Ears through the years

Focus.

Sometimes I get a little toooooo focused on all things dressage. And shows. And scores, and working up the levels. Goals are not bad, and striving to work up the levels is not bad either.

But it's good to step back and remember why you really do this.

From today (that's the farm on top of the hill)

Like today, I hopped on Hampton after he has had nearly 3 weeks off and went out back in the big, hilly field covered in snow. It's warming up and our hack was downright heavenly. We both enjoyed it. He was perfectly behaved and had a wonderful pep in his step for a while. Until walking up and down the hills in the snow started to tire him out. haha. 

It was just me and him. Like it always has been. 

Life is so short. Appreciate these moments with your horses. In the end, the scores don't matter.

I don't want a horse that gets big scores in the ring. I want a horse who I can jump on after 3 weeks of a nasty winter and enjoy a relaxing ride in the snow and not fear for my life. 

I want a horse I can trust. And who I enjoy being around.

Here are some photos of "ear shots" throughout the years. We have done so much together and experienced some really cool (and a few terrifying) adventures. 

Whatta guy.

His first jump lolz

I think this may be the first ear shot of Hampton I took. When I was finally brave
enough to take both hands off the reins. ha.

Long-time readers may remember that when we switched barns in 2010, I did
not have a trailer. So I RODE Hampton (3 years old at the time) from one barn to another taking
back roads. About 6 or 7 miles.

Another snow ride

Hanging out at a 4-H show. 

Trail riding

Indiana corn fields and windmills

Checking for gators

Fall trail ride

We moved to Kentucky in 2012

Trail riding with friends.

Um, gorgeous

Kentucky horse park

More Kentucky Horse Park

"Oh hey Davey I likes your bridles. Can I eats it?"

Lady's story: Part 1 (Introduction)

So this is Lady.

She is an American Saddlebred mare who found herself in a pretty awful situation.

A few of us pooled some money together and were able to rescue her. So now she at the farm resting and recovering. I'm not sure of the exact details of her story, but I do know this:

- She has been shod, and her feet actually look pretty good. She has amish-type shoes on.

-She has a raw spot on her chest. Probably from a chest collar.

She was clearly an Amish cart horse. And I'm not saying all Amish treat their horses this way, but there is no excuse to ever let a horse get into this condition. 

She is easily the most emaciated horse I have ever seen. Dead or alive. We all see photos of these types of horses on the internet, but seeing a horse in this state was shocking to me in person. 

She has a thick coat of fur, so that makes her look better than she is. 

She is a sweet girl, but sometimes skeptical if you enter her stall too quickly.

Yesterday I offered her a treat (Mrs Pastures cookies) and she snorted at me as I held out my hand.

She sniffed. Snorted. Gave me the bug eye.

Then finally took a bite. Yay! Success!

No horse can resist Mrs Pastures.

The next time I walked by her stall, she nickered at me! 

In spite of her condition, she seems alert, friendly, and bright. So I think she will pull through. She is on the proper feeding protocol for rehabbing horses in this state. She will probably need her teeth done, but that may have to wait because she is in no condition to be sedated if that would be needed.

I took her on a walk this morning and she was foot perfect. So someone halter broke her well. Plus Saddlebreds are generally easy to deal with on the ground if you ignore the snorting.

She looks like my old ASB mare, Queen, which is why I took a liking to her.

I'll keep posting updates on her progress. She sure is sweet and deserves a second chance.

Did you guys know it snowed?

If he was a person, he would be a Calvin Klein model.

There has been a serious lack of current photos of the Porkchop on this blog lately! That is just not acceptable, especially considering he is easily the most photographed horse I have ever owned. Probably the most photographed member of my family. Except for maybe my cute niece.

So here are some snow photos of Hamps. The horses stayed inside the day before and so he was more than happy to prance around for a photo session in the morning. He looks gorgeous romping in the snow. His face is so evergreen - it just does not age!

BOING!

But anyway, Hampton is doing well. We've been forced into a vacation because winter decided to show up. But that's ok because we worked consistently well into February. Meanwhile Hampton is being treated for ulcers (oh hey, so I am!) ... he is feeling great, but was displaying mild symptoms that made me suspicious. So we'll see if 7 days of GastroGuard makes any difference. See ya, paycheck. Down the hatch!

Can we talk about the ba-donk-a-donk for a moment?

Other than that we are in survival mode here in the midwest. It looks like it may warm back up here in another week. Maybe then I will have something more interesting to say other than I AM SO COLD. WHY IS EVERYTHING FROZEN. ARGH.

Good boy Hampton, practicing your square halts.

The Trainer Post

This post has been a long-time coming and sadly this topic has caused me significant stress throughout my riding career. It's sad, but I'm not alone.

Fun show with ZERO instructors! Just good friends.

Trainers. Instructors. Coaches.

SprinklerBandit wrote a small post touching on this subject CLICK HERE to read it.
But I'm going to expand and offer my opinion. Like it or not, I'm going to go there.

Here's the thing, a trainer is providing you a service. You are the client, you pay them. Why would you accept sub par service or emotional and physical abuse from someone you are giving your hard-earned money to?

Here's another observation of mine. It seems to run rampant in the dressage community. There is a certain sector of mostly adult amateurs that I call "clingers" or "instructor worshipers." You know exactly who I am talking about. They are constantly raving about how much of a "miracle worker" Susie Nobody is. At shows, you will see Susie Nobody and her pathetic group of minions following her everywhere around the showgrounds.

Gag me.

Can you not think for yourself?

At the moment I have 2 instructors. I don't call them my trainers because I train my horse, not them. They help me from the ground. Do I think they are great? Yes! Do I think they are the best fucking trainers in the world and they leave me speechless after every lesson? No. They are normal people who are providing me a service. I do consider them friends as well. They are excellent observers, and excellent business women. Which is why I do business with them.

At shows I like to wander. I like to listen and observe everyone else. I don't blindly follow one trainer around and hope they give me a cookie or something.

If your instructor is a bitch to you, and treats you in such a why that you CRY. I have to ask WHY you are paying them money? If you are paying insane amounts of money for a person to "warm you up" at a show, and they don't actually say anything to you, WHY are you paying them? If they throw their hands up in frustration and then storm off from the side of the warm up arena when you ask them a question, WHY are you paying them?

I am smart enough to know when we have a sucky test. No need for you to say my horse
trots like a certain food you find at fairs.

I'll say this. When one person insulted my horse and tried to shame me at a horse show, and then outright tried to bully me into paying them to ride in a clinic I could not afford (then started making threats) ... I fired them. On the spot.

"You know, you would do so much better if only you were on a regular riding program," she said. The thing is, I do nothing BUT take lessons. What she meant was, "You would do better if you took regular lessons with ME."  That is shaming.

"I'm sorry YOU feel guilt tripped," she said when I called her out on trying to bully me (emotional manipulation is a form of bullying). This type of statement is unacceptable to me. As if I am the one with the problem here?! No, ma'am.

Fired.

YOU are the client here, YOU have the control. Don't let trainers treat you like a check-writing possession. You can leave whenever you want to. You can take lessons from other people. You can take NO lessons if you want to. It's your horse, and your money. It is NO ONE ELSE'S FUCKING BUSINESS how you spend it.

Obviously people will spend their money how they please. I don't care if they want to lesson with Susie Nobody, I can only hope they don't experience what I did. Maybe they will see the light. Or maybe they are fine jogging around at Intro level for 10 years. There is certainly nothing wrong with that.

I'm just urging people to open your eyes. Stand up for yourself, for your horse, for your education.

Please don't be a clinger. Check out other opinions - even just online. Or go watch a friend's lesson. Your trainer is not a god. Most likely they are just like anyone else, probably a Susie Nobody just trying to make a living.

Except you won't make a living being a jerk to me!

... to cover my bases, I do recognize that some parts of the industry are made up of owners who are very hands-off. The trainer does everything, right down to managing their horse's feed, farrier, etc etc. The owner just shows up at the show to ride. Or maybe not even that. That is OK, everyone can enjoy their horse however they see fit.

But you should still demand to be treated fairly.

I understand wanting to be loyal. I am fiercely loyal to those who treat me with respect and dignity. I have been taking lessons with my Indiana teacher since 2003 (when I first got serious about dressage). She has outlasted several boyfriends, 4 cars and two horses! ha!

I guess my point is the way that some of these so-called trainers treat their clients is a bunch of crap. It really needs to stop. If you feel you should leave, of course try to leave on good terms and don't burn bridges.

But if need be, fire their ass.

Battle of the sores

I wish it was spring already.

Last fall, Hampton started to develop these odd sores on his pasterns. They were on the front, they were round and they started to grow and become very raw and sore.

He was not unsound, but my constant, obsessive picking at them and treating them eventually did start to piss him off so I knew they had to be somewhat sore to the touch. One even caused a very mild case of cellulitis in his front leg. I freaked out of course, especially after the summer case of cellulitis, but thankfully it cleared up very quickly. But still. The struggle is real.

I never took photos, but they looked a lot like this:

Once we moved to the new barn, his sores continued to exist and annoy me to no end.

At first I though maybe it was a weird case of scratches or some fungus/bacteria combo thing. So I brought out everything I had. I tried every fungus treatment I could think of. I cleaned and scrubbed them daily. I used antibacterial creams. Fungal creams. Dry cow treatments. Diaper rash ointment.

I made one trip to the grocery store and walked out with Tinactin, Monistat, and Preparation H. I am sure that checkout lady thought I had one hell of a personal problem.

Then someone suggested they might be summer sores. So I gave him a double dose of wormer, put a little extra wormer directly on the sores and wormed him again 2 weeks later. No change.

I had the sores treated with a cold laser. This helped a little, but they were raw again a week later.

Someone suggested he might have a sleeping disorder and would fall asleep and buckle down onto his pasterns at times - creating these sores. I guess it is possible, but Hampton does not show ANY signs of lacking sleep. He enjoys his naps and I, nor anyone else, have ever seen him buckle.

Finally I just came to the conclusion that they are simple bed sores. Why he started to develop them now I have no idea. BUT I did find a pretty good solution. These puppies:

I think I found them at Valley Vet

They are reasonably inexpensive - $25 or so - and while not super durable, they continue to do their job after almost 2 months.  I do take them off and let him go without a few times a week to help prevent fungus. But if I leave them off for more than a few days, raw spots do start to re appear. So they are helping. The sores are almost totally healed now. Just some missing hair and a few flaky spots left. Major improvement. I think you could also try an upside down bell boot in a pinch.

Hampton has also gone back to living outdoors 24/7. I am hoping this also helps. He loves living outdoors, and it's also saving me money. I call it a win-win.

Horsie

I get this a lot at work.

"How is your horsie?"
"Oh, are you going to show your horsie?"

.... am I the only one that grinds my teeth at the term horsie?

Like I gallivant around in the mornings with my horsie, without a care in the world!
I prance around in perfect fields and paint his hooves with glitter!
He is just one giant My Little Pony I play with all morning and I braid his hair!

*sigh*

I can't respond because whatever I say will sound stupid.
And I can't punch people in the fucking face because I will go to jail.

But I cannot. stand. it. when people say the term horsie.

#rant

Name in print

One of the reasons I became a perpetually poor, overworked, glorified copy and paster journalist was because I don't like seeing my name in print. I prefer to tell the story, not be in it.

But sometimes it is cool.

Like page 222 in the Feb. 2015 yearbook issue of the USDF Connection.

Cutest bay on the page!

I'm so incredibly proud of Hampton. I sort of minimized our Bronze medal but it really is a rather significant accomplishment, especially on a horse you train yourself. From scratch. Who was never really meant to do dressage in the first place. Without any clue what you are doing.

Remember, you get there by realizing you're already there.

"Slow down for a minute, you might see that you're in it." -Mishka