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Yesterday Julie and I took Maddy and Lady out for a ride. It was my second time on Lady, the first was a few days after she squished my foot (which still hurts, but is healing) and I very nearly had an emotional breakdown just getting on her (long story). Happily I was able to swing up into the saddle with only minimal hesitation.
This second ride was decidedly more purposeful than our first. That first ride was more about me being physically back on a horse after such a long hiatus that I wasn’t really worried about what the horse was doing. Yesterday’s ride let me know a whole lot more about Lady. First off, Lady is a very forward horse, until she decides that she’s had “enough” at which point she stops, parks, and politely asks that you get off. Secondly, Lady isn’t particularly brave. She’s quite willing and forward so long as she’s on familiar ground, but the second that she’s somewhere new, she becomes timid and hesitant… not spooky, but not brave either. She’s quite willing to follow (and by follow I mean rest her head on the lead horse’s butt while pushing them ahead of her) and then take the lead on the return, but she’s definitely not a brave leader. For the most part I found her to be solid, if a bit green, and very reliant on her companion horse. If Maddy seemed spooky, then I felt Lady get lighter in her mouth and more tense. If Maddy was calm, then Lady was fully relaxed. We also discovered that Lady doesn’t like dogs (or cats or other small furry creatures). She doesn’t spook, just tries to decapitate them with a deadly accurate kick. The only thing that she did spook at during our ride was a razor scooter that one of my neighbor’s granddaughters was riding. It probably wouldn’t have been a problem at all had the child not raced the thing up ridiculously close to Lady’s hindquarters. She spooked up a few steps but settled quickly… so quickly that I hardly call it a spook at all.
Overall I think Lady is a bit lazy, probably due to sporadic riding at her previous home, but is showing incredible potential. Her trot is big and forward. I have not cantered her yet… partly because she’s out of condition but mostly because I am out of condition!! She does have rhythm issues, but again I think consistent schooling will iron that problem out as well. Currently I’m riding her without a whip or spurs (her previous owner relied on both) and in a Kimberwicke (I never tried the bit that came with her as it’s actually too small for her mouth). I love Kimberwickes for draft horses as they seem much more responsive to that bit than any other I’ve tried (and I’ve tried loads!) Lady’s previous owner had great difficulty with turning and relied heavily upon a German Martingale for “power steering”… I have not had this problem and have seen no need to tack her with the German martingale at all. I am having a problem with “overflex” in her neck which is probably due to the martingale, but we’ll see how that progresses.
I’m not a big advocate for riding with a multitude of artificial aids. I do ride with a long dressage whip when we hack but that’s only partly for a riding aid… mostly it’s a defensive aid against spider webs (seriously) or flies.
Anyway… I think we had a good outing yesterday and I’m already looking forward to our next ride… maybe this afternoon??
Wednesday we trucked down to Alpharetta GA to pick up another new horse… this time a Percheron that we have named Lady Annaliese, or Lady for short.
She’s a big mare. Big and very HEAVY! But more on that later…
Here are her stats:
She’s approximately 11 years old
She is a dappled grey with a wide blaze very different in her coloring than Alise or Fantine… I’m not sure that she’ll fade to white as they have.
She’s about 16.2hh (I haven’t measured her, but this is what her previous owner told me).
She weighs about 2000lbs maybe a bit more.
On the negative side she has poor ground manners and is also a bit overweight. Ok… I shouldn’t say she has poor ground manners as she doesn’t bully or drag people along after her. She actually has a pretty “soft” head (meaning she doesn’t pull against the lead line or halter) but she doesn’t stand still very well.
On the plus side she is already rideable so while she’s definitely going to need some fine tuning she at least won’t be starting from the ground up.
Unfortunately her previous owner sprayed her with a particularly foul fly spray (I do not know the brand) that smelled like cheap cologne and immediately made me break out in great red patches everywhere the horse touched me. So yesterday M and I decided that there was no way around it… Lady was going to have to have a bath! So we brought her out and for the most part she did ok. Until we got to her mane. At some point in the not so far off past (I hope) the previous owner had dressed Lady up like a unicorn and had dyed her mane and tail pink. There was still remnants of the pink in her mane and in the hair under her mane. It seemed to be very irritated as Lady played up considerably during that part of the washing (seriously, it’s totally wrong to dye a horse’s mane/tail/coat… I know it seemed cute, but nonetheless, to me, it’s wrong).
By the time M (who was washing… I was holding) got to her back legs, Lady was pretty tired of the whole thing. So when Martha startled her it was really no surprise that she swung around a bit disconcerted to see someone walking up the driveway. Unfortunately when she swung around she stepped and twisted on M’s foot, knocking her down in the process. M’s sporting 2 possibly broken and badly skinned toes (yes she was wearing boots). So we finished up the bath and tied Lady out on a long rope to graze while she dried out.
And that’s when we discovered that Lady doesn’t tie out on a long rope well. She managed to wrap the rope around her hocks, ultimately cow-tying herself. By the time I got to her head she was sitting on her bottom with her head pulled to her flank. So I unhooked her halter and still she didn’t seem to be able to stand up so I gave her halter a tug and hopped out of the way. Unfortunately I didn’t hop quickly enough as her front hoof came slamming down on top of my foot as she stood up, knocking me down so that I was laying underneath her belly! By the way she has a GREAT “whoa” command! The whole time I was falling I was saying “whoa… whoa… whoa” over and over so when I stood up I just grabbed her halter and we walked off like nothing.
And initially I thought it was just nothing. Until I stopped moving long enough to actually get feeling back in my foot. Jim finally appeared and took Lady from me and I was able to take my boot off to assess the damage. She had stepped on the right middle part of my foot (she didn’t hit my toes at all) and it was swollen to tennis ball size. So I hobbled into the house and immediately put my foot up only to be informed that I was going to the ER to have it X-rayed so I hobbled off to the bathroom and peeled out of my very wet, very dirty, very horsey clothes and tried to look like I hadn’t been rolling in the dirt with a horse and off we went.
We were pretty much in and out in less than an hour and luckily nothing is broken. The doc told me to stay off of it for 24 hours which is laughable. Even the family thought so as they all went off to work leaving me to feed and maintain the kids… so yeah… no biggie.
So anyway, this morning I have a puffy purple foot and a strong desire to go out a mess with the horses, but I’m going to be good and stay inside and let my poor foot have until this afternoon to get better 
But back to Lady… I have no ill-will towards the mare. If anything it was my own fault for putting her into a situation where she could get tangled and I simply got what I deserved. I’m hoping to be up to riding by tomorrow (or this afternoon if I push it) and will update more on Lady’s performance at that time.
The horse thing is killing me. I know I sat here and typed out the whole “giving up on this for now” post, but we all know that was laughable.
I’ve been out to see another horse.
Not going to buy it, but went to see it. Would’ve seriously considered buying it if not for the I’ve-never-seen-it-this-bad foot fungus problem… that and I suspect she might have a sore back issue as we bucked Jim off rather soundly.
And that’s when it hit me. I’ve moved into the desperate stage of my horse search. I was actually willing purchase an unsound horse if it got me that one step closer to riding again.
It was a big wake up moment.
So I had a firm talk with myself and promptly went here and fell in love with this and this and this.
Hey… at least they’re sound and ride-able and come from a reputable place.
Sigh.
I’m afraid I’ve been a bear to live with for the past few weeks. I’ve cried over Aimee again and again and again. The horses at VSH remind me of her, which reminds me that she’s gone, which reminds me that I don’t have a riding horse which makes me look at their horses and then I cry all over again.
Sigh, sniffle.
So… I’ve tried to focus on Beau and Leo.
Beau is coming along nicely, still a bit jumpy and spooky, but coming along. He’s getting easier about being casually handled and I lead him around the driveway without a single incident. He was definitely uncertain and relying on me to clue him in to what was going on, but he listened well and didn’t play up at all.
Leo, on the other hand, has turned into a bit of a menace. The weather here has taken a slight turn towards Autumn, the mornings are cool and the days aren’t quite as hot and I think the combination of weather and food has turned our once sweet boy into quite the devil. He levelled a fine karate kick at me just the other morning (he missed and hit the water trough instead) which made me realize something.
The gonads have gotta go.
Seriously. On our little quarter mile road there are 16 equine. Of that 16, five are geldings, five are mares, four are jennys, one is a jack and the other is Leo the colt. Two of the jennys are bred but that still leaves seven ladies to love and one gent to fight. Zeke, our jack, is better mannered than Leo, but isn’t happy about the colt being here either. So I’m waiting for the vet to let me know when he can come out to do shots and then we’ll schedule his procedure.
FYI- I don’t own all the horses on our road. We have 7 horses and 5 donkeys.
Ok, after typing that I feel the need to explain. Yes we own 7 (EEK!) horses. Here’s the run down-
Alise- white Percheron mare, approx. 30 years old. I retired her several years ago although the kids do sit up on her from time to time. She’s the boss mare of the pasture and at about 17.2hh she’s got the size to keep that ranking.
Fantine- white PercheronX mare, approx. 10 years old. She is a PMU mare and has absolutely no concept of horse behavior. She is unpredictable at best and while I have high hopes for her, I’m realistic that she’s pretty much going to be a pasture ornament. She’s about the same size as Alise.
Maddy- bay Appaloosa mare, approx. 14 years old. She is the gigantic mare that Julie rides. We got her the summer before Jim and I got married as a “if you buy this mare will throw the App in free” kinda thing. The mare we originally bought, a OTT TB didn’t work for us so I gave her to a friend, but Maddy turned out to be a real gem. Maddy grew from about 15hh to 17hh in the first year or so that we had her but we never thought about how big and well boned she was (particularly for an App) because we compared her to Aimee. Next to Aimee everybody was small!
Belle- bay Mustang mare, 17 years old. Ah Belle. My first from the ground up training experience. I should’ve picked a more sane horse as Belle has always been a bit on the screw-loose side. Belle is maybe 14hh… although I would say she’s shorter. I have ridden her and even did lessons on her for a while, but eventually she was retired because of her unpredictable nature. We’ve toyed with gifting her to somebody that wants a companion horse, but we always come back to the fact that Belle eats very little and her actual maintenance is slight and she’s Maddy’s best pasture mate so Belle stays.
Skye- blue roan POA gelding, approx. 12 years old. Skye is very nearly as wide as he is tall. He hasn’t been the best pony in the world, having a distrustful nature (yes, normal for a pony I know) but Xander loves that he’s blue and has spent quite a good bit of time lead-lining around on him. He’s also a favorite of my nephew Spencer. I think he’d make a fine cart pony, but I have neither the cart nor the harness to make that happen.
And of course there’s the boys-
Beau- bay Mustang gelding, approx. 7 years old.
Leo- Palomino TWH/QH colt, approx 18months old.
So while I have 7, some of them are special needs and some of them are retirees. Only Maddy is truly ride-able and that’s Julie’s go-to mount and since Julie is my go-to riding companion… well you see the predicament.
Sigh.
Have I mentioned that I miss Aimee? Cause I really, really do.
Slowly we’ve been piecing together history for Beau and Leo.
Beau we knew was a captured mustang, I did the research on his tattoo and discovered he had been in a herd in NM and he was approximately 7 years old. I already knew about the abuse he suffered during training and have discovered that its effects run deeper than I had originally thought. He has a deep seated distrust of men but we’ve been working on that with mild success. He’s eager to please but wary of being hurt. Trust is a big issue for him.
And then there’s Leo. On the surface he looks like a simple victim of malnutrition. But I have come to find out that our sweet tempered, mild mannered colt (he is not gelded) has been subjected to the maniacal whims of a apparently deranged man who found great humor in shooting his rifle to make the horses run. Turns out he either aimed at or accidentally hit Leo during one of those sessions. The photo shows where the bullet hit him. I can’t find an obvious exit wound so the bullet may still be lodged in there somewhere.
Why?
I mean I love to watch horses running… But shooting them to accomplish that? Explains why Beau has trust issues… And yet Leo is the same old sweetheart. What’s really annoying is that the neighbors called out the USHS when they saw the blood on his flank and later heard the shooter bragging about what he had done. And USHS did nothing.
Sometimes it’s just not fair.
I wrote the following on August 2 about two horses at the end of my road. My FB friends know the outcome. Below is the background.
There’s the pasture at the end of our road that’s cursed. That’s my explanation for it anyway, since every horse that goes in there ends up dying or abused or “in a bad way” as the saying goes.
Currently there are 3 horses in there.
One is a bad ass miniature stud. He’s one of the tiniest minis I’ve ever seen, I don’t think he comes up to my knee but he’s viciously evil. I don’t know who he belongs too, but I’ve never seen anyone out messing with him at all.
Another one is a Mustang gelding… or at least I’m fairly certain he’s a gelding. He’s lovely but seriously abused. I heard from one of the neighbors that he was sent for “training” which evidently consisted of bagging (basically tying a plastic grocery bag to a whip and shaking it at him until he quit freaking out… only in his case it just made him scared of the sound) and beatings. He has scarring on his face and his teeth/mouth look very suspicious to me.
The remaining horse is by far the worst case. He’s a 2 or 3 year old Palomino colt that is considerably under weight. With a little effort I’m fairly certain Jim and I could pick him up. He has a possible stifle injury (his leg can rotate around to a surprising angle) and he has a horrendous bruise on his near hind hoof. His condition is, quite simply, appalling.
And the worst part? Animal Control/the Humane Society has been called. They said there’s “nothing we can do about it” because the horses are on what initially looks like lush pasture. They are indeed on a very green pasture, but it’s weeds, grown up higher than my head even! And they have access to a creek so they are getting water.
But they’re getting no feed, no minerals, no worming. And obviously the Palomino is desperately unwell and being abused by the miniature stud. And yet nothing can be done according to the authorities.
So… we made contact with the owner in an attempt to have something done for the horses, particularly the colt. He was sympathetic to a degree, and allowed us to go handle the horses to assess them, but when we stated that the Palomino was in desperate condition he blew us off. M asked him to state a price and instead of giving us a quote he headed over to craigslist and placed an ad… which is laughable… oh so laughable. No truth in advertising I tell you!
So I’m in a quandary. Part of me is hoping someone will come, buy them and get them the medical treatment they need… I know from the neighbors that there have been visits to look at the horses.
But part of me wants to bring them here.
Jim bonded with the Palomino right off the bat. The poor thing just took a shine to him and they were inseparable. Eventually, with proper nutrition and medical care I think the Palomino will grow into a nice tall horse, although I think he’ll always be thin… but that sort of horse would suit Jim.
And the mustang… oh how my heart breaks. He would look at me with deep soulful eyes, asking if he could trust me… daring to believe that I wouldn’t hit him… bracing himself for the blow he thought was coming and then slowly relaxing as he realized I just wanted to rub his face. Most all horses come running at the sound of feed rattling in a bucket. The mustang ran away, cringing at the rattling sound, so similar to the plastic bag he’d learned to fear.
I don’t know what to do. The price the owner is asking for the Palomino is ludicrous… the horse has better odds of dying than living and is very probably unsound. The bruised hoof will most likely, in my experience, turn into an abscess… that will prolong his unsoundness and will require a great deal of effort to heal. The price the owner is asking for the mustang is fair to frickin cheap. But how do I get a terrified horse from that pasture to mine without destroying trust or getting somebody seriously hurt in the process and furthermore… these guys can’t go into the pastures with my girls. They’ll have to be quarantined at least until they’re wormed and assessed fully, and in the colt’s case gelded.
And then there’s the horribly selfish part of me that’s upset that these horses are totally NOT what I want in a new horse. The Palomino will be great for Jim, but the Mustang is maybe 14hh and while stocky and broad… not exactly my size of horse (remember Aimee was a Percheron) probably a good size for Xander eventually… but I’m the one that’s been actively searching for a new mount and if these horses come here the odds are very good that my possible riding horse will no longer be an option since at that point we’ll be up to 6 horses (not counting Skye and the donkeys).
The owner never did contact us. We had to resort to some creative subterfuge to even speak with him about them, but in the end we purchased both horses and moved them to our farm on August 5.
As with most all my horses these two had a bit of a “rebirth” upon moving in. Chesney, the Palomino colt, became Leonidas, or Leo for short (Leonidas being the King that lead the Spartans against the Persians at Thermopylae. His name means “spirit of a lion” which I felt was appropriate for a horse with a golden coat). While Thumper (ugh!), the bay Mustang gelding, became Bucephalus, or Beau (Bucephalus was Alexander the Great’s famous warhorse. Since Beau will most likely become Xander’s horse I thought the name was appropriate… Xander being short for Alexander and all).
This was taken just after we brought Leo home.
Beau just after we turned him into the paddock with Leo.
I’m happy to report that Leo is gaining weight and my initial concerns seem to be unfounded… I’m not saying he doesn’t have some issues, but his hoof seems to be healing nicely and I’m no longer seeing the freaky stifle issue. We did have an issue with him laying down to sun and either he fell asleep and became overheated or was too weak to stand and became overheated… but either way I made a near frantic phone call to the vet for some advice and happily it all turned out well. We’re starting to seem some coltish behavior now that he’s getting enough nutrition to have the energy to be coltish… but on the plus side he seems to have a naturally mellow personality so the coltishness is quite rare. We found out that he is a TWH/QH cross… but honestly I’m not seeing the QH anywhere… this afternoon I watched him do the TWH running walk thing across the paddock… so he’s definitely TWH. I also think his age is way off. I think he’s barely 2 years old. And also I discovered that he’s not exactly a palomino! He’s actually a palomino roan. When I was grooming him I noticed that his golden coat was not purely golden. He has white hairs all throughout his coat and his mane is more of a strawberry blond than flaxen, although his tail is much lighter. Since he’s been having daily grooming his scruffy nasty coat has been shedding out and a shinier, healthier, more golden coat is appearing… but he still has the evenly distributed white hairs that continue to mark him as a palomino roan. I kinda like that he’s a bit unusual
I’m also happy to report that Beau is settling in nicely. He’s still very skittish but he’s making huge strides every day! He’s now allowing me to pet his face without being lured in by a treat and this is HUGE progress for him! He’s allowed me to touch his neck and back and even girth-line while he’s eating, but it was with a great deal of apprehension on his part. Someone has beaten him, thinking they were training him and it’s going to take a lot of time to undo what was done to him. He’s got scars on his girth-line where he was incorrectly saddled and scars from spurs where he was “busted” I’m sure and he has scars on his chest where I assume he was hit with a whip or belt. He also looks as though he has been punched in the face and twitched on his bottom lip which wouldn’t surprise me considering the level of abuse that he obviously suffered. And even after suffering through all of that, he’s still willing to try to trust a human again.
I did do a little research on his BLM tattoo and discovered that he’s from a herd captured in New Mexico and the BLM estimated that he was born in 2002, which makes sense I guess now that I think about it. He won’t be growing any taller, but he’s very stocky for his size. I think conformationally he’s pretty good. He carries himself beautifully and completely in balance. I didn’t see it, but when we were attempting to catch him in his cursed paddock he jumped what he thought was a low fence and his form, I’ve been told, was perfect. He’s well muscled and very alert and very eager. I’ve been very impressed with him and I still have faith that with consistent handling he’ll come around.
So anyway, my days are now filled with forays out to the side paddock to talk to the boys and see how they’re doing So far I’ve taught them a couple whistle commands and they both know their new names. Leo is working on ground manners and leading and Beau is content just now to watch. All in all life is good and I really don’t regret anything at all
