Author: Amanda C

It’s been a while since I’ve barnsat for my favorite Trakehners and their fluffy friends. This time was just a short 3-day stint, but it was fun just the same.

I mean… technically, looking after 8 horses, 2 dogs, and 2-3 cats (the exact number of cats is up for debate) is work, but it’s still fun. I enjoy the labor and the quiet time and the solitude that accompany barn chores… it’s kind of therapeutic when you usually work in an office. Once I got to the barn in the afternoon after work, I literally wouldn’t see another human until I got to work again the next day. That seems like a win.

It was hot (omg the sweat) and of course not without our fair share of mischief. One of the kittens never actually showed up at all. No idea if he wandered off at some point before I got there, or if he just hated me so much that he never showed his face. The other two cats followed me around the whole time, telling me what to do, so who knows.

Toni the stallion is always super sweet, and he seemed particularly cheeky this time. He took extra care to slobber all over the handle of the muck cart at every opportunity, and oh-so-innocently crept up behind me as I was cleaning his stall.

One of the other Trakehners thought it would be great fun to bust through the little strip of hot tape along one side of the pasture, swirling the tape all over the place and completely snapping a couple of plastic t-posts. Luckily no one seemed injured (except the tape) and it was just a sectioned off portion within a pasture, so they didn’t get loose either.

All of the adult horses blamed it on the filly… I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until I went back out there to fix it and hadn’t even walked 10 feet away before she waltzed right through it again. Didn’t even have the decency to let me get out of sight first.

And because there has to be drama with literally every species, one of the Dog-Fluffs decided to do a little overnight remodeling of the dog beds.

I woke up to bits of foam scattered from literally one end of the house to the other, and there was Lola, happy as could be, tongue hanging out the side of her derpy mouth. It’s hard to be mad when they’re this cute.

Now their mom is back home, and I’m back at my house and back to my normal life, featuring Henry and an almost-as-derpy-as-Lola corgi. It was nice to have a few days of peace and quiet, with plenty of time for life reflection while doing barn chores. I’ve been thinking pretty hard about the future lately, trying to figure out if I want to make a big life change. I finally decided to put some feelers out and just see what, if anything, comes of it.

Does anyone else find barn chores to be kind of therapeutic?

This is that time of year in Texas where the grass is crunchy, the ground is hard, and the air feels like a moist oven. Therefore, naturally, the things I find myself doing most often are a) sweating profusely, and b) dreaming of Fall.

Since we had to sit out Fall 2016 due to Henry’s fence-kicking injury, I’m feeling a little gung-go about doing All The Things this year. I wanted to spend the spring finding our footing and building our (ok, my) confidence at Training level at schooling shows before spending the $$$ to hit the recognized shows, and I feel like we did that. We had a momentary hiccup with Henry’s confidence at the down banks there for a couple months, but *knock on wood* he seems to be 100% back on track now. MeadowCreek in June in particular was a big deposit in the “we can do this” bank as Henry packed my butt around the XC like an old pro.

Ok, so maybe I still don’t have the balls to actually walk up to most of the tables or corners or trakehners-of-death at Training level (I don’t need to know how wide it is, thanks), but I know for sure that he can easily jump anything I point him at on course. That counts for a lot.

I’m still not sure yet if the budget will allow for 3 recognized shows or just two… we’ll see how talented I am about pulling extra $ out of thin air. But our most optimistic plan looks like this:

Sep 16-17 – MeadowCreek Park H.T – The Fall Social Event

Oct 28-29 – Holly Hill Fall H.T.

Nov 11-12 – Texas Rose Horse Park Fall H.T.

 

With, of course, the addition of some FOX HUNTING thrown in there for good measure. Trainer has been giving lessons to some of the ladies from the local hunt and they’ve offered to “show the ropes” to anyone interested. This is a big bucket list item for me, so I’m definitely in. Pretty sure Henry will think he’s died and gone to heaven.

If I can keep my spending for our Germany trip pretty low, and don’t have any big unforseen expenses otherwise (ha. hahahahaha.), hopefully we’ll be able to do all 3 shows. If not, I’ll have to pick 2. I dunno yet, we’ll see how things go. Plus Texas Rose is, for us anyway, the biggest baddest course in Area V, so we’ll see how ballsy I’m feeling by then. Our plans will stay fluid.

And then in late fall/early winter Henry will get to go spend some time with Trainer to prepare for their Prelim debut. Just the thought of her (read: anyone) having to sit his trot for an entire test is hilarious. Mostly because I’m not the one that has to do it.

 

Said no one ever.

Can I annoy everyone and complain for a minute about how frustrating it is to have a horse that fits perfectly into the most basic panel that Devoucoux makes? Mostly because I’m shopping used, and it seems like pretty much no one else has a horse shaped like mine. If he had giant withers with hollows on each side, we’d be in business. That panel configuration is EVERYWHERE. Alas, he does not. Although I guess I should take a minute to seriously thank Henry for being shaped like a French tree at all, because I’d be infinitely more sad if he wasn’t.

I knew as soon as I sat the Chiberta on Henry last week that it didn’t really fit. It has a 4P panel, the most popular modification I’ve found, which means there’s extra padding in the front part to accommodate a high shark fin wither. Henry doesn’t have a shark fin, but he has a decent wither on him, so I figured it was worth a try.

I could tell as soon as I put it on him that the panel wasn’t right. Sticking it on top of the Ogilvy seemed to improve the balance enough to where I at least felt ok doing a quick ride in it, to at least see how it felt. And as soon as my butt hit the saddle, it was everything I remembered about Trainer’s saddle. Absolute grippy French perfection. For me it was a perfect fit; love at first sit. Deeper love at first gallop. Henry offered up no objections, either. But… that panel…

So when I saw that our Devoucoux rep, Janine, was going to be in my area on Friday anyway, I asked if she would come out and check the fit. I knew it wasn’t going to work as-is, but… maybe she was a miracle worker? Maybe she could offer me an option to make it work? Or, hey, maybe she had something perfect in her inventory. I dunno. I was desperately clinging to some delusional dreams here. This is the price you pay for loving a delightfully molded memory foam panel.

But of course, as soon as I tossed the saddle up there, the rep saw the exact same issue I did and said it was a no-go. I could technically have it re-paneled for $650, but at this point that’s just not in the budget considering the saddle itself was already near the very top of what I could spend. Shout out to Janine here: I am a super annoying person with approximately 9000 questions, and she was super nice as she thoroughly answered each one, both in person on Friday and the ones I’ve sent via email in the past few days.

Since she was already out there I asked if she would check his dressage saddle. To my eye that thing has always been a near perfect fit on him, and he’s always gone REALLY well in it. It has just a plain D3D panel, no modifications, so basically it’s as “off the rack” as a Devoucoux gets.

Pretty much the second she settled that thing onto his back she was like “Wow… yeah… this is the perfect panel for him.”. Ok, so that’s one half of the equation down, we know exactly what Henry needs. But what about me? The 18″ 2AA had felt pretty perfect but, since she was there, I figured I should have her see me sit in it, and figure out if maybe I could fit into a different configuration to open up my options.

Yeah no. I’m 100% perfect in the 18″ 2AA. I know I can do an 18.5″ just fine, but probably not any smaller than an 18″ since the Dev’s run small. And I’m long from hip to knee, so I definitely need the extra forward 2AA flap.

She looked through their used inventory but didn’t see anything that met both our specs. Apparently it’s not a very common one, and when it does pop up, it gets snatched pretty quick. If we needed a 4P panel or if I could fit into an A flap, we’d be in business, but alas neither of those things work. I spent most of the weekend scouring every corner of the internet and came up with nada. But now I’m on “the list” with the rep, so to speak, so hopefully something in our specs will come up soon. Like… really soon… because I don’t have a jump saddle at all at the moment.

It sure was sad when I had to put that saddle in it’s box and send it back, though. Our relationship was brief, but our love was real.

Henry had some pretty exciting times last week, starting with his biannual routine vet visit.

When Henry had his January appointment, the vet wanted him to get his teeth done every 6 months instead of every 12. This is mostly because Henry has what I (lovingly) call “Janky Jaw”. It’s a little crooked, so his teeth don’t line up perfectly. If he goes a whole year between dental appointments he ends up with some pretty big hooks on the right side.

He also was starting to feel kind of wonky in his left lead canter. In January we opted to just inject the right side of his SI area and see how things went, since at that point the right lead is what felt wonky. For months it was the magical cure and I had my normal horse back. Then he slowly started to feel the same way to the left that he had felt to the right before his injection. I figured that if we were going to knock him out to do his teeth, we might as well check and possibly re-do the SI. I also wanted the vet to check on his spine again and make sure he wasn’t having any pain there, since we know he has a couple of close vertebra. So… basically I wanted to just go ahead and look at/take care of everything before the fall season starts. Summer is slow for us, now is the time!

Of course, when I called the vet’s office they told me they couldn’t fit Henry in until the first week of August. Err…

After discussing what all we needed to look at and do, he was able to refer me to another vet. I’ve heard a lot of good things about that vet (and figured it never hurts to know another, right?) so I called his clinic to make an appointment. They were able to get us in the next day!

I liked this vet a lot…he listened to our history and what we’ve been doing, and briefly checked Henry out. He definitely agreed that he was sore in the left SI, and showing some sensitivity on the right as well. He thought that since we had seen success with the first SI injection, we should just go ahead and inject both sides, which is what I was thinking anyway.

He also checked out his spine and saw no soreness and no need for any kind of maintenance there… we’ll just continue to check it once or twice a year and make sure nothing progresses. Otherwise there were no other areas of concern.

The techs got to work scrubbing the injection area while Henry got a little night-night cocktail. Even though this wasn’t the first time seeing the needles for the SI injections, they still look ridiculously giant and make me cringe. Henry stood like a rock though (he’s a cheap date), and he was done within a few minutes.

Then it was on to teeth! Again the vet didn’t see anything particularly concerning, just some moderate points on both sides. He floated everything down to be nice and even again, and declared Henry good to go.

The best part is that the bill was about half of what I was prepared to spend, and a couple hundred less than I thought it would be. In the world of horses, sometimes that feels like a win. Plus now we know a new vet!

Hopefully now Henry is feeling good and will be ready to hit all the recognized shows in the fall. He’s getting some days off and then I’ll be back aboard mid-week to see how he feels.

As I was showing some Presto pictures to a friend last week and talking about all of the trials and tribulations of the first few weeks of his life, they finally asked the big question: “Would you do ever breed again?”. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this for a couple months now and it took me a while to really figure out how I felt.

I knew heading into this whole breeding adventure that the chance of losing a mare or foal (or both) is very real. I’ve been involved with other breeders and the breeding business long enough to know that even when you do everything right, it’s very easy for things to go wrong. I’ve bred before, and I didn’t exactly go into this whole experience with the naivete that many first-time breeders have. I knew the risks, and I even wrote a post about it last fall.

I consider myself a pretty pragmatic person, not particularly emotional or easily upset. But those two weeks where Presto was living very much hour-to-hour at the clinic, struggling just to stay alive… that tested me to my absolute limits. In my adult life I can think of two instances where I’ve sat in my car and ugly cried until the tears ran out: when my mom died, and literally every single day of those first two weeks of Presto’s illness. Emotionally drained doesn’t even begin to cover it.

If you had asked me then if I’d ever do this again, I would have told you no. I was raw, I was bitter, and I was spent. I’ve lost a horse before, but he was old, retired, and died peacefully out in the pasture. He’d had the most idyllic life that any of us could possibly script for a horse, really. The situation with Presto was different. He was young, he was special, and I’d had a hand in creating him. And while his illness came on suddenly, it dragged on and on and on, with constant ups and downs. It didn’t seem fair for that to happen to a foal, and it was a whole different level of heartache. Even though, in the end, he managed to come back from the brink and survive his ordeal, all I wanted to do was protect myself from ever feeling that way again. Then I realized how absolutely idiotic that was.

As human beings, we are always going to be affected by tragedy or loss. That’s the price you pay for loving something. And it almost seems worse, or perhaps just more frequent, for animal lovers. Dogs and horses don’t get to stay with us as long as most people do, and it’s never easy to lose something that is so important to you. But in the end, it’s the price we pay for all the joy we receive from them. Never breeding again isn’t a way to guarantee that I’d be safe from the danger of loss or tragedy… the only way to guarantee that would be to hermit myself away from all other people and animals and live a life of complete solitude.

Would I be feeling this practical about things if Presto hadn’t made it? I think eventually yes, but it would have taken me a lot longer to get there. While I’ll never be able to forget how I felt when he was sick, I’ve decided to try not to let myself be haunted by it. It took me until, well… NOW, as I’m drafting this post, to be able to go back and look at his newborn pictures and the ones from when he was at the clinic. It just wasn’t something I could face without re-living it.

The world keeps turning though, and while time might not completely heal all wounds, it does at least put a scab over them. I’ll never forget what happened, but I can’t allow my life and my choices to be dictated by things that are beyond my control. I choose to keep trying, to keep hoping, and to keep allowing my dreams to be untempered by circumstances beyond my control.

So… would I ever breed again? The answer is yes. Sure, I never want to feel that kind of devastation again, but there’s another thing I felt during all this that I haven’t talked about as much. That very first moment when I saw Presto’s little white foot followed by his little white nose, I fell in love with a horse. With those first adorable little nickers at us, when he was trying to figure out which of us was his mom, I fell in love with a horse. When he took those first few steps and wobbled his way over the top of the hay pile, I fell in love with a horse.

And at the end of the day, isn’t that why we do this? Isn’t that why we give our heart and soul and blood and sweat and tears to these animals? Sure, its a risk, but the reward – when we get it – is unparalleled. There is something remarkable about the privilege of loving a horse from the moment it takes it’s first breath, and that’s something that no amount of heartache can take away.