It’s been a bit warm and swampy here in Florida the past couple weeks, and we started feeling sorry for the younger kiddos who’s foal coats hadn’t shed out all the way yet. They were getting quite sweaty, and between that and the baking sun they were just lookin… a little bit mangey. So Andy and Lucy got haircuts!
10lbs lighter
sleek(ish) and handsome
They’re not the most beautiful body clips in the world – they’re more for function than for looks. Mostly we just wanted to get all the half-shed long wiry baby hair off their bodies so they weren’t such sweat machines. Their legs and faces are already shedding out pretty heavily so we didn’t bother with those, or their sensitive baby bellies. They were both very well behaved and cooperative for their first experience with clippers.
Andy was a little sus about the clippers at first but with some appropriately timed belly scritchies he was easily convinced to cooperate.
such a handsome kid
Lucy stood like a little statue (well… a really judgmental statue, she’s always got this look on her face like she thinks you’re an idiot) the entire time, and even thought the clippers felt good on her neck and chest.
looking quite pink now
It’s definitely helping already, they don’t seem quite as miserable or sweaty in the heat of the day.
Andy seemed quite pleased about his new ‘do.
I’m fanccyyyyyy you guys
Lucy was… Lucy. She lives in her world with her mother where they are always the two most superior beings on the planet, and that’s the end of that.
What? I’m not wrong.
She is just the most bizarre color right now though. She’s chestnut, brown, gray, pink, white, peach, and tan. All mixed together. Or in splotches. It’s not the most flattering way a foal has ever shed out and changed colors, but don’t tell her I said that.
As for Andy, have no fear – we definitely did not touch his fabulous lion tuft ear hairs. They remain pristine.
Last week was Presto’s last week of vacay (thank god)… it was also very hot, so at least the timing for his break worked out. I rode Henry some, when I could get on him early enough, because much past 9am was getting a bit too toasty for him.
You see foals, he sees future minions
I’m not sure he took a single normal step of canter any of those rides… Henry dolphined me from one side of the farm to the other with exceptional glee. Bless him. I’m glad he’s still so sassy.
Tuesday was farrier day, and all 3 children were well behaved and their feet look good.
sleepy doodle
You may remember that we pulled Henry’s hind shoes last cycle, and I was a little worried about his feet crumbling to bits. They did in Texas, but it’s so hard to keep any working horse barefoot there with how hard and rocky the ground is all the time. The parts around his old nail holes did chip up a little bit over the 5 weeks, but no real damage, and they had grown out quite a lot, so this trim the old nail holes are all gone. He’s got a couple of quite lovely-looking barefoot hind feet! He hasn’t seemed tender on them at all either… it’s so sandy and grassy here, much easier to cope without shoes. It was a pretty easy transition.
Hello Feyre darling
Fey’s feet also are finally looking markedly better. When she came she had a lot of flaring and cracking in all 4 feet, with some of the quarter cracks sneaking awfully close to the coronary band. We’re, what… 4 or 5 trims in now and all the flares and cracks are totally gone aside from the one biggest one on a hind foot. That one is much improved, it’s only about 1/4 of the way up the foot now. Slowly but surely making improvement! Her feet are actually quite nice, now that the trim is balanced they’re wearing pretty well in between trims. She was also the best behaved she’s been for the farrier so far, she only yanked her foot away twice and had one mini-tantrum. We’ve been working on that. She’s got opinions (shocking, I know).
unrelated to the post but the matching glitter is pleasing, is it not?
On Thursday the vet came to do Presto’s first vaccine in his re-started flu series (ugh) for his FEI passport. The timing worked out great because that was the day I was also set to take off the wrap over the leg wounds that had had the Regenaflex-M patches on them. She looked at everything, pulled the last couple stitches out of the bigger wound, and said she thought they looked pretty good. His knee def looks great. The other one is trying to make a lot of granular tissue, so she gave me instructions for what to do with that one and said to keep it covered and protected to make sure it doesn’t turn into summer sores. Granted his skin was also getting irritated from being bandaged for so long, so now we’re dealing with that too. It’s been a fun game to try to figure out how to keep it covered in a way that stays, as dry as possible, and also let air flow to that leg. He’s also THE WORST patient for shit like this because he won’t leave anything on his legs alone. Our current iteration features a fly boot that is gorilla taped on. It’s made it 12 hours, that’s a record so far.
On Saturday I swung a leg over Presto again for his first ride back, and… yeehaw, y’all. He is feeling himself. Psychedelically. There was snorting. There was spinning. There was prancing. There was some wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubeman.
Wouldn’t really expect much else would we?
This week we’re hacking and walking poles and stretching his body out, stuff like that, just making sure he’s feeling good and slowly easing him back into work. Hopefully I don’t get murdered… it’s 50/50 every day. It’s been very rainy the past few days, which has kept the temps down (yay) but has meant that they’ve been stuck inside more (boo). It really helps add to the general rodeo vibes.
I won’t apologize for the title. I just won’t. It was begging to happen.
I’m a few days late for actual Independence Day, but it still counts, right? Foals in outfits is always a hit. We had to wait for Foal Friday for the reveal but it was totally worth it.
This year Rhett was our enthusiastic volunteer to dress up for some July 4th themed photos. Well, it was more of an offer to put everything in his mouth and attempt to destroy it, but close enough. He was hired.
whut are deez
While he was not the most cooperative foal we’ve ever had (I think that honor goes to Ollie), he didn’t mind wearing the majority of the stuff. For the most part.
trying to decide if this is fun or degrading
He thought the tutu was a little sketchy (as did Chanel)…
“remove this horrific torture device from my perfect angel child AT ONCE” – Chanel, probably
but his favorite thing was the little red, white, and blue braided headband. He didn’t want to give that back.
delicious, 10/10
Once he decided he wasn’t being murdered with taffeta he got pretty into it, wanting to check out everything (aka put everything in his mouth).
mmmmmmm plastic
Once he decided his beloved braids were secure, he took them for a test drive. Outfit on point. Murica.
We are now officially 10 days into Presto’s summer vacation and yeehaw, things are starting to get… fun?
he’s a lot
He’s getting wilder by the day, and bringing him up to the barn yesterday for a hose and a fly spray was an actual snortfest. He’s seeing sounds and hearing colors.
The original plan was two weeks completely off and then two weeks of hacking… assuming his wounds from the trailer incident are healed up enough to start hacking this weekend, we’ll stick with that plan. Naturally he popped the stitches out of both of them early last week so that’s just superb. Luckily I was able to get a Regenaflex-M patch from Hilltop Bio, so I put that on there last Thursday. Ideally they want it to stay on for 5-7 days… today would be day 5. At this point Presto has like an entire roll of Elastikon layered on his legs, getting it off is gonna be a real bitch, but I have be determined to keep it on there.
fun summer vacay
I haven’t used the Regenaflex patches before, but I’ve heard good things about them. My vet thought it was probably overkill considering the wounds aren’t that severe, but ya know… I like overkill sometimes, it makes me feel better about things. The Regenaflex-M patch is made from amniotic tissue, and it’s supposed to help it heal faster and reduce scar tissue and inflammation. It’s a very thin piece of sorta tissue-papery membrane that goes directly on the wound. It can even be stitched in, but in this case I just top dressed with it and then wrapped over top. We’ll see what the wounds look like when the wraps come off.
it’s cool looking
Presto also got a chiropractic visit, because I was certain he probably had to be all sorts of jacked up from getting high-centered on a chest bar and then falling sideways off the ramp of a trailer. But aside from some soreness around the middle of his back, she said he felt quite good actually.
he has no regrets
I took a week off from riding too, because I figured it might be good to just have a bit of a break myself. I had lots of work to catch up on anyway, so having a little more time back wasn’t a bad thing. Since then I’ve been putting in some rides on Henry, mostly just playing around, letting him dolphin to his hearts content and hacking all over the farm.
the ears of a king
It’s been quite hot here (not Texas hot, but very hot for us – low to mid 90’s) so I don’t want to do too much with Henry since he doesn’t sweat that great, but I think he’s enjoying getting more attention again.
Ocala is pretty in the morning, even when she’s steamy
Mostly things have just been chill around here. Feed horses, clean stalls, medicate horses, try to keep everyone cool and happy… that sort of stuff.
The only other fun thing that happened was that Presto’s FEI paperwork came back.
fancy boy
This is not the final complete version… we actually have to restart his influenza series because I don’t have suitable records to meet the FEI’s very particular criteria for that particular vaccine. Even though he just got that booster in March, I don’t have enough of a documented history to suit their requirements (like… I’d have to track all the way back to his original foal series). Anyway, luckily our chiro vet is also an FEI vet/steward so she knows all the ins and outs of this FEI crap. She looked over everything while she was here and we set up appointments to get his flu vax done (AGAIN) in a way that will satisfy the FEI’s timeline requirements. Once those are done, about a month from now, I can send everything back in to USEF for it’s final approval. What a fun process. Why did I want to do an FEI again?
breedrideevent.com 