Happy Birthday Chev!

Yesterday was my baby horse's 7th birthday.  She is not a baby anymore.

I can hardly believe it.

I still remember leading her out of the auction yard as a 2 1/2 year old like it was yesterday...

What a lovely grown-up horse she has become.  As per tradition, she had birthday photos taken again this year.

Happy 7th Birthday, baby!  You've come a long way.

7th Birthday photo!

Enjoying her carrot-filled birthday grain bucket

Waited on hand-and-foot (or at least hand-watered) by her favorite person, the SO

A look back through the last 4 1/2 years!  Where it all began:

Chev, first week home, August 2007--2 1/2 years old

Showmanship clinic, February 2008

Out on pasture, she really filled out when she turned 3! May 2008

First trail ride, June 2008

Out on pasture at Marian's with Rhett, September 2008

Almost 4!  April 2009

August 2009--healed from her tendon injury and ready to start work again

 Under saddle again after 4 months off--August 2009

 Our second show!  May 2010

Summer 2010, fit and healthy!

6th Birthday photo, May 2011

Out in the pasture, May 2011 

 Ready to get on the trailer to meet me in Wyo, June 2011

After a ride, August 2011

 In the roundpen on a cold day, January 2012

 Present day, barefoot and beautiful! May 2012

 Happy Birthday Chevy!

A girl and her horse

I know a lot of people in my life wonder why I spend all the money and the time in this crazy horse game.

And my answer is always the same: I can't imagine my life without horses.

Sure, horses make life more complicated.  They are expensive.  They need a lot of maintenance.  They require space and food in large quantities.  But you can RIDE them.  And there is nothing like that feeling in all the world.

They were the first things I wanted to draw from the time I could hold a pencil.  I spent nearly all my birthday and Christmas money growing up on riding lessons.  I worked at summer camps so I could earn extra horse time.  My parents were generous enough to recognize how much I loved riding, and for years paid for my lessons twice a month, starting when I was just 11.  I never grew out of the horse obsession.

And now that I'm an adult, I really appreciate how much happiness they bring to my life.

They give me something to do and something to take pride in. They taught me responsibility, compassion and patience to an extent I don't know I would have developed without my relationships with horses.  I know for certain loving them kept me out of all kinds of trouble as a kid.

To this day, I can't drive by horses in a pasture without checking each one out.  I still pretend I'm riding a horse galloping alongside the car when I'm a passenger on a long drive, just as I did as a child.  I am drawn to them, all breeds and all ages.  I am Horseii.

Every minute and every dollar is worth the sacrifice for all the wealth horses bring to my life.

So I want to thank all those who love me for sticking by me through all the years of horse-insanity: I love you for loving me, and all that I am.

And what I am is a horse girl.

Do we raise the bar too fast? How do we know?

I think more often than not we, as ambitious people, combined with horses, set ourselves up for failure.

I want to apologize for my lack of posts lately.

Here are the facts.

Chev's shoes were pulled 2 weeks ago, and she has been recovering.  Before pulling the shoes, farrier and I went on a trail ride on the back roads.  Chev was alert, but well behaved.  She didn't care about cars.  She didn't scream.  I realized I need to ride with longer fenders to avoid ankle pain.  It was a success.

She has essentially been a pasture puff for the last 2 weeks.  I've been going out at least once a day to check on her, feed her dinner, lunge her a bit, do a small amount of groundwork, and generally assess her condition for returning to work.

Work and horses is such a funny thing.

I think "work" is the perfect word.

It is always a work in progress.

The goal is to have something meaningful happen in a forward direction every time we ride.

I try not to harbor grand illusions about what that has to be.

My horse is fairly well "schooled", three days away from her seventh birthday--she walks, jogs, trots, and canters with relative ease and minimal cues, moves her body off slight leg pressure, understands turn arounds, side passes and two-tracking (mostly), and is pretty sensible to ride.  She is not exceedingly silly under saddle.  She is not a spooker, bolter, or bucker.

I have a lot to be thankful for.  She's taken my attempts at training gracefully, forgives my blunders, and is generous with her amount of try.  She isn't the most talented horse, but she is honest.

What I really want her to be is more of a "broke" horse.

I got the good idea about a week ago to hop on her bareback in the halter and ride her around the perimeter of the fence.

Boy howdy, that was a bad idea.

I guess I still have this romantic notion from my childhood that you can just scramble up on your horse, and ride off--no gear, no worries.

That is just not reality.

We got to one corner of the pasture before she starting pitching.

I admit it--I was scared.  For a couple minutes anyway.  I flashed back to that video of the large grey horse rearing full throttle straight up in the air while his rider hung on for dear life.  I grabbed mane.  I waited her out as she popped up over and over again.

The weird thing was how balanced it all felt.  She was not trying to unseat me.

After initial anger...I realized her feet hurt.

Then I felt like an idiot.

She was going about it in the loudest way possible without being dangerous.  She has never done anything like that before or since.

So I walked her over a few feet, still mounted, so I didn't look intimidated by what she'd just done--even though I was, but I'm still the boss here--dismounted, told her I got it loud and clear and turned her out for another week.

Yesterday after a good looking lunging session, I threw my bareback pad and bridle on her and took her for an easy walk around the pasture to check my fence.  No hesitation, no complaints.

Her feet are just about ready.

I just needed to listen to what she had to say.

And that brings me back to the beginning of this post: reasonable expectations.

I think it's almost human nature to set goals, and when goals are reached more quickly than we expected, to immediately set higher goals, over and over, ad nauseam, until we inevitably fail.

"We're just going to try 2' today," rider with her green jumper says.  Horse pops over it with no problems, because he's been set up with a task he can easily succeed in.  "Well that was easy...let's try 2'6"."  And on and on.  And before you know it, you've got a horse that won't jump a cross rail.

"We'll just do one canter depart."  Horse departs well and canters smoothly.  "Well that was easy...we'll just do another, and canter a few laps this time."  And before you know it, you have a horse that balks at the depart, swishes her tail, kicks to the inside or outside, and doesn't canter at all.

With horse training, the bar has to be low until the horse is confident in what he can do and how you ask.  That's not to say there aren't times to push it--if you've been cantering 3 laps for a week, it's okay to step up to 6 laps, or whatever--but many of us (yours truly included!) push too hard too fast, which sets everyone up to fail.

One of the things I've had to learn the hard way was really setting the horse up to succeed.

It seems like a lot of riders I watch set their horses up to fail just so they can punish them.  They ask for the canter depart just so they can crank their horses back to a stop.

Boy--I would hate to be that horse. 

It really gives me some admiration for what they put up with from us.

I strive to be fair.  And setting them up for punishment sure isn't fair.

An honest horse will try to give you an honest answer.  He'll shake his head, position his ears and move his body in ways he hopes communicate to you what is going on.  He'll give or brace to pressure.  He'll choose to listen to you or try to get you to listen to him.  The trick is figuring out how to read the signs and what they mean--and it's different for each horse, even though they share a basic language.  I believe this is at the heart of developing "feel".

And now, a laugh the hunter/jumpers will appreciate...(click to enlarge)!

The Hoof Diaries

Today is 2 weeks since I pulled Chev's shoes, and I wanted to give an update on how her footsies are doing.

I think it would be prudent to include a hoof diagram so we all know what the heck I'm talking about.

More than we should, I think we horsemen tend to imagine hooves as static, un-moldable pillars--I know I did.  I am shocked (shocked!) to see what drastic progress has been made in the shape of her hooves, heels and frogs in just 14 short days.

When her frogs and heels hit a wall after the first week and looked like they were threatening to stay where they were (still very contracted), I began to suspect she might have some thrush way up in her frogs that was causing her some pain now that they were actually expanding and contracting.  She was standing like her heels were sore, and while she'd still go onto the gravely areas, I decided it was worth treating as if she had thrush to see what would happen.

I can't say for sure if the thrush treatment did it, but wow--what a difference.  I applied an easy topical to the hoofpick-deep crack in the back of her heels and all over the frog.  It immediately began shedding layers, her heels dropped and spread and now her hooves look pretty fantastic.  I'm still hitting her with the topical every other day or so.

She is also starting to land flat on her hooves instead of toe first, and even steps heel first occasionally (!!),  which is SO exciting for her long-term soundness.

Looking at before pictures I never realized how toe-first her landings were in shoes.  I thought she was just a short strided horse.  But now I wonder if all the toe-first landings weren't spelling trouble for her navicular bone and a bunch of other structures.  Hmmmm...

So, without further ado...the proof is in the pictures!

Front right, 5/8/12--2 days barefoot

Front left, 5/8/12

Left front 5/8/12--note the upward stress (curve) in the coronet band for comparison later!

Left front, 5/8/12--chunk of wall missing and deep cracks in the heel buttresses

At this point I really started to think about what the hooves were "telling" me.  I looked at the stress marks, cracks, chips and missing wall.  I realized the hoof was trying to mold into a different shape...and I realized I could help relieve some pressure with careful filing.

The heel buttresses had to come down...they were starting to crack which told me there was way too much stress on them.  They were way too far forward and not supporting the heel at all.  So I carefully brought them back and even with a file over several days:

 Left front/right front, 5/12/12, after taking the heels down/back...this is about the time I start to suspect thrush!  Those heels just look painful.

Right front/left front 5/15/12--treating for thrush x 3 days, what a difference!  Look at how much more relaxed and spread her heels are.  She's also shed a bunch of dead frog tissue.  Whole hoof has expanded, toe growing like crazy.  Day 9!

Left front/right front--Day 11!  5/17/12:  Heels have dropped, they actually make contact with the ground for the first time in 3 years!  Whole hoof is looking much more rounded and I am ecstatic with her progress.

 5/17/12--profile of left front hoof as before.  Coronet band has relaxed significantly from 5/8/12 but still has a ways to go.  

Present day, 5/20/12...

Looky here!  Same foot, same coronet band,  14 days post shoes.  No arch at all!

 Look how round!  It's far from perfect, but look how much more healthy!  False sole that was so embedded I couldn't even tell it was there has almost all shed off...

 Front right with beautiful concavity! 

Her front right, the "better" foot, is almost ROUND!  I cannot believe it!  Go back and look at those first set of photos.  

 Front right from the side to show how her frogs actually TOUCH THE GROUND!  Whoopee!

I am just amazed at her progress.  I couldn't be happier with how she's adapting to the barefoot life.  I might become one of those crazy barefoot people!

She freely chooses to go over gravel, walks out nicely and looks comfortable.  I did notice some minor swelling here and there in her legs (especially during the first week) as she adjusted to the different angles, but that's pretty much all disappeared now and a couple trims down the road I think she will be looking awesome.

It's always good to go the conservative route rather than going for heroic big changes--she walked off sound from this first trim despite being in shoes for almost 4 years--we didn't take a ton off and I'm glad.  

Now that her feet are getting proper circulation they are growing like CRAZY.  

Using the nail holes as a guide, I'd say she's grown out almost 3/4" of hoof in two weeks.

As a comparison, the hoof is usually completely replaced every 9 months.  For most horses, that means 1/4-2/5" of growth every four weeks.  I'm thrilled!  Her hooves are really responding to the increased circulation.

I wish I had taken some measurements in the beginning, because her entire hoof has completely changed shape.  It went from an oval with a contracted heel, to a nice, round, functional heel-and-frog-touching-the-ground kind of foot.  I think it's expanded at least 3/4" as well.  It is truly amazing.  The hoof isn't a static body part at all!

I attribute a lot of this to her environment, and I don't think going barefoot was an option before when she was in a small, soggy pen.  She has four dry acres to roam on, with sand, grass, dirt, rocks, gravel--all the right things for conditioning the newly-barefoot hoof.

Would you like to see how the rest of the horse is doing?

The coveted dinnertime grain ration

And this is the other place she spends a lot of her time (the hay feeder):

"Are you quite sure 4 flakes is enough?"

Update...& barefoot

Okay, so Chev has been at the new place for almost 2 weeks.  And she is finally starting to settle in.

Because of the spring grass, I only started leaving her out all night 2 days ago...and she seems much happier being outside all the time.

On Sunday, I had the farrier pull her shoes after a 2 hour walking trailride around the backroads.  She was well behaved for the ride, being a looky-loo the whole time but with no spooking--and she didn't care one bit about the cars.

So she has been barefoot for 3 days now.

I should probably add that she's been in shoes for about 3 years because of various hoof angle issues, the crummy Oregon soggy ground, and then her tenderfootedness.

I did try barefoot with her at the beginning of the winter, and lasted only a week because I couldn't bear to see her so uncomfortable.

So her shoes came off, and the first day she actually was doing really well--even trotting on her own.

Yesterday she was visibly sore, but it didn't stop her from choosing to go in the more gravely parts of the pasture area, and though she was stepping cautiously, she wasn't lame even at the trot.

Or, she was equally lame on both fronts.  You get the idea.

So here are some pictures I took of her feet yesterday after I cleaned them up with a rasp (and managed to rasp my knuckles a few times.  This rasping stuff is tricky!).  Naturally not 10 minutes after I turned her out from her trim with the farrier she had already managed to wreck the whole inside wall of her left front hoof...sigh.  I think the trim needed to be a lot more rounded than it was...but it is what it is.  I attempted to give her a more rounded, "mustang roll" to her front hooves, which should help with chipping and with breakover.

Front left, with the side missing!

Front right, which is a much better shaped hoof

Here's one that shows the hoof on the ground: 

The reason I've really wanted to get her barefoot is the damage to her frogs.  If you look at the pics that show the underside of the hoof, you can see how contracted her heels have become in the shoes.  I'm hoping the damage isn't permanent yet and can be turned around--but I guess only time will tell.

She'll go in and out of the stall now that she's not getting locked in at night!

This is how she stands most of the time--her heels might be a little sore which wouldn't surprise me

Old gelding in the background really likes her.

Hoofprints--her back hooves are definitely nicer than her fronts right now.

So I'm keeping an eye on things--I'm glad she's settled down a  little--maybe her feet are sore enough that she doesn't want to be pacing like a crazy thing.  But I think she's also getting used to the place.

A good face rub makes any day better!

  

ETA:  Tonight her frogs seem to have dropped somewhat and are SPRINGY!  Sort of.  Getting there, anyway.  For the first time in ages, I press on them and they move!  I think this is going to work out for her.

New barn update: My horse can't relax

Well, there are some good things and some bad things.

The good new is it's literally 4 miles from my house, the guy who owns the property is really nice and my horse has plenty of room.

The bad news is my horse is an idiot.  She spends almost all day, every day just pacing the fenceline.  She has worn a rut.  The grass will never grow back.  And all the nice grass, which I've spent all week acclimating her to, really isn't getting eaten because she just paces all day.

I'm at a little bit of a loss as to what to do.  Her focus is on the other horses, which makes it annoying to do anything with her.  Which means we spend most of the time rehashing the stuff that I thought she had down as a 3 year old (like manners, etc).  My ears are still ringing from all the screaming she did right in my ear tonight. 

She actually rides fairly well out there, since she has learned that screaming = more work, but it's frustrating to tie her, brush her, saddle her, or do anything else since she is so distracted by getting back to the fence to pace and stare at the other horses that could care less that she's a pasture over.

The only upside is her turnarounds are really coming along...

I admit, I did not expect her to have this reaction.  She has never really been a "horse oriented" kind of horse, so I was hopeful the transition to solitary living (within sight of other horses) wouldn't be a big problem for her. 

But here we are, a week later, and I thought she would have "settled in" better.  She has better days where she does less pacing, but yesterday she was pacing the fence when I left in the morning, and pacing when I got back that evening to put her away.  Sometimes she is sweaty, sometimes she isn't.  4 acres of grass, and my stupid horse spends the whole day just turning one way, then the other on 100 feet of fence.

Suggestions?