There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead...

...And when she was good, 

she was very, very good. 

But when she was bad, 

she was horrid.

This was written to describe my horse, I swear. I either leave the barn over the moon, or extremely frustrated. No in-between. Today was the latter.

I guess I shouldn't say she was horrid, considering some people have buckers, rearers, bolters, etc. I just have a distracted, wiggly, nervous, spooky, overreactive, tight-backed nutcase. 

I also guess there was some reason behind it (though that doesn't excuse anything), since we rode in the indoor for the first time in a while, since there were already three people riding outside and the ring was cramped. The indoor was empty, so I figured it would be fine to ride in there. Nope, meltdown when I didn't let her go out the door. Spook in the end away from the door, speed up towards the door, race around with head in the air. 

There was a horse in the roundpen outside, which she could not see (the HORROR) and it was a bit windy so leaves were falling (TERRIFYING). Once, a BIRD CHIRPED. 

The ride basically went like this:

I put leg on, asking for bend.

Beauty: THAT MEANS TROT LIKE A STANDARDBRED RACER, RIGHT?

Me: No, please slow down (gentle half halt)

Beauty: YOU HAVE VIOLENTLY ASSAULTED MY MOUTH (throws head in air)

Me: Let's not be a speed-trotting giraffe, please (supples)

Beauty: WHY ARE YOU ABUSING MEEEE? (contorts body into strange wiggly speed-trotting giraffe form) 

Continue for the rest of the ride. Got absolutely nothing accomplished. She gets a day off tomorrow and hopefully Wednesday will be a different story.

-_- 

Mares.

Scary flower boxes are... not so scary.

Beauty and I jumped our first little vertical today! Really, it was a baby vertical, BUT there were flower boxes under it. I figured that would be a challenge and a good learning experience. I've seen many a horse lose their marbles about flowers/filler under a jump, especially the first time.

Little baby vertical

Well, Beauty didn't care. At all. She just popped right over, no hesitation, no peeking. Trotted and cantered to it. Alrighty, then.

Tuckered herself right out!

We also practiced stringing two jumps together - a little X and our baby vertical. It wasn't like a line or really anything close, they were on opposite sides of the ring, but it was the first time we had to land and think about setting up right away, instead of circling or stopping. She thought about wiggling out at the vertical (second jump - I think she just wasn't expecting it, plus it was going to the left, her bad direction) but she went over with a tiny correction. It was more a "Oh, a jump, should I jump, I don't know, oh you want me to, okay" thing, rather than naughtiness.

Love my little horse!

Also love these gorgeous fall days down in Maryland! New England is gorgeous, but cold, so it is nice to be able to enjoy fall while still having 70 degree weather.

Pony therapy

Today started off as "one of those days." Nothing really specific, just not in the mood to put up with life, you know? And 8:30am biology lab does nothing to help that...

So I was in a grumpy mood after class and was debating napping instead of going to the barn. Well, I'm damn glad I didn't choose to nap, because I had one of the best rides/days at the barn that I've had in a LONG time.

First, when I went out to get Beauty, she was all the way out by the round bale. In my grumpy mood, I thought "Ugh, I have to go all the way out to get her *grump grump grump*" but as I opened the gate, she saw me and started walking over. I called out to her in a cutesy singsong voice because I am super mushy with my horse, and she tossed her head and trotted over and nickered at me! So cute, warmed my heart. And then when I was tacking up, she was super snuggly and playful, getting in to all my stuff and even picking up my whip in her mouth and whacking it around. I love my goofball, she's an instant mood changer.

I decided to ride Miss Beauty in the outdoor arena, which we had not ridden in yet. It was a gorgeous day and I needed to change things up. I think I'm starting to get ring-sour and also maybe a little dressage-sour. We've just been working on hard things with minimal gains for the last few months, and I'm just sort of bleh about it all, and I think Beauty is too. So we rode around with minimal looky/spookiness, which is huge for her. I just let her cruise around at the trot, not really asking for much, doing some two point and such.

Conveniently, there was a little crossrail set up in the ring. Since we've been having trouble with canter transitions, I've been using jumping as a way to help her get the canter and strengthen her hind end. So I decided to pop over it a few times and see how she was. She was fabulous. I swear, though, I will never have trouble getting her to go for the long distances - she gives you two options - long or superlong. I need to work on releasing, because she tends to dive when she takes a long distance (great bascule, but I grab her in the mouth by accident). But if I give her a big release before the jump, my weight falls forward and she dives even more. This horse is going to teach me good jumping position, that's for sure!

Anyway, she was picking up LOVELY canters after the jump, so I just let her cruise around the ring and played around with two point. I asked her to open up and lengthen and she gave me a GORGEOUS hand-gallop! But then she started to motorcycle around, so I had her come back and balance, which she did beautifully.

So much fun, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. It has been a while since I've gotten off beaming. I think Beauty was beaming, too.

When life throws lemon fastballs at you...

YIKES. This week. Ugh.

At least the pony is happy!

So let's play catch-up:

Beauty is settling in very well, she was moved out of the quarantine paddock early because she was pacing and having tantrums about being alone, so now she is out with a group of five other mares in a gorgeous pasture. The mares gave her a pretty good beating the first few days, but now they have settled their differences and at least tolerate each other's presence.

Battle scars

Spa treatment (in the quarantine paddock)

I was mostly lunging her for the first week or so (partly because I didn't have my saddle - my mother brought it down a week later) and got to ride her four whopping times before everything went to hell. She was excellent, of course! She even gave pony rides to my friends who came out last weekend. She was having issues with canter (when isn't she??) but I think most of it is because she isn't used to the footing - it is MUCH softer than she is used to and not kept in the best shape.

Things are so exciting! How can focus?

But then I got sick and felt like a train had hit me, so I took a day off from the barn and when I went out to ride, despite feeling like a giant blob of mucus and sick, she had a lovely cut on her leg. The cut itself isn't too bad, but when I cleaned it and put ointment on it, she was very touchy and it looked swollen, so I gave her the day off. I've been cleaning it and ointmenting it, but it is not improving. The barn manager isn't concerned, and I don't think it is anything that requires a vet, but I'm going to play it safe and give her some time off. I tried to lunge her today to see how she felt and she gave me grumpy faces and her stride was short behind, so I gave up and let her graze while I pampered her.

Can't really see how swollen it is from this pic...

Then last night, the barn manager texted me that I was almost out of grain (they only provide sweet feed which my fatty mc-easy-keeper CAN'T be on, so I have to provide my own grain). Okay, except that no where down here sells the brand of grain that I brought from home, and I was not given much time to find another one to transition her to!! So I freaked out, was up late researching feeds/feedstores and took a 45 minute drive to a feed store to find out that they didn't have what I drove so far to get! AUGH! The lady recommended another kind, but I was skeptical and called my instructor from home, who then complicated things by having me ask the lady to look up the ratios of various brands and types, until we found the right balance. The lady was peeved and it took forever, but I walked away with Purina Ultium, which I am pleased about.

Barn cats love to sit on the horses! Beauty doesn't mind.

All in all, crazy week, hopefully it starts looking up for us!

That didn't go as planned...

Well, Beauty is finally moved in to her new home, and things are starting to settle down, after 36 hours of chaos.

First, she was supposed to arrive yesterday evening between 7-10pm. I had been anxiously checking my phone all day, anticipating a call, worrying about my horse, and finally gave the shipper a call around 8pm, just trying to get an idea of when he might be coming. He said there had been a delay with picking up another horse, who was a colt who had to be caught and had never seen a trailer, which took a whopping 4 hours. So, set back four hours, the ETA was now midnight. Okay, not the best time, especially since I had class in the morning, but fine.

Well, around midnight, I had not received a call and was beginning to worry. I called again, and the shipper said there had been a delay getting the troublesome colt off the trailer, and he was taking a nap because he was 5 hours over the driving time limit and was (understandably!) tired. He said he could get there around 3am if he pushed it, or he could come in the morning, around 6. I chose 6am, so I could be there and still get to my classes.

So I diligently get up after 4 hours of sleep and drive to the barn. When I got there, the shipper called to say he was 20 minutes away. Ugh, more delays, but not bad. So I waited and made friends with these cuties:

They wanted to explore every inch of my car!

On the sunroof!

Finally, the trailer arrived and Beauty unloaded fine, not looking any worse the wear despite spending 19+ hours on a trailer (from what was supposed to be a 10 hr trip). I put her in her paddock, unloaded her hay and my trunk, made sure she was eating and drinking and was relatively calm, and had to book it back to school to make my first class.

"But mom, there are friends over there!!!!!"

Exploring the run-in

Good pony relaxes and eats her hay

I came back after my classes were done, around 1, and she was doing fine - she'd sucked down a bunch of water, eaten hay, and the barn manager said she'd been doing fine. I took her out for a walk around the property to stretch dem legs and get her used to her surroundings. She was pushy and excited, but fine. We bopped around for a while and I put her back. Well, the calm ended when another boarder came to ride her horse, and then that horse's pasturemate started calling for it, and Beauty heard that and saw the other horse and went into "ZOMG IM ALL ALONE GONNA DIE" mode (she is in a quarantine pen for a week). She wasn't horrible, but she got kind of worked up. She'd be okay if I was there, but god forbid I went around the corner to try to organize my stuff for a minute... Eventually peace was restored (sort of) and I left.

But since my last few hours weren't stressful enough, my piece of shit car decided that something underneath was going to come loose and rattle around scarily. Like, really loud. I pulled into a conveniently placed Jiffy Lube, and despite that fact that they don't do repairs, they agreed to look and see if it was going to hold together until I got back to school. It wasn't. Apparently it isn't a big deal, the piece that was loose is just a heat shield, but the guy said if I hadn't stopped and they taken it off, I would have left it on the road. But it is safe to drive for a few days, so I will be calling a mechanic and getting it in within a few days. YAY CARS FALLING APART AT INCONVENIENT TIMES!

Argg, just glad that is over and hopefully things can settle down now!!

She's on her way!!!

In approximately 6-9 hours, my little mare will be at school with me!!!

I am so excited and nervous that I can hardly focus on my classes today. She's never trailered this far (500 miles, 9 hours+), but she has an old schoolmaster in the trailer with her, so he knows the drill and will hopefully help her chill out. She's been loaded up with electrolytes, calming supplements and has plenty of hay. They transporter will stop every 3 hours to check on her, give her water, and where available, let her stretch her legs. I know she is in good hands, but I can't help but be nervous!

And I just can't wait to finally have my horse at school with me!