I spent today getting Nico ready for a long week without me. I’m starting general Internal Medicine tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be even busier than my last month. So I went to the barn today with the intentions of getting Nico caught up on everything he might need.

I first decided to ride. I thought I’d just do a short ride, then take him out on the road and see if he’d be a little more brave today. I took a couple of pictures after I put my new saddle on him to see if you dressage people think I’m doing it right. I need to get a couple of dressage saddle pads, but figure it’s not an emergency so I’ll do it one of these days (when I stumble across $100 on the street).

This is the first picture. I know I didn’t tuck in the billets yet, so that obscures things a little, but my saddle’s not too far back, is it?

Here it is from a different angle. Do all dressage saddles have an extra strap that holds the flaps down? It seems kind of annoying and I want to cut it off. Then again, if I decide to sell the saddle one day, would it be worth less if it didn’t have that strap?

Nico seems to really like the saddle now. The sitting trot is so easy in this saddle. And his canter is unbelievable. But I have a hard time using my calf because the flaps on the saddle are so much longer than what I’m used to. I’ve been riding with a dressage whip just in case I need a little back up for my wimpy legs. I didn’t have to use the whip once today, though. It seems like a couple of light taps on Friday let him know what the whip is for, and he moves off easily when he sees I have it.

He was a really good boy today, and I walked him over to the gate and managed to open it from his back. Then we were free! He walked out of the arena, and I took him through my trainer’s yard instead of down her driveway. He was much happier in the yard, and wasn’t spooky at all. He looked at stuff with concern, but didn’t balk and grow roots like Friday.

So we walked out to the road and I stopped him and let him look around and take it all in. He was super cool, so I asked him to walk down the road. We went about 200 yards before we got to a wind break of trees that is on both sides of the road. I felt him start to balk, so I turned him around and we walked back to the farm. A car passed us and he was great. I think next time we will try to get past the wind break. I didn’t really want to fall on the road today. I talked with one of my friends today who is doing a rotation in the ER for the next month and told her that if any riding accidents come in by helicopter from the west side of town she’s supposed to make sure all of our classmates stay out of my trauma bay. I think falling on the road from a spooking horse would probably require some significant medical treatment.

After riding, I gave Nico a bath. You can see in the first photo above how messy his back legs are from his sheath. I swear this horse has the dirtiest sheath of all time. I could clean it every week and it still wouldn’t stay clean. So I cleaned it today. And I finally got his tail relatively clean! No more diarrhea! I used regular shampoo twice, then purple whitening stuff, then a ton of conditioner. See how much better it looks:

I finished pulling his mane yesterday. It took me about a month. It still needs some work, but it’s good enough for now since we’re not showing anytime soon. I feel like a traitor to the Haflinger breed since I pulled his mane. But his neck isn’t sweaty all the time anymore.

I put thrush medication on his hooves before turning him out after his bath. Then I ran to Tractor Supply and bought him some fly spray and treats. So I think he’s all set for his relaxing week. My trainer will ride him once, but otherwise he will just be grazing and snoozing.

I got my new saddle today! The first thing I did was pull it out of the box, change the gullet, and break one of the screws that hold on the gullet. Actually, it was the thing that the screw screws into. I called the company and they are supposed to call me back in the morning. I found some extra hardware in the box, though, and was able to make it work.

So I went out to the barn and threw the saddle on my pony. It looked like a good fit, and my trainer confirmed this. The girth I got with the saddle (for free!) is a little long. It was on the last hole on both sides, and it still wasn’t quite as snug as I’d like. I have to ride with good balance for now Actually, I was able to mount from the ground, so it must be tight enough.

(I hope this  photo is just a bad angle - where did my pony’s butt go?)

We walked around for awhile and then I asked him to trot. He threw his head up in the air, and I was a little concerned that he wasn’t enjoying the feel of the new saddle. But he settled after awhile and got a little rounder. The trot didn’t feel as good as it does in the all purpose Wintec I am borrowing from someone. But when I asked him to canter it was fantabulous. We picked up the right lead from a trot like it was never a problem. He was smooth and collected. It was really wonderful.

I had trouble getting him to engage his back end at the trot, which also makes me worried that he hates the saddle, but then again this saddle make my legs hit him differently and I felt a lot less effective with my leg aids today. I think I will ride with a whip tomorrow to get him stepping under himself.

After riding in the arena for awhile, I decided to ride him around the farm for a few minutes to cool down. This is when my pony showed his true greenness. I haven’t ridden him by himself outside of the arena before, and he was incredibly concerned. We got about ten steps out of the arena and he slammed on the brakes. He was blowing and flaring his nostrils like an Arabian (did you know that there is a significant amount of Arabian blood in Halingers?). I quietly urged him forward and got lateral movement and a couple of steps before he violently slammed on the brakes again. At this point I decided I didn’t want to fall on the gravel if he went completely nuts, so I hopped down.

Thank God I did a proper dismount (remove both feet from stirrups and swing off the horse) because he spooked big as I was dismounting. I was able to land safely on my feet and hang onto him as he freaked out. So now I was determined to get him over his fears (of God knows what - nothing was different than every other time he’s been outside of the arena). So I led him down the driveway and down the road, where I had planned to ride if he hadn’t acted like a baby. He was much braver with me walking beside him, but he still had a couple of spooks and nervous moments. Another boarder watched this drama and commented that she thought Nico was a driving pony. Yeah, actually he was… It was hard to believe today, though.

So it was a little bit of a frustrating day… I broke my new saddle, I’m not sure if Nico likes it, and he was a complete lunatic. But tomorrow is a new day!

I appreciate all of your enthusiasm about my new saddle! After the financial guilt wore off, I’m really excited!

Amazingly, I purchased the saddle at 5am yesterday morning, and DHL is estimating delivery for today! Not too shabby for free shipping to get here in one day. So I might be riding in my new saddle tonight I just hope they show up after 4pm in case I have to sign for it. I get out of class at 4pm on Fridays. How nice is that? But my nephrology rotation is over this weekend and I start general internal medicine next Monday. It’s supposed to have worse hours, but I’m sure I will survive.

Dressage mom asked about what I was going to feed Nico now that he’s off grain. My vet recommended Gro’n Win which looks like grain, but isn’t really grain. Here’s what the website says about it:

Gro’n Win®, is a scientifically formulated ration balancer. Gro `n Win® will deliver essential nutrients commonly deficient in grass, or grass/legume mixed forage (hay or pasture). The best complement you can give to Mother Nature.

My trainer said she would just buy the Gro’n Win when she buys grain and not charge me any extra. But I think he’ll go through a bag a month, and it’s $20 more than a regular bag of grain, so I figure I’ll just “tip” her the difference each month. She has taken excellent care of my poopy pony this summer, and the last thing I want to do is raise her expenses. Her board rates are incredibly reasonable, so I know she’s not making much money off of board.

Hopefully tonight I can post pictures of my new saddle! I will be checking my palm pilot every five minutes all day to keep track of where my saddle is at all times…

I just bought my new saddle. I got the Wintec Pro dressage saddle, and while it’s not super expensive as far as saddles go, it really made a dent in my finances. Ouch!

But I figure it will hold it’s value reasonably well if I would ever need to sell it. There is a deal on eBay where I got a new saddle, gullet kit with all gullets, girth, webbers, irons and free shipping for $730. Considering people are selling used Wintec pro dressage saddles for $500 without all the extras, I figure this is a pretty good deal. Plus, now I can relax and enjoy my pony without worrying about hurting him with an ill-fitting saddle. He seems to love the Wintec all purpose saddle I am currently borrowing from someone.

I see a lot of macaroni and cheese in my future, and it won’t be Kraft - more likely it will be generic macaroni and cheese But if the pony is happy, what the heck! Plus, I’ve already considered taking Nico out of training for a couple of months this fall and letting him relax a little bit. That will not only help my wallet, but I’m sure it will be good for my young horse’s mind to have some time off from serious training. I’d still go ride him regularly, but mostly just hacking around and riding around the farm. He’s showing no signs of being burned out at the moment and I’d like to keep it that way!

And just in case you were wondering - we’re two weeks diarrhea-free! Well, except for the one day where the working student accidentally gave Nico 1/3 scoop of grain (she hadn’t been told that we had changed things) and he was a little runny. My trainer apologized for the mix-up, but I think it provided us some useful information - proving that the grain is most likely the culprit.

Tuesday night Nico and I had our first lesson in over a month! It was over 90 degrees out, so we decided to take it easy and not work the poor boy too hard.

Once again, my pony was in a “grass coma” from grazing and playing in his pasture all day. I took a quick nap before my lesson and had a hard time waking up, so I was a little late getting to the barn. So I tacked Nico up in about five minutes and dragged him out to the arena so that we could walk around a bit before the lesson.

I lined Nico up at the mounting block and he saw that some kid had stuck their gum on the corner of the block. Of course, he doesn’t understand grossness, so he tried to eat the gum and it took a lot of effort for me to pull his head away from it. The pitiful thing is that the gum was there the day before and he tried the same thing. Completely gross!

Then my trainer arrived and we worked on getting the pony to actively walk forward using his back end. We worked on trotting at an even speed with long strides (instead of pony trot!) and I learned how to pick up his right shoulder. I used to think that he just bulged his right shoulder when we go to the right, but my trainer pointed out that he bulges it out when we track left as well. So instead of relaxing when we go left, now I have to work hard! Who knew that I’d have to work so hard when riding?

Then we worked for a while on leg yielding. My trainer has been working with him on it and said he is awesome off of seat cues. So she tried to get me up to speed on the cues. When I don’t think about it, I’m fairly okay at using my seat when riding. But I couldn’t really explain WHAT I’m doing most of the time, so it’s good to officially learn how to use my seat. So the leg yielding was fairly good (with a couple excellent moments), although I found out that I actually lean back behind the vertical sometimes when I’m trying to drive Nico forward into the bit. Oops. I have my work cut out for me on using my seat correctly.

After lots of trot work, we cantered and at first it was a little crazy. He really wanted to move and my trainer said I’m throwing him away when I cue for the canter. She said he is perfectly capable of a balanced transition these days, so I need to help him with a little contact. After she coached me on it for awhile, we got an awesome trot-canter transition (to the right!). I love when I can actually feel the outside back leg step under the horse and the front end lift for the canter departure. Usually with my green pony it feels like a lot of stumbling and bouncing before we get a nice canter. I’m starting to like “broke Nico”.

After our lesson, I hosed Nico off because he was really sweaty. Then I took him into the arena and let him roll while wet. My trainer was bringing in horses and remarked on how spoiled my pony is Yeah, he was a complete mess when I finally took him inside, but I figured it made him happy to roll around. Plus, I was able to brush him off and he looked okay. Good thing he’s kind of reddish-brown to start with.

I visited Nico last night and he was such a good boy! I had spent a long day at the hospital, so it was nice to drive out to the barn at 7:30 to ride my boy.

I was happy to see that he’s out on grass now. He’s in a much larger pasture with his friends, and my trainer said that they ran around and played all day.

So I got him out of his pasture and took him into the barn. He was really slow and tired looking. I saddled him, and in my typical worry-wart way, overanalyzed the way that he was standing. He was standing a little stretched out, and I started to worry about grass founder. Granted, my trainer has slowly worked them up to all day on grass, and it’s not spring when the grass is super rich, but I still had to worry. I felt his hooves and they didn’t feel hot, and he wasn’t walking stiff or lame, just like he was exhausted.

I went ahead and took him out to the arena and climbed on. We walked around the arena a few times. I didn’t encourage him to move forward, just let him mosey around. Then, he suddenly started to go down in the front end! Ack! I think he just majorly stumbled wince he wasn’t picking up his feet very much in his exhausted state. I went and got my trainer and she came out and assessed the situation and declared that he was fine.

So then we trotted and cantered and he was great! He was very willing to canter, which I think he would be resistant to if he was footsore. So I quit worrying a little.

When we were done riding, I hopped off and walked him around to cool off. After about 30 minutes of walking, he was still ridiculously sweaty so I gave up and put him away with his hay (he doesn’t get grain anymore). He was completely cool, I just think it was so humid that the sweat just would not evaporate.

I have a lesson tonight at 7pm. I’m completely exhausted, but I’ve got to do a lesson since I haven’t had one in about a month. I hope the lesson doesn’t run too late, though, since I have to get out of bed at 4:15am tomorrow morning and then I’m on call tomorrow night. The schedule is hell, but in the past three weeks I’ve lost 10 pounds, so it’s not all bad. I figure by next summer I’ll weigh about 95 pounds.

I talked to my trainer tonight and she said that she stopped giving Nico grain last week and so far he has been diarrhea free! We had discussed just completely removing him from grain, so I’m glad she went ahead and did it. She talked to the vet today and he suggested some sort of supplement to give him since he’s not getting grain. But right now he’s only being worked about three times a week for thirty minutes or less so he should be fine without the extra calories.

I was hoping the grain was the root of the problem, since that would be the easiest thing to control. Hopefully he will stay diarrhea free and we can quit worrying about this problem. I’ve got enough on my plate without pony diarrhea!

I told my mom about Nico on Friday. Without too much elaboration, the boyfriend and I are having some issues and things are kind of up in the air, so I called Mom to talk things over with her. Somehow I ended up spilling my guts about Nico.

Mom didn’t freak out too much. I was a little surprised. I know she’s mad, though.

Hopefully things will work out with the boyfriend and I, but if not we’ve already discussed what we would do with Nico. We would maintain joint ownership and then I would buy him off the boyfriend when I graduate from school.

I had a good ride on Sunday, though. So EVERYTHING doesn’t suck.

Here’s what I hope to buy as soon as my student loans come in:

I can’t wait! It’s the Wintec Pro and there’s a deal on ebay where I get free shipping, webbers, irons, girth, and full gullet kit.

I’m crossing my fingers that my loans come in soon. I need this saddle

The boyfriend came out to the barn with me this morning to ride Nico. I’m happy that he is interested enough in the horse to want to spend time with him.

We got to the barn and found Nico with the messiest back end I’ve ever seen. It was really horrible. My trainer was in the barn and she is going to switch him to her alfalfa/grass mix that she has for her harder keepers. We have already switched his grain, and that didn’t seem to make a difference. She said the next step after changing hay is to pull out his bedding and bed him on straw for a few weeks in case he’s eating his shavings at night. I don’t know if the shavings could cause diarrhea, but anything is possible at this point. I will call the vet tomorrow and see about getting another blood sample. I got some vacuum tubes from my small animal vet when I took my cat in a few weeks ago, and I have several different needles to try (I accidentally left a blood gas kit in my pocket the other day and brought it home from the hospital - I think that might work…). So I could just draw the blood myself and the boyfriend could drive it to the vet’s office.

Then we rode the pony and he was really good! We got the right lead from the trot and the walk and only missed it once! I think he really likes the Wintec. I think since money is crazy tight at the moment I might just buy a used Wintec dressage saddle to use until next spring when we start crossrails. A used Wintec would probably hold it’s value if I would need to sell it to get a nicer jumping saddle next year. Plus, he’s currently in the wide gullet, so the saddle should fit him for awhile, even if we have to go up to the x-wide gullet in the future as he fills out. And hopefully I could just keep the saddle and do a couple of dressage shows next summer.

He was a lot of fun to ride this morning. I carried the dressage whip because he has been trying to ignore my legs and slow to a walk as soon as I take up any contact with his mouth. So I lightly popped him with the whip once and it really woke him up (he leaped into a canter and wouldn’t slow down), but after that he was a much more responsive pony! I was able to get him working from his back end, and he began to really focus on what I was asking him.

Then the boyfriend wanted to ride. I tied up the curb rein and put a lead rope on the pony. The boyfriend was wearing shorts, so he looked like a big doofus on the horse. But he really wanted to trot, so I took him for a pony ride and had him post at the walk - which he understood quite well. Then we trotted and he couldn’t figure out how to post along. He sort of bounced around like a sack of potatoes. I guess I’m not much of a teacher Then he complained about the leathers pinching his calves. Hmmm… Go figure - now he knows why I wear half chaps.

So then we took the pony inside and I cleaned up his back end. His sheath is so incredibly dirty that gunk is all over his back legs. They were such a mess! So I got out my sheath cleaning stuff and got the gunk off his legs. Yesterday I put him in his stall after riding and tried to take his pulse to see if he was too hot for his grain. I felt around his gaskin area because I think I saw someplace that you can find it there somewhere. I never did find the pulse, but I did find out that it I squeezed the upper gaskin area he would drop. Hmm…. So I tried it today and he started to drop in the crossties. I figured I could clean his sheath really quick, but then the boyfriend pulled out some treats and Nico got distracted and things disappeared again.

I shooed the boyfriend away and tried again with success! I cleaned things the best I could and Nico was a really good pony. He never once acted annoyed or like he was going to kick. I don’t think I got everything completely clean (it disappeared again when I tried to spray things off with the hose), but it’s definitely better than it was. He was even a good sport about letting me spray the hose inside his sheath to try to get more stuff out. The boyfriend was fascinated by the whole procedure and reminded me to wash my hand the first chance I got. Like I could forget!

So now Nico is ready for the week if I can’t get out to see him for a few days. I hope he misses me!