Wherein Courage Almost Gets Sold

What farrier day normally looks like

I know you're all like "WTF SB, you tried to sell your horse?" 

The answer is no. 

But I seriously considered it. 

What I expected

You remember how Courage threw his shoe a week ago? Well, my life is an ongoing shit show (cross your fingers it gets better in two weeks!) and the farrier was booked up, so we just kept our normal scheduled appointment for this past Monday. No big deal, right? The little man is probably a bit body sore and five days off wasn't going to make or break us. 

I wrapped his foot in highly attractive duct tape with flying pigs on it (Thanks J!) and let him live his normal life while I dealt with other things. 

Then came Monday. I pulled Courage out of his stall for the farrier and was surprised to see that my little bay horse was showing the whites of his eyes. 

Huh. Never seen that before.

It pretty much went downhill from there. Despite neither the farrier nor I doing anything offensive or crazy or weird, Courage just progressively lost it. We were trying to keep things calm in hopes of his brain returning to orbit. I even took him back into a stall to eat hay and chill out for a good 20-30 minutes to see if that would help, and nope.

How bad was it?

Well. 

sorry

At the end of two hours, he had one shoe on and I legitimately thought I was going down under him on cement. Oh, and he was rearing/leaping straight up in the air every time the farrier picked up his foot. And kicking. 

We had to abandon the entire idea. We scheduled another appointment for Wednesday and I was given strict instructions to work that ****** down. 

But here's the thing: 

I'm an ammy. I absolutely 100% refuse to own an animal that behaves like this. Yes, I understand that I could just drug him every time he needs shoes, but I am not willing to go that route. A horse like that gets his ass sold down the road with full disclosure. I realize other people are willing to deal with that, but I'm not. 

It's dangerous. I'm not interested in dangerous. I don't care how talented Courage is and how much fun we've had. If this is a thing for him, or if he learned from the experience how to get out of a shoeing, then we're done. 

Plain and simple. I don't play games with this stuff. 

Now known as "riding weather"

The next two days, I worked the shit out of Courage. In one shoe. In a wet arena. Til he foamed. I don't really think I've ever just intentionally worked a horse down for the hell of it before, but it was very productive. I'd actually venture to that my pent-up rage made it very easy to be clear and directive and not take no for an answer from him. 

I rode like a total badass. "OH YOU WANT TO SPOOK AT THAT ******** WELL I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO SPOOK AT". I felt totally secure in the saddle and Courage was bloody brilliant. We had prompt, crisp transitions and correct bend and counter bend and leg yields both directions on and off the rail and lots of ring figures. I kept changing the questions which kept his brain engaged.

Correct work is exhausting

Honestly, those are probably the top two best flat rides I've ever had on him. He was light and connected and responsive and forward and even floaty. It was pretty great. 

And then the farrier came out again on Wednesday right after our ride. I had just enough time to curry the foam off and take some deep breaths so I wouldn't be channeling any extra nerves to him. 

And Courage dozed on a loose rope and was perfect. I probably could have ground tied him and walked away, but I still want my farrier to like me. 

So. Little bay horse. Not getting turned into hamburgers or sold. Definitely is going to step his flatwork up to the next level, though. 

Rainy Day!?

It's August. I live in Southwest Idaho. It is very hot here in the summer, and not very cold in the winter.

Today, it dumped rain. Not a little Idaho rain, which most people from states with water refer to as "mist" or "non-existent". No, it was a real, hard, respectable rain.

It didn't start that way. It was dripping a little bit when I started tacking Izzy up, but there was light on the horizon, meaning that it would clear up in 20 minutes or so. I monkeyed around with the martingale, making sure everything was fitted right. I got it for $10 on craigslist, so I'm actually thrilled that it fit. It's actually a hunting breastplate with a standing martingale attachment, so there were lots of straps to play with. I made sure the breastplate was properly adjusted, then put the martingale on the loosest setting. Again, all I want it to do is keep her head away from my head. She's not at a point in her training where I even care how she carries her head.

Anyways. She lunged pretty well in it, and we started our lesson. Cathy had me work on getting a true forward walk out of her, rather than letting her mosey along. When she's more forward, she'll have to work harder to get behind my leg. She barely got stuck at all, even in the sticky spot. After trotting both ways, we took a walk break before we tried canter. Then it thundered, loudly, directly overhead. We decided to call it a day.

I took Izzy back to the hitching post and started untacking her. Bear in mind, it was my first time trying to take a hunting breastplate off of a horse. I left her bridle on as I unhooked everything carefully. As soon as the last strap was done (the martingale from the noseband), rain started pouring down hard on the tin roof above us.

Let me just take a moment to say that while Izzy used to live in a covered run, she has lived out in the pasture with her friend for months now.

She panicked. She almost reared, ran back wards, shot forwards, almost reared again, and ran forward. Pretty much immediately, I reconciled myself to the fact that my saddle was going to take a hard fall into the mud and I began to plan to get her away from it when it did so she couldn't step on it and break the tree.

Fortunately, that went as planned. After the saddle came off, I managed to steer her into the arena and close the gate, then get the bridle and martingale off before she panicked again.

That went pretty well, all things considered. Neither she nor I was hurt. The tack was dirty, but not damaged. I left her in the arena to run around and be silly while I picked up my muddy tack. After it was all put away, I got my halter and caught my now-sheepish and soaked pony.

Silly girl.

PS TACK SALE TOMORROW! I don't know if I need anything, but I'm going because I'm a nerd and I love tack... seriously. I can't touch leather products at stores, or I want them.

Sigh...

I found the trailer I want. It's a white two horse slant with a tack room for $3500. I keep watching trailers on craigslist so that when I'm actually in the market, I'll know what I'll need to spend. This one is perfect (from the description), except that I'm not actually in the market. I have neither a tow vehicle nor $3500. Oh well. Birthday present, anyone? ;-)

There must be something in the water. Both my girls were extremely naughty today. Cassie kept pretending that everything was going to eat her and absolutely wouldn't focus, and Izzy... I don't even know what to say. I'm going to have to call it our worst day ever, at risk of sounding bipolar. I promise, I'm not. She kept rearing on the lunge line (going right and left). I finally quit trying. I just dropped the whip, put her on a like a 5 meter circle, and when she made it twice around without rearing, we stopped. Then I went to ride. I probably shouldn't have. I was already aggravated with her, and there were way too many other boarders capitalizing on the nice weather. There's nothing like trying to ride a young horse with minimal steering around other buffoons when the young horse is already acting up.

There were some positive moments. We started walking over poles. Her steering is getting a little better.

Other than that, she kept hauling on the reins, then leaning through her should, then getting stuck, then not stopping, then tossing her her, then spooking and tripping over herself... It was frustrating.

Nothing like mares.

To fix the problem, I'm going to go out tomorrow and get Izzy out first. I usually have about 20-25 minutes to myself before other people start showing up. I'll turn her out in the arena to run. Then, I'll tack up quickly and try to get some riding in before the arena gets busy. That should alleviate her issues. I'm thinking that even though she lives out in a pasture, she just really needs to blow off some steam. If I lunge her and she starts acting up, I'll just do what I did today: drop the whip, just get around a small circle, and quit. I don't want her to make an issue of it.

Ugh. Cross your fingers.