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. :)

'Round the world we go!

Today was just a pretty basic lesson. Warmup was that while Kieran was walking on the rail and doing 10 meter circles in the corners, I had to sit three beats, go into half seat for three beats, sit 3, half seat 3, sit 3...

Then, Christina had set up the ring to look like so:

Two trot poles up by A, then a caveletti and a low crossrail (on blocks, very very tiny) catty corner to each other at X.

Basically, I could trot on the rail over the poles, then turn and go down the diagonal over the things in the middle as I changed direction, that sort of thing. Lots of doing it in two point. Then she had me go around posting with only one (the outside) stirrup in each direction. Which is totally harder than doing it with no stirrups. And then I had to go up into two point, then slowly lower my chest toward Kieran's neck (without collapsing in on myself or pinching with my knee or letting my leg swing!), then raise back up into regular two point, then lower, then raise...all while he's trotting along. I've done that exercise while halted before but today was the first time we did it at a trot.

Then (and here's where the post title comes in) she wanted me to try to do "around the world" while Kieran walked in a circle around her.

Talk about terrifying. I was sure I'd fall off.

I did manage to get my left leg over his neck so I was sitting with both legs on his right side but then I just couldn't get up the nerve to swing my right leg over his hindquarters (I was sure I'd fall off backward and land on my head or something). So I chickened out and slid off. Of course, Christina made me get back up and do a real around the world (at the halt!) which I did. Wasn't pretty, but I did it.

Then I did the thing where I swung both of my legs over to one side of Kieran, but one hand on his neck, the other on the cantle (so, if my legs are on his left side, my right hand would be on the cantle, and my left on his neck) so I could then twist myself around to, essentially, have my belly against the saddle. Then I have to get back up into the saddle properly.

I think if I were doing it properly properly, my weight when I twist around would always pretty much stay on my hands/arms, and I wouldn't have taken that moment to lean my body against the saddle. =P

Then, just for the fun of it because the next rider wasn't quite ready yet, we did some quick canters a few times around the ring (and a couple times starting from a walk/trot out of F, heading toward H, we'd start cantering after F across the diagonal and over the cavaletti. Kieran thought I was nuts. ;)

Games

Still waiting on the pics from yesterday.

In the meantime...had a good lesson today. Spent the first half on me (lots of trotting and cantering in two point. It was easier today than on Thursday, for which I'm grateful). Second half, we did "games". Christina had set up a few things for us to play with. One was just the tarp, laid on the ground between two poles and we walked and trotted over it (Kieran didn't even look at it twice, since he's already been introduced to it). Then she'd put a small bucket on top of one of the barrels and wrapped the handle with silk flowers and had me walk up to it and pick it up as we walked by, go around, then set it back down again. Easier said than done since I had to time shifting my reins to one hand until just a split second before I reached the bucket (since Kieran doesn't neck rein) and if he wasn't in just the right position and I didn't lean down the right amount...I wouldn't be able to scoop the darn thing up.

Once we were doing it reliably from either side, she had us do it at a trot.

She also had the pool noodles (I picked a bunch up from the dollar store last year so we could do goofy things with them with the horses) stuck in one of the other barrels and had me do the same thing. Walk by, pick one up, walk around with it (and this time, pass it over Kieran's neck and around my back), then stick it back in the barrel. Then we did it at a trot. Then she had me trot to it, pick it up, pick up a canter, and canter back to the barrel to put the noodle in. Finally, she held one of the noodles up a little higher so I could reach it more easily and had me canter to her, take it from her, canter back around, and give it back. ;)

Fun times and it made the lesson really interesting for both me and Kieran. I mean, I still had to work on using my legs and core to stay on the saddle, even when leaning over the side, plus Kieran had to listen more to legs and seat than reins about where to go.

All in all, a much improved lesson experience over the last one, LOL.

Going back to farm tomorrow (yay, holidays!). Unsure if I'll ride or do something else. May not decide until I get up there.

Some kinda wind!

Too bad today wasn't like yesterday.

I mean, yeah, it was sunny. And the ambient temperature wasn't so bad (if you were in the sun).

But the wind! Yeesh. That wasn't any fun at all.

That said, I did manage to take Kieran for a spin around the big field, though we didn't do any long trot sets (Lynn came out with us on Tyr and that was like...his second time out in the big field so we kept it simple). Did do a bit of trotting and cantering over the logs in the field (can't really call it jumping, hah) and Christine got some pretty ridiculous pictures of us that I'll have to post later when she uploads them.

Then I did take him inside and we did some riding around in the ring. Nothing too exciting, though I did do some "canter a few strides, come back a walk, walk a bit, canter a few strides..." sort of transitions because his downward transitions from a canter are pretty sloppy.

My ankle felt much better today, for the record and I cooled him out standing in two point most of the way.

Other than that, he got a massage a week ago Friday and I've been emailing back and forth with the massage lady about it. Mostly I just wanted her to check him out and see if he did have back pain that needed dealing with (before it becomes an issue). Here's what she told me about what she found:

Basically, Kieran had moderate tension in the bilateral lumbar region, right stifle and right hamstrings. I also found tension at the base of his neck on the left. These are actually pretty common areas of tension and don’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. I’m actually seeing a lot of horses that have a lot of tension in the hind end lately, and I think a lot of it has to do with the ice. The tension in the lumbars is a common finding – it could be from him jumping, as this is where the horse will flex to bring his hind end under himself, as well as the area that is stressed during jumping. Some muscle tension is normal and to be expected when a horse is learning to use himself differently.

So all in all, she didn't find anything of major concern or suggest that she'd need to come out again which is, I think, a good thing. ;)

I was totally off my game

Last night was a lesson night. Christina and I both decided no jumping, just flatwork. Oh, and since we've started doing shorter lessons (I'm doing a half hour twice a week instead of an hour once a week), she's turned up the intensity in how much effort she's asking out of us.

Which is okay, and something we need, but ugh, last night really sucked.

Before I got on, I hiked my stirrups up a hole to see if they'd help with my two point. Then we did a quick warmup of walking serpentines (in two point) and yes...it was easier to get up and find "my spot" where I need to be to stay up. Christina commented that my position was like...100x better.

That's the good news.

Then my right ankle started yelling at me (which is weird because it's the left I sprained).

I kept trying (she had me doing 20 meter circles in two point at the trot by this point) and I'd get three quarters of the way around the circle and just collapse because of the dang ankle.

So she had me drop my stirrups and do posting without stirrups part of the way around the ring, then sit, then "two point". That was hellacious too and not because of the ankle but because of my thighs (and that, at least, is simply a fitness issue).

So she wanted to do more two point stuff and we dropped my stirrups back to where they normally are. Except then I couldn't get my position to work and was wobbly and when I did it at the canter, my ankle felt like it was just about to give out (at least Kieran gave me some very nice trot to canter transitions!).

All in all, a very frustrating night but at least it brings home that I've got a couple things I really need to work on to improve my riding:

1. Figure out the ankle issue. Whether I just need to do strength/flexibility exercises for them or get better stirrups (though I'm already riding in jointed ones) or both. Or maybe try riding with some sort of brace on for a while, if I can, to provide support.

2. Work on stamina and general fitness. Even if I'm only doing half hour lessons, we should be doing longer rides when not lessoning. And I should make myself really work at it and push through.

Any other suggestions? I'm open to them!