Phew! It was like a holiday marathon over here this past week. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all of you. It's nice when they happen at the same time. Kind of... The only downside is I'll be traveling for the majority of Chanukah so I won't have my daily sweater post this year. It'll be back better than ever next year though. Anyway, let's talk about horses.
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| If you look carefully, they're all in this photo |
We had a lot of easy days this week for various reasons and didn't do any jumping. We'll get back to that after vacation! This time of year is so busy and the horses will have time off while I'm away anyway, so I don't see anything wrong with stepping back and just having some light, fun rides.
I had an interesting revelation on Friday and Saturday with Al. I mentioned last week how something has switched recently and he's been a lot more rideable and relaxed. It had continued this week until Friday. I was in a little bit of a rush Friday because we were having our barn holiday party that evening and I needed to go back home after riding to make what I was bringing for food and to feed the dog. So I was trying to get the horses done somewhat more quickly than normal. I had lunged Al bit before I got on because he let me know the day before that he was needing that. But what I didn't do was hand walk him around the ring prior to lunging. That's really not required outdoors but he is not a fan of indoor rings as we've learned and that does seem to help make him more comfortable. I had thought I could skip that step because he's been so good of late, and I figured the lunge should accomplish the same thing. It did not. He didn't want to lunge near the ends, which normally after we walk around together first he will get pretty close to the ends while on the line. On top of my skipping a step that day, we also had more external distractions than his threshold can handle. It was a VERY windy day. And that ring makes some crazy sounds on windy days. The doors rattle and bang a little and there's a weird kind of whistle that happens at one of the ends. Even Eros isn't a fan on windy days. Of late, Al can handle those sounds if that's all he hears. But there was more. The barn runs along the long side of the ring here. And at the end of the barn, at the same end as the whistle-y wind, the farrier was working on a horse in the barn. You could hear him talking to someone pretty loudly, you could hear the forge, and you could hear the hammering. But that's not all either! At the other end, right outside the entrance to the arena, one of the workers was dragging floor mats around to clean under them. She wasn't particularly noisy, but you could hear the dragging and slapping when they were slid around and then put back down. And that my friends, is way too many factors for Al. He tried really hard to pay attention to me, but it was just a little too much. He didn't do anything bad, but he was really shut down. So I just decided to end the ride that day, He'd moved around plenty on the lunge, so he'd gotten enough exercise. And I just didn't see things improving. You might say I gave up. But I'd disagree. I decided to let him be finished before it turned into an argument. Before his little marbles fell out of his ears.
So the next day I was really wondering what I'd have to work with. I still had to rush some as we were having our family Chanukah party that night, but I made sure to have enough time to do all the steps for Al. And you know what? He was wonderful. We had one other horse in the ring with us who is a pretty steady eddy kind of dude, so that was certainly helpful. But Al was the same horse he'd been the last couple of weeks. No evidence that Friday had happened at all. So I really think on days like that where there's just too much going on that he can't see, I shouldn't ride. I should lunge him those days so he gets out and does something. But I don't see any point in opening that can of worms. I'm not concerned that this will cause a problem showing where it's total chaos because I don't plan to show him inside. He's an outdoor kinda guy. And outside he can see everything that's making all the noise. Plus, there's usually horses everywhere which really puts him at ease.
It's hard for me to accept that it's okay to allow for days like that. Days where we don't ride. I was always taught that horses work six days a week and they should fulfill a certain set of expectations each ride. But honestly, I just don't think that works for Al. Some days are too much for him. Maybe it will get better as he ages, maybe it won't. Maybe I'm way off here and this isn't really the answer to getting him to be the horse I think he can be. But I won't know if I don't give it a few tries. He's been pretty good otherwise the past week. They all had Sunday and Monday off because the weather went nuts and it was single digits. But still, when I did get on Tuesday, he was a good boy. Today too. He was angsty today, and I had even less time than the other days last weekend, so instead of pushing too many buttons, I just did a walk trot day with him. And he tried super heard. He had more good moments than bad ones. He was a little spooky and jumpy (not spinny at least!), but he would go right back to work with a soft poll and moving off my aids. I call that a win. Especially because it's still ridiculously cold here and he'd have every excuse to be terrible. It was a nice last ride before vacation, even if we didn't canter.
Eros has been his perfect self for the most part. He hasn't been a big fan of the one end of the ring with the weird noises, but that's not really abnormal for him. He doesn't do anything wrong, he just lets me know that he hates it and it's probably unsafe and I'm the worst for making him go there. He's feeling pretty good lately though so I'm happy about that.
He's broken out in hives again. It started a few weeks ago, and I had reached out to the vet to see what I should do. I'm pretty sure it's shavings related. And he's still on daily Benadryl. Doc suggested switching him to Zyrtec. So I went and bought it, but the next day when I returned with the new meds, the hives were gone. So I didn't switch. And then of course, two days before I'm supposed to leave he's broken out again. I don't want to switch his meds while I'm not there, and while the hives look unsightly, they don't seem to be itchy. So I guess he'll be lumpy while I'm away. If he's still like that when I get home, I'll switch the meds.
Also funny... I got them all new blankets from Big Dee's because Shiny ripped her (brand new) heavy already and Big D had some nice faux Baker looking blankets super cheap. I got her one and it was lovely. Fits great, has nice features, seemed amazing. But when I put the blankets on the boys... They did not fit at all. Al's isn't as bad as Eros' is, but man! I'm not sure if I should try sizing up or just write them off as being the wrong shape... The sides are really short, which they kind of are on their green ones too, but not as bad as the new Big Dee ones.
The neck seems to sit too high and his belly hangs out the bottom. They also don't have a tail cord, but that's an easy fix. (They have leg straps, but they did request blankets without them here.) What do you guys think? Should I try sizing up? They both normally wear an 80, but I almost feel like I'd need to go to 84 in these. It's so odd because Shiny's fits perfectly, and she's usually the toughest fit. I dunno. I'm still on the hunt for 300 gram stables in green that have long enough sides and don't cost $400 a piece. I really can't figure out why Premier Equine doesn't have a 300 gram green blanket. I have the 200 gram from them that I love. But the 300 gram version of the same blanket only comes in navy. And I know it's stupid, but I don't want navy. I want green. I should write to them and maybe I can convince them to make green next year.
Shiny is living her best life over here lately. We've had several bareback ride days which she loves because I encourage the Shiny shuffle and the "work" part of those rides is usually only about 15-20 minutes. I'm old. That's a long time to not have stirrups! The most interesting thing going on with her these days is that she seems to be making friends with the other horses. Which is very unlike her! There's a mare that she loves. I caught them hanging out next to each other in their paddocks. She has individual turnout, but most of the paddocks share a fence line with another paddock so they can get pretty close. And she was just hanging out with this mare not making faces. Not kicking. It was so nice to see! I feel badly though because that mare is just here for a few weeks while her owner is home from college. Then they head back.
But she was also caught flirting with a TB gelding today. Well today she was flirting. A couple days ago he had convinced her to go running around her paddock. Not ideal, but Shiny's smart. She only ran enough to get her point across, not so much as to get hot in her blanket. Or you know, exert herself. The TB is a little bit of an instigator. He had Al galloping the fence line with him another day. They were definitely racing (the TB always won) but Al's lazy enough that he wasn't really RUNNING around the paddock. Just the one long side. Then they went back to playing bitey face. Which he also loses every time, but very much enjoys.
I head south to the Bahamas tomorrow, so they are off for the next week. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much while I'm gone. But at least I know they'll get a hand walk if they can't go out, so that's nice. It's aways hard for me to leave them though. I'm definitely a helicopter parent.
In other news, do I have a story for you guys! I mentioned earlier we had our family Chanukah party on Saturday. We did it early because of vacation. Vacation is with my dad, so we needed to celebrate with my mom beforehand. Plus it's nice to have it a little separate from Christmas since my nieces celebrate both. Anyway, back to my story. I wore this fabulous outfit for the celebration:
Yeah... I took it a little too far this time. But the important part for the story is that headband. You can see it better here:
My niece wanted to try it on so I let her. Because why wouldn't I? That was earlier in the evening. So fast forward to after dinner. We're opening presents, having a great time. When my other niece asks if she can try on her sister's hat. Well my sister in law is looking inside the hat and goes "oh no. No, no, no, no!" And we're all what? And she goes "Head lice". LICE IN THE HAT! So that put a real damper on our party. EPIC party foul. Thankfully sister in law pretty much immediately went to Walgreens and bought all the NIX they had (lice shampoo). She got me a bottle since we'd shared the headband. I'm happy to report that I did not get any lice shared with me, but I did use the shampoo just in case. Did the comb. The whole thing. Lice free. THANK GOODNESS! How gross. When I was a kid, they used to check us all regularly so if anyone had it, they'd get sent home and couldn't come back until it was gone. but they don't do that anymore and apparently it's just always going around the school. How disgusting. I don't get why they'd stop that. Thankfully they caught it really quickly and even the infested child didn't have very many. Still. Ew.
In my huge discomfort about the whole lice thing, before I went to work with the magic shampoo, I also threw everything I'd been wearing and Rita's dress in the wash. Know what else went in there? My car key. Oops. Thankfully it made it out unscathed and is still functioning. Not usually my luck, but I'm very grateful. Because my truck has decided to throw an engine light at me... I'm not even addressing that until after the new year. I hate that truck so much.
So I think that's it for this week. It was a lot! Two holiday parties, single digit temps, lice, and an engine light. Quite a week! Vacation can't come soon enough! We're leaving pretty early, so I won't see the horses until I get back. Rita's at my mom's for the week. I find it so hard to leave them all. But I'm sure they'll all be just fine.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Happy Merry Chrismukkah!
