hands getting lazy because it doesn't matter so much what I do with them when the horse can't feel the smaller differences as they're no longer a direct line to his mouth anymore. 

No riding for Mr. Magnum today, I bundled him up tonight and soaked his hay to try and force some water down him, I also tried the Horse Quencher that I had bought for the trailer ride down - he wasn't interested in it then and it didn't make him drink now either. I'm becoming less optimistic about the Ocala show, I think he's had more days off then ridden since we arrived, I'm very hesitant to send in entries. 

I planned on talking about blankets tonight, but I'm too tired - maybe tomorrow for the craziness that is layering heavyweights for 30 degree weather. 

Homeopathy and Quick Farriers

Mr. Magnum's Status: Fired up and ready for Santa

My Status: Wondering where the nearest tack store is.. and also why the nearest Panera is 41.6 miles away

Mr. Magnum had his shoe put back on today - one of the other trainers had a shoe come off, so that was enough to force a farrier out for a farm call on Xmas eve, lucky Mr. Magnum. He's sound on it and ready to go - I worked him lightly today but he was so wound up from weird weather and wind that we stuck to walk/trot work and worked on giving the base of his neck the same way we have been for the past two days. He overstepped and clipped himself hard again - is this really making his back that much softer that he is getting much more reach behind? It just seems unlikely given that he doesn't clip himself this often as home and his back has become much softer in the past 6 months. 

I also took Lofty out on trails and am classifying him as the most awkwardly moving animal I have ever ridden, I just laugh when I see him move and I want to cry trying to put him together so his legs fall into some semblance of order; he's really a horse that's built to live in the pasture and eat treats for the next 20 years. I also lunged Finery and Honorbound with the vienna reins, which the is odd draw rein setup I've used here before. It gets them really deep and low depending on how you set it, I'm not thrilled with how it works because there's no elasticity to the contact - in order for it not to affect them they have to get far behind the vertical.  

Several of the horses have been coughing lately, Mr. Magnum is on the so far healthy barn, another lucky moment. We started taking temperatures when they began acting lethargic and two of them are running 104, we're checking again tonight at night check. The barn owner started treating with homeopathic methods rather than going straight for antibiotics. Another mare was acting colicy tonight, she received another homeopathic treatment and they acupunctured her. I'm very curious to see where the line is drawn on homeopathy and western medicine, I think I would have gone for banamine with the colicing horse. 

The way the barn is open sided is really nice for the weather, although it's a shame there's no way to close it off on the really cold nights. There is one section of the middle barn with tarp drop downs, but they look like they haven't been used in a long time and it looks like they would be hard to work. Another downside to the openness of the barns is that its almost impossible to quarantine anyone, the breeze carries straight from one barn to the next and straight out into the pastures. 

On Christmas Eve I am appreciative of my fast internet at home…. it's too slow to do much research or half the time it doesn't connect at all, so homeopathy didn't get investigated quite yet. The lack of Panera around here means lack of interneting in public - and the larger issue of six weeks with no bread bowls.. 

Mr. Magnum Woes and Strange Shoeing

Mr. Magnum's Status: Stallbound

My Status: Nervous to let strange people drive nails into my horse

Mr. Magnum is on minor setback three since we arrived. After surviving 16 hours in the trailer with me as his questionable pilot he cut his face in his stall the first night, night two he bashed his head against something and then had a swollen eye for three days, now we have made it to day eight and he sprung a shoe and stepped back down on the clip. Lovely. We soaked in the barn's soaking boot, which went slightly better than soaking him in a bucket like I tried a few weeks ago at the Otterbarn. Instead of throwing himself out of the x ties he just stood there and shook; he would move every foot but the one with the boot, the sloshing noise was too much to handle. Then we wrapped it up in vet wrap and red duct tape - he looks stunning, but at least it hides the chunk of missing hoof wall that the other clip gauged out. One journey to Walmart later, since that's essentially what the town is built around, and we have our own epsom salts, diapers and hot pink zebra print duct tape for the makings of the classiest wrap of all time. I would love to know what the cashier thought I was getting into tonight. Hopefully the clip didn't hit anything and hopefully the farrier can get to us soon, I expect we'll have to wait until after Xmas though. 

While I'm on the subject of feet, the horses here are almost all barefoot in back and they won't turn horses out together if they have back shoes. There are several horses with the flakiest feet I've ever seen, even in front with shoes on, despite the crazy diet that is supposed to keep them nice.The barefoot horses are also chipped and covered in surface cracks. Is the all the sand bad for their feet? Poor genetics on a farm where all the horses are from the same lines? Missing a key ingredient in their diet? It's very strange to see so many poor quality hooves. Most of the horses are in natural balance shoes that look like this http://www.ecis.com/~hplove/clo/heum9807.html . Many of them also have pour in pads or green rubber pads underneath the NB shoes. One of them was in a trailer accident, and in addition to living in standing wraps at night he wear's hind shoes with a closed heel that extend behind the hoof about two inches; they're possibly the strangest shoes I've ever seen. Just looking at them I would expect the horse to have an extreme lameness issue but he still works grand prix movements in them. 

It's extra sad that Magnum is off, because he was warming up wonderfully today, we started with the same exercise that TGT had us doing yesterday, although we never even made it to transitioning between trot and canter, but he was giving the base of his neck both directions with a soft jaw and a low neck in what could almost be considered a stretchy frame. I feel like an idiot talking to him so much when he's good, but everyone here is a chatty rider and big on vocal praise. I heard him clip himself hard, so it's probably time to invest in a pair of bell boots - although none of these velcro on kind that everyone here is so fond of, he can where pull ons like the rest of the horses owned by lazy people. Plus, I think velcro on's make everyone look like a western gamer less the neon. He never went lame, he just lost power; it felt the same as the few days before he abscessed just before Thanksgiving, not quite lame, but not quite right. I really want to enter the Ocala show in mid January, I still need to switch over his USEF and USDF, but now I don't even want to send in entries until I know this isn't going to abscess or do something awful - entries are due on the 2nd, so we have a bit of time. 

I also took my new jumping project pony out on the trails today, which is really a 20 minute field loop. I'm amused that I came to a dressage farm and somehow managed to acquire the only jumping horse here as my project when I'm really not brave at all over fences. Then I rode Tantz, in draw reins, who was the softest, nicest creature to ride. TGT gave me a short lesson on him, we warmed up in a stretchy, very round frame transitioning trot/canter/trot often and switching directions regularly throughout our warmup, the goal was for him to get deeper in his transitions. Then she had us collecting through our corners and going into a medium canter down the long sides, then we spiraled in around her, haunches far in, taking his nose to the outside for the thought of counter bend when I didn't get enough haunches in, and collecting so much that I felt like we could have moved into a pirouette. We spiraled that back out and TGT says very casually to go for three changes across the diagonal, and he did four time changes like a schoolmaster. We also half passed at the trot and canter from the corner to X and back, doing flyings on X.  We also worked a bit of medium trot up the long sides and across the diagonal and ended in a stretchy frame.  I definitely want to ride him again, he was great under saddle - even if he is a monster on the ground. 

As to the automatic waters, they've been shutting off the water at night to the barns since the pipes aren't insulated, today they couldn't make it come back on to one of the barns so we had to haul water to fill their automatic waters since the barn doesn't even own enough buckets to hang in each stall. I've always wanted automatic waters; I generally think dragging hoses and watering is a giant waste of time and manpower. However, after a week of having no idea how much my horse is drinking and then dealing with them when they break (which I hadn't even noticed, because the waterers are in the back of the stall and are not very visible), I no longer think they are the greatest invention ever and perhaps the money spent on them is better spent on paying someone else to fill up your buckets. On a high note about them, Magnum can now take a drink and not follow it up by throwing himself across his stall as it makes its filling up noise. Baby steps.

This is how they pipe all the water into each stall - nothing too fancy but it gets the job done as long as its warmish. 

Surviving Week One

Mr. Magnum's status: Exhausted

My status: Done early, even prepped food for tomorrow.

Weather: Below freezing, water in the barn is shut off and we are hauling buckets - what the heck Florida?

What I discovered: Despite what I have learned at the Otterbarn you do not have to put seven layers of duct tape over the toe to keep a hoof wrap on overnight, just one or two will do fine

New things that irritate me: Trainers who leave their reins/sidereins/martingales all attached for you to figure out how to undo when it's time to clean eight thousand bridles at the end of the night.

Lesson with TGT today - productive after I said I didn't want to buy a horse and this was the one I wanted to work with; she looked a bit surprised, probably because this is the first time I've said anything disagreeable other than not jumping on the gadget bandwagon. We worked on giving up the base of his neck in a stretchy frame which worked beautifully to the left and painfully to the right. We kept our stretchy frame throughout most of the ride, they are determined Mags will stretch like their horses by the end of this. While I think that would be lovely, I hold very little hope - their 3 year olds go with their nose in the dirt already, I'm thankful when we can stretch two inches down and maintain it on a vibrating contact. 

Always working on a low outside hand and a vibrating/massaging inside hand. He has to look towards the center of the circle starting with the base of his neck - as soon as I get any softness, I need to rub his neck with my inside hand, which works to give him back the inside rein. To the right when he gets very tense and upside down I am supposed to pat him with my outside/left hand to encourage him to relax down. Very different than forcing the issue, it's hard to wait him out and rather painful. He has to maintain a powerful forward trot throughout, so we tapped him up quite a bit, often using the double tap from before. We also constantly transitioned trot/canter/trot, never walking, I don't think we've worked that long without a break ever; I'm too afraid of TGT to tell her I can't breath and that Mr. Magnum is killing me. Thank goodness clients came and we stopped so TGT could show them their horse. Overall it was successful to the left, I thought he was light and quite airy, if a bit low in his withers; to the right he was a miserable animal to ride and I wanted a horse upgrade.

Some other things TGT told me:  I am not allowed to let him stop and spook and instead have to send him sideways through his spooks and bend him to the inside since he normally spooks from the outside no matter which way we're tracking. He uses his spooks to get away from me - not really earth shattering news. He is never allowed to look to the left while tracking right, if he ignores my vibrating right hand I am supposed to shake my whole hand and bounce the bit rather wildly to get him to look right again. My right shoulder hasn't been this sore since before we started lessons with Bruce at the beginning of the summer. Also, before TGT got out there we had about a half hour walk warm up waiting for her - we used the last lesson with CPL who said to make him go extremely lateral every time he got hard on his right rein, so lateral that he was basically side passing around his circle with his nose far on the inside and big crossovers in back. It works in the beginning, but after a few times his hind end gets so tired that I don't think he could get off of my right rein. A nice tool to reinforce though because he hates doing it and just the threat is sometimes enough to make him think about roundness tracking right. 

Other Horses: Also warmed up Firstwish, Frosh and took Lofty out on trails, as well as lunged Finery with the draw reins and sursingle - nothing thrilling on the other horse front today. 

After riding Mags today I turned him out all booted up for the first time in 2 days since he's been such a wild man I've been afraid he'll get tangled in their fence with how hard he runs and tries to strike at other horses through the fence - so all protected he went out and acted like his Otterbarn self, which is to say he ate for hours until I brought him inside and never broke a walk. The swelling is completely gone from his eye - our injury count is staying at two thank goodness. He is living in his flymask whenever I see any bugs about. The barn owner still does not approve of my horse abusing, flymasking ways, but that's okay - we don't agree on bute either. I don't think she's noticed the flyboots he lives in yet. I wonder what would happen if she knew I put flydrops on him and they weren't natural?

I love clients who bring Xmas food - I learned that pumpkin bread is strong encouragement to take extra special care of a horse. 

Eating Ben and Jerry's until it's time for night check - dreading going out in the cold.