Don't Buy a Pony!

Yeah, I've been riding. It's been the usual stuff though and really not exciting to write about. Sometimes, training rides are soooo interesting. Who wants to read long descriptions of developing a straight way of going? Not me. Maybe if Reiner Klimke writes them, but otherwise, no.

Today was a bit eventful with a new pony and a runaway and an emergency vet call. I was chatting with the vet while she stitched my mare and she described an emergency call to a colic that was so far along that the horse was thrashing too badly for her to be able to safely euthanize him and the poor thing had to die that way, all because his owners were new to horses and did not recognize the signs he had been giving them. My vet could see that he had been thrashing in his stall for quite some time and they thought he was misbehaving (???) and took him outside and tied him up to something (a tree? A trailer? I don't remember) which is where he was when she arrived.

Anyway, it's right along the lines of something I've been thinking about recently which is that I sincerely wish that most people would just not own horses. Or, if they really must have one, and they are new to horses, they should keep it at a boarding facility and not in their own back yard.

I got a phone call about riding lessons earlier this week. The woman told me she had three daughters between the ages of six and nine and wanted to know about pricing and schedules and such for lessons. Then she said, "I bought them a pony a few months ago and they're scared to ride it!" This seemed shocking to her. The way she said it, she could have substituted "bicycle" or "skateboard" for "pony", as though a pony is something you can just work out for yourself and be on your way. Yeah, the pony outweighs the kids by several hundred pounds and has teeth and hooves. And a brain. Any kid who is reasonably aware of their own mortality would be wise to have a little fear in this situation. Then the mother went on to say that she also wanted the girls to learn how to take care of the pony because she had been doing all of that herself. Now I have visions of the poor pony, a herd animal all alone in someone's yard, which in January is filled with cold, Oregon mud. I actually Googled their phone number and found their address and now I'm tempted to drive by, just to see if I can check on the condition of the pony from the road.

A pony is not a Golden Retriever. You can't learn how to take care of one from books. You might learn a lot, but it takes years of hands-on experience to recognize the subtle signs of a horse in serious trouble. If a new owner could not recognize the signs of a violent, fatal colic, how can they be expected to see a laminitic pony rocked slightly back to get weight off his front hooves? Or the slight depression that can be sensed in a horse who has an unseen puncture wound buried under winter hair but is beginning to run a fever from the infection? Horses are masters at masking pain and injury. My mare Isabelle had a gaping wound in her side today but from the other side, you would never have known there was anything wrong. She stood calmly in her paddock without showing any signs of pain or distress.

I also sometimes get students who are taking lessons in preparation for buying a horse or pony to keep at home. This is a little better, and I hope in these situations that I can provide a realistic view of what is involved with owning horses. Here are some questions I would pose to anyone seriously considering purchasing a horse to keep at home, particularly in the Pacific Northwest.

• You do know that you need more than one horse, right? Horses are herd animals and will not function normally in isolation. A second horse can probably be found for free if you are willing to take a retiree or a broken-down show or race horse, but expect to pay more for feed and vet care for an animal like this.
• What kind of shelter will you provide? Horses do quite well in summer sun as long as there is adequate water and a three-sided shelter or some big trees for shade, but in the winter they need somewhere to really get out of the rain and the mud. Heavy hooves will churn the ground into sucking mud anywhere the horses spend much time which will be where you feed them, where they go to get out of the rain, and at the gate, unless you have gone to great care and expense to put in gravel and drainage in these areas. Expect to have to redo this drainage every so often as the high clay content of our soil will block it up. (I know this from experience. The path from the barn to the arena... yuck.)
• Where will you ride? Seriously? In summer you might be happy to tool around the pasture and maybe you'll be lucky enough to have access to trails. In winter, even if it hasn't rained in weeks, there will be the mud. (See my previous bulleted point. I can't emphasize the mud enough.) Of course since we're talking about Oregon here, it will likely be too wet and rainy to ride outside from about October to May.
• You realize that the horses will still need to be fed and groomed and vaccinated and dewormed (outside, in the mud, remember) for these seven or eight months, even if you can't ride them, right?
• Do you know that trained horses and ponies rapidly deteriorate to the level of their riders? That wonderful push-button horse you tried, loved, and purchased at a training barn may very well become sour and difficult after being ridden only by beginners. I've heard clients say, "find me a pony like Ginny" or "we want a pony just like Rocky". Ginny and Rocky are fantastic ponies. They both have full, busy lesson schedules with children because they're forgiving and sweet and well-trained, but even Ginny and Rocky get tuned up regularly.
  

If you can honestly say that you are prepared for all of these things, that you can handle the mud and you're building a barn and you'll trailer out for lessons or training and you're willing to spend a few years with a good instructor so that you can recognize a healthy horse and know when things are wrong, by all means buy a couple horses. There are certainly a lot of horses out there needing good homes. If you're in love with these animals like I am, there is nothing better than walking into a quiet barn and hearing nothing but horses chewing hay, or filling a water bucket while the horse in that stall puts her muzzle on your face and steams up your glasses.

However, if the idea of this sort of responsibility sounds too difficult, or time-consuming, or muddy for you, take lessons. Lease something. Buy something and board it somewhere reputable where someone else will worry about your horse for you and make sure he is fed and his stall is cleaned and his water is topped off just before bed, even if it is twenty degrees outside. (The only good thing about twenty degrees outside is no mud!!!)

So, there you have what's been going through my head. I know not every horse needs Rambo rugs, a twelve-by-twelve stall, and an acupuncturist, but every horse deserves the basics of appropriate feed, vet care, farrier care, companionship, protection from the weather, and a caregiver who will check on him frequently and recognize signs of illness or injury. I fear that a great number of people underestimate the time, energy and knowledge that goes into meeting these most basic needs.

Getting Reacquainted With Oliver

Oliver is a Thoroughbred x APHA gelding. I rode him today for the first time in... years? I don't even remember! I can't recall if I have ever ridden him at my new place so the last time may have been when we were still at Elk Ridge. I stopped riding him because he was going pretty well for S and for some reason he and I weren't getting along anyway. Really I get along with most horses, but he and I were clashing and we'd end up getting into arguments.

I decided to start riding him again because he isn't getting out enough. He isn't allowed to go outside in winter mud because of his ringbone so when S comes to ride him she has to lunge and lunge and lunge. He bucks and gallops which of course aggravates the ringbone anyway and then he gets sore. More frequent easy workouts should help both his soundness and his mood.

After I had already decided to start riding him I also came to the decision that I ought to be riding all the horses in the barn anyway. I don't see ever requiring all the students' horses to be in full training like at the big show barns -- I like working with the girls and letting them play a big part in their own green horses' training. They ride with me because they (or their parents) like the more relaxed atmosphere and I think they understand that being their horses' primary riders means that they will progress more slowly than if they were in full training. However, I can feel things from a horse's back that I can't always see from the ground, and I think it's important for me to be on them at least occasionally.

Oliver was really quite good today. He was sound and lazy. All I really did was ask him to go long and low (he prefers to stick his head in the air) and then we trotted and trotted and trotted, doing circles and lots of changes of directions and asking him to bend. It was a nice, easy start to riding him again and he got only mildly annoyed at me.

The photo I'm posting today is one of my favorites of Oliver. He tends to be very dramatic about jumping anything new, and this was the first time he saw the miniature bank jump I built last year. In fact, a friend of mine photoshopped something rather more impressive for him to be jumping, so I think I'll post that, too.

Friday is Maggie Day

Maggie does this thing when you ask for the trot from a walk -- a head toss with a twist to the right, and then she starts trotting. I suspect she needs her teeth floated but the weird thing is that she does it even on a totally loose rein so I think it isn't only the teeth.

I did an exercise that I like for tuning up transitions; I pick a number (I tend to pick twelve) and then do that many strides at the walk, then ask for a trot and do that many trot strides, then back to the walk and do that many strides, and so on several times either around the whole arena or on a large circle. You can do it with any two gaits and vary the number if you like. My favorite way to do it with trot-canter-trot transitions is to start at a number and make the number smaller by one until you get down to just two strides of each gait between transitions.

Anyway, Maggie is way too green for the canter one or the descending numbers of strides so we just did twelve strides of walk, twelve strides of trot, twelve strides of walk etc. She did eventually stop doing the head toss so it may just be behavioral but I'll have her teeth checked anyway. To cool out we went outside and walked around the property a bit. She even got kind of peppy when she was heading up a hill and wanted to do a big draft trot there. She was a very, very good pony today.

Pony Doesn't Like To Jump

Texas, the pony I bought to retrain as a pony hunter, really despises jumping. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys beating ponies over fences so Texas will continue his training on the flat and his Pony Good Citizen training and as soon as he sheds his cream-colored fluff he'll be put on the market. I won't be getting a pony hunter price for him because it's jumping that makes ponies valuable. sigh. Hopefully someone will fall in love with this pony face.

I just made "Pony Good Citizen" up, by the way. I was typing and it just came out, but I like it. Ponies must stand to be clipped and bathed and vaccinated and wormed. They must be able to be touched all over. They must load and unload nicely. They must be able to be fetched and tacked up and led into the arena by small children. Ponies should be able to be ridden alone or in groups and not get pissy about either one. Texas is pretty good at these things, although he will drag a child down the aisle if he sees food. Then again, what pony won't?

Today we worked on staying on the rail, going deep into corners and a little bit of bending. I clipped some of the goat-hair off his face and he looks much better than he did. Still soooo hairy though! Ponies in winter are really something.

Speaking of hair, Isabelle is shedding like it's March or something and I can only guess that it's hormones. She's not showing her pregnancy like some of my friends' mares who are due at the same time so I cling to any sign that she still has her foal. I keep being nearly certain that I can feel the foal move but I can't wait for one of those movements that makes the mare's whole belly jump so I can be really sure she still has it. If she does, we only have three months to go!

Wish List

I really do love this job, but I'm going to burn out if I don't get a bit of help. Here's what I'd like most.

• Someone to feed on Monday and Thursday mornings. Those are the mornings I sometimes have to drive my kids to school so feeding and making lunches and getting teenagers motivated to get up is stretching my morning a little thin. On the Monday and Thursday mornings I don't have to drive them to school, it might be nice to have coffee in my jammies for a change before I have to put on barn clothes and go outside. It really sounds heavenly.
• Someone to clean stalls on Tuesdays and Fridays. Maybe not even all the stalls, but a good portion of them. As long as I'm wishing, it might be nice to have someone do some of them on Mondays, too.

This isn't too much to ask, is it?

I Really Like This Horse!

A new stall cleaner was supposed to start today but she didn't show up and didn't call or anything. What is up with people who do that?? This is starting to become a pattern and it's frustrating. I really need to clean fewer stalls so I can ride more horses. I actually kind of like cleaning, but it doesn't make sense for me to spend that many hours on stalls when I have horses to ride. I managed to blow through them pretty quickly today and rode one whole horse. Woo!

I picked Fly, the Welsh Cob x Arabian gelding that was pictured yesterday. Fly belongs to a student and I ride him periodically to tune him up. I hadn't been on him in several months (except for once when I hopped on to make him go in his spooky corner a few weeks ago) but we hope to take him to quite a few shows this year, including the Arabian Region 4 show at Devonwood, and I want him a little more polished before he goes. His teenage owner has been doing a fantastic job with him, riding him in lessons and on her own, but there is still work to do. I plan to ride him at least every other week now through the show season.

Fly is the kind of horse you really have to ride. You can't just sit there and expect him to do the work, but if you ask for something he tries hard to get it. He was a little shocked to have me on his back today, I think, but settled into his work pretty quickly. The first five or ten minutes were spent asking him to bend and shift his weight off his forehand (and then he needs a reminder of these things with each new gait) but once he's listening, he's one of my favorite types of horse to ride. His gaits are very big, he is learning to come round for short periods of time, and he actually appears to enjoy his flatwork.

He's a fun and challenging ride for advanced riders but will pack an intermediate rider pretty well. He has almost auto lead changes when he's jumping courses and will jump anything as long as you're riding confidently. He used to turn a bit like a barge but we've been working on this in lessons and he's starting to wow us with his jumper turns! It's really satisfying to watch a horse go from totally green (we got him with about thirty days under saddle) to a horse with an education and some natural talent starting to shine. His owner wants to show him mainly in the jumpers now but the plan is to half-lease him to a less experienced rider who will do low hunters with him as well.

Not everyone needs a giant warmblood. Fly is about 15.2, has tons of bone, is never off and never needs shoes. He's a great size to handle both on the ground and under saddle. He has "Arab moments" sometimes but can generally be talked down from them. He's the first of his cross that I have trained and I really like that he is talented and fancy enough to show and sturdy and sensible enough to be able to take camping.

I should take a moment to plug his breeder. He was bred by Egret Flats Farm in southern Oregon. The Drum and Gypsy horses are not my thing, but I really like the Arabian x Shire and Arabian x Welsh Cob crosses they're producing. I'm trying hard to get another one in my barn!

Today's photo was taken last summer with his owner at the beach. :)

It's a Hunter or it's Not

You can have a hunter/jumper trainer, board at a hunter/jumper barn, and even go to a hunter/jumper show. All this means is that both styles of training or classes are taught or available. A horse, however, is almost always a hunter or a jumper. There are horses who do both, but usually they do well at one and just dabble in the other. (Or maybe they don't do well in either one but not every horse is meant to be an athlete over fences!) It takes a rare horse to excel in both disciplines. For this reason, it has always bothered me to hear horses referred to as "hunter/jumpers". It shouldn't, but it does.

So, what is a hunter? It has to do with movement, form over fences, and general way of going. Discussing all three would make for a very long entry, so I'm just going to write about form over fences right now.

A good hunter jumps in a shape called a bascule. The bascule is an arched, rounded form the horse takes over the fence. Horses who jump flat, or with their heads too high, do not have a good bascule. A horse may have a good bascule but still not pin in the hunters because of poor form with the front legs. The front legs should be tight and even, not dangling the knees or hooves. Again, a horse may have a powerful, careful jump but not snap his knees up into hunter form and therefore will not place well.

To be fair, I will demonstrate form over fences with horses from my own barn. First, here are horses and ponies with good hunter form. Owen, a half-Welsh gelding, is jumping this small fence with very good form. His knees are up, level with his elbows. His front hooves are carefully tucked up toward his belly. His head and neck are stretching forward and down to form the arched shape of the bascule. He would jump with even more "pop" with a smaller rider but he was being schooled for me this day by an older student.


Teddy, a Thoroughbred, is also demonstrating good hunter form here. He is just starting to unfold his legs for landing so they are not quite as tight as Owen's, above, but the knees are still up and even. He is also stretching his head and neck forward and down to form the bascule. Teddy pinned very well over fences both at 3' (pictured) and 3'6" where his bascule was even more impressive.


Here is Rocky, a grade pony, but boy can he jump! The photo is taken a little too soon to judge the bascule (which I suspect may have been hindered by tension in the rider's upper body anyway) but his expression is picture-pony-perfect and his front end is tight and even. You can see that his hooves are twisted to the outsides a little bit which might hurt him in the pony model classes because it's part of his conformation, but otherwise he displays a very good jump.


Now I'll show horses with poor hunter form. Here is Isabelle, an Oldenburg. She has a pretty good bascule, but she is unimpressed with this 3' fence and not only are her legs not tucked up very tightly, they aren't even doing the same thing! Isabelle is a beautiful mare and she loves to jump, but form is not her strong point and she is a jumper mare, not a hunter. When we do show her in the hunters and she puts in a nice round with good distances and all her changes, she places below horses with tight knees. She does better in equitation and medals where the rider is judged rather than the horse.


This is a low-quality photo because the arena was dark, but here is an example of a poor bascule. This is Ginny, an Arabian. She usually jumps in very good form but this photo was taken in the show ring, heading toward the in-gate, and she was very excited and jumped flat. See how her head and ears are easily the highest part of her jump and her back is flat and trailing straight out behind her instead of in an arch? While the bascule is poor, her front end is good. She is tight and careful with her front end which can still be seen even at this point of the jump with her legs starting to unfold.

Here is a more subtle one. This is Fly, a Welsh x Arabian. His bascule is decent for this tiny jump (about 2'3"), but his knees are lower than his elbows, just a little. He is at an earlier part of his jump than Ginny, above, so we can't blame his somewhat loose front end on getting ready to land. It's not a lot, but it would be enough to keep him out of the ribbons in heavy competition. I imagine Fly's form will tighten up as he matures and we jump him higher because the problem with his form is slight and he was very green in the photo. His conformation is not typical of a hunter however and his future is in the jumper ring where he has already shown promise at schooling shows.

Dull Ponies, Continued

I complained about dull ponies and then what happened? I got a draft pony in to train. Actually, I like her. She's more willing than Texas anyway!

Her name is Maggie and she is a Haflinger. I have no photos of her but will have to get some soon because she is dreamy. Every little student I have wants her. It makes it tough to sell "the short mane improves the look of the neck!" to a bunch of little girls who have now seen a pony with a two-foot long blonde mane. I am the biggest pulled-mane fan ever and I have to admit that sometimes I maybe sort of think Maggie's mane is pretty. A little bit.

Maggie is six years old and pretty much still a baby. She's started with some good basics but is still very green. She's the biggest noodle ever sometimes! Today I introduced side reins to try to straighten her out a little bit and she responded very well. That's one nice thing about a draft... the freak-out is pretty low key. What's this? Something new?? I think I can't go forward at all in fact I think I just might... oh never mind. Too much effort. And then we proceeded to walk and trot and make somewhat lovely circles with our head and neck basically in front of our body for about twenty minutes and we were done. Successful ride!

OMG it's January!

January means that I have to learn a whole new set of ages for all the horses. I love older horses, really, but I hate to think of what it means for my herd in the next five years or so. This year Owen and Rosalynn will turn 21, Tiffany will turn 20, Tickle will turn 18, Teddy will turn 16, Phoebe will turn 15, and Ginny will turn 14.

Previously I had decided that Tiffany was retired. Her story is typical of a Thoroughbred mare. She was used for breeding, first at a racehorse farm where I hear she had one stillborn foal and then at a couple warmblood breeding farms. Her foals were spectacular, earning first premium papers no matter what stallion she was bred to. The breeder of the first three Oldenburg foals was an excellent and conscientious owner but when that program disbanded she was sold. The last time she foaled she did not receive adequate postnatal care and has a tear that healed on its own with jagged edges. Because of the number and size of the foals she had, her vulva gapes open, leaks vaginal fluids, and sucks air into her uterus. After weaning her last foal she was turned out into a winter pasture (in Oregon this means mud and no forage) with no blanket and had to fend off two big geldings for her food. I went to see her because I recognized her as the dam of Isabelle and thought she might make a nice addition to the lesson program or broodmare herd or both. When I saw her I realized that she was in no state to do either but she needed to come home with me anyway. Not only was she severely underweight, but she had such bad rain rot that her skin broke and bled when she was brushed. Tiffany is one lucky mare that I found her and took her home to recover and retire. Many Thoroughbred mares are not this fortunate.

It is now several years later and Tiffany is living in luxury in the first stall in the barn so she gets all the attention from visitors. Her paddock door is open in all but the worst weather so she can go stand in her favorite corner spot outside. Her next door neighbor is her own daughter and I have taken down half their wall so they can visit. She wears a warm blanket and I pour food into her to keep her Thoroughbred frame filled out and her coat sleek. She eats more than mares who are pregnant or nursing! She is healthy and mostly sound (occasionally she appears to have a little trouble with her hips but she works out of it) so I was inspired by FHOTD and decided to start riding her again. She's a rocket! She flexes at the poll and moves off my leg, but her preferred speed is whatever is faster than I'm letting her go at the moment and if I half-halt too many times in a row she explodes straight up, even though I'm only half-halting with the strength of a few fingers. I love her.