Sunrise update

Here's a picture of one of the x-rays:

For as horrible as it looks, the nail does not penetrate bone. (It was in the digital cushion)

And a picture of the vet doing the regional limb perfusion this morning:

Blah

Went to work with Kieran (was going to do some lunging, mostly, with side reins. Maybe over poles if I felt like dragging them around). But just got him trotting and...

...he looked off. Called Christine over, had him trot for her. "Yes, she says, he's off on the left front". I'd already picked out his feet so knew there wasn't anything in there (and hadn't noticed anything unusual when I did) so we suspect a bruise/abscess is brewing. When we were riding around the farm yesterday, we did go on some rock we hadn't before so he could've done it there. Either way, he got the night off. I did take a few pictures of him beforehand, though:





And, update on the Clydes...

The yearling with the nail out of her hoof is running a fever (was 105something without banamine, 102something after banamine). Leg is swollen and hot and she's not a fan of being kept in a stall. She's learning about being scritched by humans, though! (we took a while tonight to just scritch her wherever she liked best so she wouldn't associate humans with unpleasant things like getting her temperature taken and getting shots...)

The others seem to be okay. The three year old is in the stall adjoining the yearling and seems totally content to be there. The other two mares are outside in a smallish pen where they can see but not get to other horses (quarantine precaution).

Here's the three year old enjoying her stall:


Sunrise, the yearling:


The roan mare is the three year old's damn


And the other mare

Gentle Giants rescues 4 CLYDESDALES, 1 with a NAIL stuck in its hoof!

So there was this guy who had been a Clyde breeder who's rather old and had had a stroke and had been needing to downsize his herd. He ended up having to send 7 of his horses to an auction up in Athens, PA (practically in New York state) and, unfortunately, GG only heard about it after the horses had already been consigned to the sale. Here's what Christine says about it:

The owner of these horses suffered a stroke and has struggled for several months to sell the horses privately. I had the pleasure of speaking to him on the phone. He is very hopeful that the auctions efforts to promote the horses will draw good homes. We talked at length about what could happen if they sold to a kill buyer, and while he doesn't want that to happen, he is truly in dire straights. He lamented that had he met Gentle Giants beforehand he would have happily sold them to us for a low price, but they are already consigned and he hired a shipper to haul them to the sale. He's an old time gentleman, and won't revoke the consignment, he feels that would be wrong of him. That's why we are going.

Anyway, so GG drove up there yesterday (not me, I was busy buying a car!). Three of the horses sold for well over meat price (two of them actually sold for the most the auction had EVER sold a horse for, $1800 and $2250, respectively). Those three were two pregnant mares and a stallion. The four Gentle Giants got are two 6 or 7 year old mares, one 3 year old filly, and a yearling filly who went through the ring lame. Supposedly, she'd been kicked by one of the other mares and "would be fine in a few days"....

Here's some pics they took of the mares at the sale:


I believe the one in the middle is the one we ended up with and the other two on the sides are the pregnant mares.


The other three.

So they loaded up the horses at around 8PM last night and started making the long drive home (5 hours!). Unfortunately, they had a blowout (one of the inner tires on the dually) somewhere around Scranton and couldn't find ANY roadside assistance that would come out and change the tire on a dually and double wouldn't come out for one hooked up to a loaded horse trailer. After calling God only knows how many folks, Christine finally got a referral to someone who does tows for semi trucks and had some kind of lift that could do the job. Once that was done, they were back on the road, and finally got in around 6:30am today.

Not believing the filly would get better "in a few days", the vet was called out for an emergency visit. What did she find, you ask?

A four inch framing NAIL stuck up near the heel bulb. Before pulling it out, the vet took some x-rays so we could find out what the nail actually penetrated but in the mean time, the filly (named Sunrise) is being treated with IV Antibiotics once daily, oral Antibiotics twice daily, twice daily antibiotic flushes of the wound, oral vasodilator (to help get more medication flowing to area) and regional limb perfusion with antibiotics every 48 hours. Prognosis is extremely guarded.

Here's video of the nail coming out:



If you could, please keep this filly in your thoughts!

Exciting day!

You might remember the "seriously explosive" pic from last week. Here's pics from this week's practice. :)


Caught Kieran napping outside this morning. Guess he knew he had to rest up. ;)


Milling around


Pole bending


This lady just picked up riding again after not riding for like...40 years.


They had to reset one of the barrels... :)


Turn and burn!


Racing


Already turned for home and Twister's still trying to make it around the barrel. ;)


Coming home! I think this was at the end of a barrel racing pattern.

Today's Lesson Report

Lesson tonight. Spent most of it riding over poles and a good chunk of that doing so without reins at both a trot and a canter. Also did some jumping and got video of the last couple times through. We did not end on the second jump you see in the video below but went back through and did it once more where he didn't knock the jump before we ended. Anyway, stuff I noticed watching myself: my elbow angle doesn't change at the canter so I'm not really following his mouth (hence there's points where I have contact and points where there's slack in the rein). Also, my legs are way in front of me and I can't seem to properly get my heels down (okay, these are things I've known, but they're annoying. I always feel like I'm keeping my heels down and then I watch myself and no...not down).



And some screencaps:


Kieran is pretty! I...am not. Everything I hate about my position. Feet too far forward and pretty level. Shoulders kind of hunched. Ugh.

And the first jump from the vid:

Seriously explosive :)

Yesterday a bunch of folks got together to practice for some fun gaming shows coming up. Barrels, pole bending, plug race, figure eight, that sort of thing. At a trot. (blistering speed, let me tell you!)

Anyway, someone got this picture of me and Kieran waiting around. I put her caption below the picture.


"Blair & Tyler paying close attention....Blair really has her hands full here with her pony!! Not sure how she can contain this explosive beast!!!"

Doesn't he look like a ball of fire, or what?

Pictures from Saturday

Just did a short ride on Saturday and someone snapped some photos of us. Don't have enough brain right now for a full write-up, but here are the pics!





I have no idea why I'm leaning so far back. From the position of hand and reins, I suspect it was a walk break but I still don't know what I was doing there.






Just trotting over.

Poooooooooles

Okay, so tonight, the ring looked something like this.

Low crossrail at B (ignore the dashed line, I made a mistake), cavaletti and exceedingly low vertical (cavaletti height) at X, trot poles at E with the two I-beam shaped ones up on little blocks. Later, the middle pole was removed to make them canter poles.

So first, we trotted over everything. Post around the outside, two point down the diagonals, that sort of thing. Then I have to trot over everything a couple times with no stirrups while posting (which was actually a little easier, my ankles sucked tonight).

Then the three trot poles became two canter poles and we did some cantering over everything. Got some nice transitions up out of Kieran though he kept wanting to break into a trot at the poles by E for some reason but managed to get a good canter over them at least once or twice. Then Christina put two of the poles up on the little blocks next to each other like || and the third pole on the ground in front of them so: |||. And we cantered over that (and the crossrail on the other side). Once, Christina wanted us to try cantering up to the left from A to E around to C then turn across the diagonal at F (would have begun trotting before he had to turn at H). The idea being that we had to really go deep into the corner at K to really make the turn. But...yeah...that didn't happen though technically Mr. Kieran is capable of it. He broke into a trot and I just kept him moving. Everything else he did well, though and we ended on a good note.

Kieran likes when we end because he usually gets ear scritches from Christina before we go untack. ;) He also got some mints and a bit more turnout before it was time for the horses to come in for the night.

All in all, not an exciting ride, but a good one. :)