Ever since I sold Prize, I have felt guilty over what happened. To say I berated myself is an understatement. I felt like I had let down my horse. I had promised Prize I would never sell her, and then I had to. I swore that I would do everything I could to prevent that same thing from happening again. When you sell a horse in desperate circumstances, you have less control over...
Continue reading...Horses
Prize… Again
Monday afternoon my Mom forwarded an email to me. A woman had emailed her asking if Mom had a daughter who had won a horse in a raffle… Prize is still alive! She’s 23 and living in Chapel Hill, 10 miles from where I live. I’m going to call the lady tonight and go see my old girl this weekend. I can’t believe she is still around. Related Images:
Continue reading...One More Nite, aka Prize
When I was 16, I had a dream come true. On Mothers Day that year, we were at the regional show at Frying Pan Park, Vrginia. The horse show was part of the Eastern Amateur Arabian Horse Show Circuit. We arrived with a four-horse stock trailer with three horses, including the gray mare I was showing, Silver Run Sahsha. The show had a big event: a purebred Arabian filly was being raffled during...
Continue reading...Clinic and Riding Lesson
The Bay Wonder Mare Senior did well in the clinic and in our lesson on Sunday. We did the in-hand work and also the under-saddle work. It is easy for me to forget how bright Isis is. One of the exercises in the clinic was to encourage the horse to lower his/her head by massaging and applying a little pressure behind the ears. When the horse lowers the head a little, you remove...
Continue reading...Happy Valentine’s Day — and catchup
No, not the red stuff. That’s spelled differently. (Don’t ask the English major to spell. Most of us can’t.) Happy Valentine’s Day! I spent a wonderful day at a natural horsemanship clinic with Isis at her new barn (more on that later). Five hours with the Bay Wonder Mare Senior™. She was amazing. She did all of the ground work “textbook perfect,” as the instructor called it. I was most pleased. The drywall...
Continue reading...Only horse people…
A friend of mine sent me this. I couldn’t stop laughing, and realized that if you don’t have horses, you’ll miss out on most of the jokes. Horses come with a specialized vocabulary that can be rather opaque. If you have a question, ask. I’ll be happy to explain a term. Only horse people… Believe in the 11th Commandment: Inside leg to outside rein. Know that all topical medications come in either indelible...
Continue reading...Sunday with the kids
Sunday morning was the weekly riding lesson. My last riding lesson was last Sunday and it went well. Unfortunately, my back hurt so much the morning after I had to stay home from work. Last night, I went to the company holiday party. Three hours of walking around in heels plus moving boxes out of my storage unit meant my back was a mess this morning. I took 400 mg of ibuprofen and...
Continue reading...Kasane’s Feet
The vet saw Kasane today at lunch. The good news is that the way we were treating her foot let her actually heal more. She may have had some thrush, but that appears to be mostly gone. The vet ended up cutting away a good part of Kasane’s frog on her front left foot. We need to wash the crevasse between her hoof and frog every evening and keep an eye on it....
Continue reading...Catching up
A lot has happened in the past few weeks. I’ll write some posts to catch up. Here’s the brief list: New horse: Kasane is the primary reason why I have not been posting much on here. I’ll write a long post about here with pictures. Stella: She has been fighting a urinary tract infection and appears to finally be over it. She’s also getting one pill per day for her high blood pressure....
Continue reading...Seleukid coin with mare and foal
My friend Nantonos owns a Seleukid coin depicting a mare and foal.
Continue reading...Amazing Lesson Last Saturday
Last Saturday, Horsemasters sponsored a clinic at Rivendell Farm for rating for a Bronze or Silver Mounted and Unmounted tests (specific to Pony Club). Isis and I went to the clinic with Max (horse) and Ro (owner). Isis loaded beautifully. She walked on without any trouble and stood next to Max in the trailer quietly. Isis and Max got along well. Isis even let Max eat out of her hay bag (first time...
Continue reading...Blanket Woes
I ordered a new blanket from Dover Saddlery for Isis in case the weather in NC turns nasty (think winter ice storms). I wanted something that was water proof and could adjust to different temperatures. After reading through a bunch of pages from the regular catalog and from the clearance pages, I ordered a Tuff Rider Stretch Manager Turnout Blanket. According to the catalog page, this clearance item has a stretchy layer so...
Continue reading...Isis and Sierra
I got out of work later than I wanted and went to the barn. First time I was able to ride this week. (First week after daylight savings time.) Something about working hard to leave at 4:30 and then getting out and realizing it’s actually 6:00 pm… and I only had 30 minutes to tack up and ride before it was dark. The ride started off pretty well. Until Isis’ barn buddy came...
Continue reading...Saddle fitting
After the riding lesson on Tuesday, I scheduled an extra lesson to fit the dressage saddles I’d located. I want to make sure whichever saddle I choose fits not only me, but also Isis. A new (or used) saddle is a big investment (“cheap” means under $500). Arabians are notoriously hard to fit in saddles because they tend to have broad shoulders and round backs. Isis’ hunt saddle (made by Zaldi) is a...
Continue reading...Horse Show Report
Back from the show and man was I tired! I had been worried the show would be cancelled because of the rain we’ve had (plus the forecast). The show was on, luckily. I felt really good about our preparation for the dressage portion of the test. I was very nervous about the cross country part. We had only ridden on a cross country course once during the practise clinic a few weeks back....
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