January 12, 2015 – Zen and the Art of Baby Horse Management

I had a jumping date with my bbff (best barn friend forever) today, but somebody lost a shoe last night in turn out (harassing a new mare at the gallop for at least ten minutes before our barn manager could separate them) and was a little ouchie, so I didn’t jump. If you’ve never felt it, it is weird to feel your horse guard himself at the canter — off steps and unevenness at the trot is easy to find and kinda the place you expect it, but at the canter, it’s a very strange feeling. I am not surprised at all that M’s a bit foot sore with his shoe gone, as our pastures are full of lush, green grass that I’m sure is absolutely full of sugar, and he’s had more than 12 hours of turnout to nom the last few days. However, I am absolutely loath to restrict my beloved ponykins from one of his greatest pleasures in life (dining upon candy and putting himself at risk for laminitis!) so I keep shoes upon him for the moment.

Sweneyway, once again, worked on bendyness a bit at the walk a bit, then two-pointed my butt around the pasture and looked for Murray’s shoe. I successfully found three shoes (one in one pasture, two in another), which makes me wonder why nobody else seems to give a crap about finding their missing shoes. It also made me laugh about how we can identify a curved piece of metal belonging to our horses even without our horses’ feet for comparison! I mean seriously, I was driving the bobcat around the pasture and I saw the shoe and yelled “GOTCHA BITCHES!” (not sure why the plural bitches) and stopped looking and immediately went in and presto: Murray’s shoe.

So instead, pictures from an aborted schooling adventure yesterday with five shades of gray. The footing was too slick for any of the smaller stuff to be safe, and only a few of the bigger jumps were in good shape. However, we had fun playing around with the water getting reflections in the shot.

Sunrise before I got to the barn