Not Good News (And Why I Spent the Day Crying)

So I got some not good news from my Dad today about Dollar. He had the vet down sometime last week to pull wolf teeth on the youngsters and had him check out Dollar because it seems as though his Heaves are getting worse. Well, the vet checked him, had Sam jog him in hand, and checked him again. Turns out that he only has about 1/4 of his lungs left to use (the tail end of his lungs), the rest has totally congealed (basically turned to meat) and that I'd probably have to put him down by summer-time, otherwise he might not make it through summer.

Sigh. Not the news I wanted to hear, ande especially not now. I was hoping that he'd make it at least until 25 and that V would be able to ride him. I felt so bad for him and I know it's selfish of me, but part of me really wants to keep him around. The other (logical) part of me knows that it's time for him to go, that he's lead a good life and needs to be free of his pain.

Luckily Hubs was there when my Dad told me this, and while I was crying away, he just looked at me and told me to saddle up Dollar. Which at first didn't make sense to me as I had just ridden him before getting this news, but then it clicked it. He was gonna let me take V for her first ride on Dollar.

So needless to say, I went back into the pasture to get him, with the niece and nephew following me and calling for him. He didn't seem impressed that he'd have to work again, but still came and let my niece ride him back to the barn.

Put my Western saddle on him, hopped on and then got V on with me. And off we went....
Dollar just walked ever so slowly while I held V as we rode. Sigh. Just tearing up looking at the video again. Dollar did awesome with her (duh, when is he not awesome?!?!) and even backed up and spun with her. Such a good Old Man.

Me and Keith decided later in the evening that we'll wait until after his 20th birthday in June to put him down. I know it's selfish, but I want him to see his 20th before he goes to greener pastures. I basically spent the rest of the evening in tears.

So not ready for this....

In Which We Find The Spunk

Finally got out to ride again today! Seeing as Keith was at work in the evening, I packed up V around 4 and headed down to my parents place so that my Mom could watch her while I rode.

Once I made sure that V was content with Grandma, I grabbed my bridle and new saddle pad from the car and headed to the back. Dollar's all by himself in the holding pen now as Dad's new horse Jack is at a barn for training, Sam's horses are at her new place and Natalie's horse is at a different barn for training. So needless to say Dollar was pretty happy to see me as you can see in the video..




Once I got him out of the holding pen, I brought him up to the barn and got him quickly tacked up. I threw away my old saddle pad (the one that mice had gotten into) and put my new saddle pad on him. Yup, purple still looks good.

The old saddle pad that mice had gotten into

Dollar showing off his new saddle pad

Once we were all ready to go, I had to climb the fence in order to hop on to him. I still hurt if I stretch too much and I don't have a mounting block, so the fence comes in handy. He behaved like the perfect gentleman he is and stood completely still while I mounted. Whew.

We went to the far end of the arena again, set our circle and got to work. My goal was to work his walking and jogging as cantering is out of the question because of all the snow and I don't want to risk slipping on ice hiding under the snow. Oh, and I also remembered to grab my crop this time. It came in handy.

As we worked the walking and trotting, he did pretty good. He did realize that I had my crop, so he was a little more energetic in his movements, which is good for him. But then we ran into an issue. I had asked him to move into a trot again from a walk and he was being lazy about it. So I asked him again, a little more firmer. Nothing. So I swatted him with my crop. Next thing I know, his head goes down, and his butt goes up, snorting while doing so, and then moves into a trot, not looking very pleased.

And this is my brain: C'mon, move Old Man *swat*......HEY, YOU BUCKED ON ME!!!

Luckily it wasn't anything big, and he just kept moseying on afterwards. And nothing happened to me (lucky). I had barely became unseated, so I just hunkered my butt down, gave him a scolding (and laughing in my head) and went about our business. Guess he just wanted to show me that he still had spunk left.

After that little incident, I set him to work, doing quite a bit of trotting and working our halts, reverse and turns. This is where he was just showing off for me, probably just sucking up. Lol.

I ended the ride after about 30 minutes of working and he wasn't even sweating yet. But then again, it's been really beautiful here right now. Barely any snow for middle of February in Central Canada. But it does work well for riding right now.

And I'm still surprised as to what my Old Man can pull off. He'll be 20 this summer and still manages to act like he's 5 some days. Oh well, that's why I love him.

When 19 Is The New 2......

Well I managed to hitch a ride with my Dad out to the barn today to play with Dollar. Seeing as i can't ride and the barn has the round pen up, I decided to free-lunge him today just to get him working a bit. So once we got to the barn, I went outside to grab Dollar. Well it turned out that he didn't like me for clipping him last time and decided to start walking away from me. He was by the pen when I saw him and by the time I caught him, we were almost by the feeding spot at the other end of the pasture! Old Man....

Once I had him caught and haltered, I brought him into the indoor arena, put him in the round pen and got to work. He was moving around pretty good at the trot, but was being pretty lazy. Sam came over to take some video of us and when I asked him to lope, well, he let out a huge buck and kept acting like he's 2!!



So yeah, I was laughing at him, but also slightly not impressed because he knows better. At least he doesn't do that while I'm riding him. I kept him going around for a while and just switching up directions on him. Near the end, I could tell that he was getting tired. So I took him out of the round pen, tied the lead rope to both sides on his halter and took a walk over to where Sam was sitting while she was watching Dad ride Sue.

We stood there for a bit, talking with Sam and then I decided to put him away. At this time Dad was done his workout with Sue, so I kicked Dollar back outside and waited for Dad to finish bathing and putting Sue away.

I swear, Dollar thinks somedays that he's 2 and can geta way with it. Sigh. I do love my Old Man. At least he knows how to make me laugh, even if it's bucking when he shouldn't.

I Think Someone Had Dynamite for Breakfast....

Finally! I got out to ride today! After 2 weeks of having stupid cold, it's gone away enough that I can actually go out and ride Old Man. Sheesh, I mean, it's only been about 2 weeks since I've ridden him.

So I got out to my parents place around 11 and went inside to see if Sam would want to come join me. She kept saying no, that she wasn't feeling good. Whatever. So I put on my winter stuff, bundled up and went out into the cold. Grabbed the treats for Dollar from my car and headed to the back. Grabbed a lead rope and managed to get him out of the holding pen without letting the others out. Got him up to the fence and decided that I was just going to ride him bareback with the halter and lead rope today and just have some fun. Since I don't have an indoor arena, I can't really train during winter unless I want to haul somewhere, so we were going to have some fun today. I quickly checked him over and was disappointed to see that the other horses have still been attacking him. He's got small chunks of fur missing from his main body and I know it's from the other horses picking on him. Not too impressed with that.

One of the couple places on him that the fur has been pulled out by the other horses.

Not impressed

I let him grab a drink of water and then brought him to the fence and hopped on. I could already tell that he was hyper. Well, at least he's not lazy! We got to walking around just to let him stretch out and he was feeling pretty good. Except he was being weird in his own little way. He kept pinning his ears back, but I wasn't doing anything to him. Wonder? I tested his flexing, which he did perfectly. It's nice to know that he remembers that from long ago. See, when I first got him, he went into training with my trainer. Bob taught him how to flex his neck so that his face would be at your boot and he'd hold it there until you told him to go the other way, just to stretch out his neck before riding. Well, now when you ask him to flex, he turns it the way you ask him to, holds it there for a while, and then goes the other way and holds it there for a while. Smart one. And I also caught a cute picture of the kitten Ruth. She just got kicked out of the house by Dad (he doesn't like indoor cats, she's Mom's) and she had decided to try to follow me. But when I turned Dollar to shoo her away she went running away and then hopped into some snow. And sat there crying. Yup, she doesn't like the snow either. Lol.

Drinkin'

Flex to the left......

Now to the right.... (stupid snow flake got in the way)

Ruth in the snow

Once he was good walking around, I asked him to jog, now his jog is usually pretty slow and nice. Usually. Today, we had TROT. Yup, we had a nice trot today and I think even some sort of extended trot as well. Impressive for an old man. But he was still putting his ears back. By this time, we had been riding for almost 45 minutes, so I decided to have a bit of fun with him. While going down the long side, I asked him to lope. Nope, he went into a faster trot. Then I turned him down center line and he booked it home. Of course, when we got to the fence, he slowed down and made a nice turn to the left while I was laughing. That felt so good to do that with him. So of course, we did it again. At the end of the 2nd round, I figured I'd get a video of this. So I set my camera up on the post and this is what we got...



Fun, fun, FUN!

Of course, when I grabbed the camera afterwards to play the video, my batteries died. Well at least they didn't die while filming. So I hopped off, tied him up and went inside the house to ask Sam if she had any batteries. Of course, she was snarky as well and said no and asked why I needed them. I told her that I wanted to see the video that I took of me and Dollar having fun. She just looked at me and said that I shouldn't be loping Dollar because he's out of shape. Umm...we've spent 30-40 minutes just walking and trotting and did like 5 minutes of loping. And he was fine. And needed that out of his system. I just told her whatever and headed back outside.

Then I went into the barn and managed to find 2 blankets that might fit Dollar. I decided to put a spring blanket on him so that the other horses can stop taking chunks out of him. I gave him his treats and then proceeded to try the first blanket on. Yeah right. It was about 2-3 feet TO SHORT!. Damn, he has a long back. So I took that one off and tried the other one. This one actually fits him nicely with a bit of room to spare for all his winter coat.

Styling his blanket!!

Once he was all fitted up and had finished all his treats, I turned him back into the holding pen, but this time took off his halter. He doesn't need it in the holding pen. Cleaned up my stuff and went back inside the house.  Told Sam not to take his blanket off at all as I do not need a bald horse by the end of winter. She just looked at me as if I was crazy for putting a blanket on him and I explained to her that it was a spring blanket and no need to worry. Sheesh.

Once I was done with everything/one, I grabbed my stuff and left. Hoping that I can get out again soon...

Snow Ride!!!

This should explain what we were doing today for fun......

Yup, playing in the snow!! Oh, and where he was stopping and walking with caution? There's a tiny little creek for irrigation in the field and he saw it, hence why he was cautious.

Fun!!

Reno's Fall 2010 Conformation Pics and Lunging Lessons

Yup, finally got around to doing Reno's conformation photos today. Finally!! Got to my parents place around 3 and headed out into the pasture to grab my boys. I was calling for them and of course Dollar just came walking up to me, leading Reno!! Lol. Grabbed both of them and brought them up to the barn and got Reno cleaned up for his conformation photos.

Once he was all cleaned up, I got my sister and brought Reno out onto the lawn (praying that my Mom wouldn't kill us). And he was awesome!! Except the evil grass taht was distracting him. Sigh. Have a good look :-)

After we were done with the photos, I let him loose in the arena to get some action shots, he didn't really feel like moving around because Dollar was still tied up to the fence and that's where he wanted to go and stay. But I did get one good shot...

After I caught him, I put him on the lunge rope because I currently don't have a lunge line right now seeing as it got destroyed. And went to see how he would do. To the left he was actually pretty good. He's pretty used to voice commands so I was using that while lunging him, and also had to whip for a little bit of encouragement. He was good that he didn't try to pull too much while going to the left and even got him loping a little bit.

Then we went to the evil side: the right. He didn't like this at first, so I just walked him around to the right for a bit until he knew what I wanted and then slowly let out the rope. He was pulling quite a bit, but I think he might have been a bit confused or something. He did work pretty good with the voice commands and once he was moving nciely, we called it a day.

Reno lunging

Oh, and video!!

Yup, he's coming along nicely.

Riding Indoors

Not much to do today. Not working today, so I was thinking of going to ride around 10:00, but then it started pouring and didn't stop. Sigh. Then Sam called me around noon and asked if I wanted to go riding with her at an indoor arena located about 20 minutes away. I said sure and told her to pick me up when she was done work.

She stopped by around 2 and ran a couple quick errands and then headed home to get ready. Mom had the truck so we had a bit of time to get the horses ready. I was thinking of taking both Dollar and Reno, but we had limited time seeing as we also had my niece's first birthday party at 6. Sam got Pretty ready and I headed out to the pasture (yes in the pouring rain) with a grain bucket to get Dollar. I got to the fence line and just shook it calling his name. I saw him come barreling through the bush leading Mars and Reno. I took one look at Dollar and laughed while I called him Fatty McFatso. He's got a huge grass belly! Yup, he's enjoying being outside 24/7. I managed to get him out of the pen without the other 2 getting out and quickly ran over to the barn. Brought him outside to get out of the rain and started getting him ready to go ride. Got him saddled up and then put a winter blanket over him to help him dry up a little.

Mom got home shortly after we were done getting ready, so I grabbed the truck, hooked up and loaded up the horses and took off. Got to the indoor arena that we would be riding at, unloaded and quickly hopped on. It was almost 4:30 by this point and we had to leave by 5:30 in order to make it in time for the birthday party. So I hopped on Dollar quickly and got to warming up. His breathing wasn't the greatest today, so we were just going to stick with walking and trotting. That grass belly doesn't help anything!! Lol.

He was behaving quite well and just doing whatever I asked him to. I was also watching out for Sam as this is her last chance to get Pretty ready for Reining finals this weekend. I worked with Dollar on getting our marching walk and also some extended trots. Got him to do some cantering as well, but he also had it in his mind that we could fast. Needless to say, we had a discussion about that. Lol. Sam stopped me so that I could watch her work her Reining circles and see how she was doing. And since I had my camera with me.....



Yup, got video!! Mwhahahaha! :-)

Anyways, after she was done her circles, I put Dollar back to working his trotting circles and then Sam wanted to work some sliding stops. She couldn't do much because the ground was very soft and Pretty doesn't have much stops in her. We figured about 10 before she quits. So she worked her stops while me and Dollar went around the perimeter. And then Dollar got it in his mind that we were doing sliding stops. Oh silly boy, we don't have sliders on!!

Near the end, I got Sam to take some video of me and Dollar working our circles a bit....



Not too bad, Sorry there's no sound though. Apparently my camera doesn't have sound (it's a photo camera with video on it). We still have lots of work to do. We also worked some of our half-passes while Sam was cooling down Pretty and then we loaded back into the trailer. We were running behind, so we quickly zoomed home for the birthday party.

Till next time!!

Trail Riding in Birds Hill Park

Woot woot!! Trail riding today!! Was up around 8:30 this morning as Keith has set the alarm. So we got up and Keith noticed a buzzing noise coming from the furnace fan. So he played around with the furnace controls a bit and then went downstairs to see what was going on. Seems like something went again on the stupid thing. Agh! Why does it always break down?? So we called the furnace guys, but they're closed until Tuesday because of the long weekend.

While Keith was dealing with that, I started getting all my stuff ready to go trail riding in Birds Hill Park with Kelly and some other girls. Grabbed all my stuff and left the house around 10. Did a stop by the gas station to fill up the truck and grab some snacks for myself. Once I was done there, I headed over to my parents place and hooked up to the trailer. Once everything was secure, I went to the barn to grab some grain, hay and protective boots for Dollar. My tack was at the pasture so I didn't have to worry about that. Got everything organized and loaded and then went to the pasture to get Dollar.

Got out there and grabbed Dollar (who was hiding in the bush), grabbed the tack and loaded into the trailer. Dollar seemed pretty happy to be going somewhere. Got everything in there and fully locked up and headed on my way. Sent Kelly a text saying that I'd be there in about 1 hour.

The drive there was uneventful, just had to drive on the #1 for a bit, which was a pain due to construction and it being 2 lane almost the entire way. Took a bit of a detour getting to Kelly's barn as I couldn't get directly onto the road that I needed, so I had to take a different way, but it all worked out.

Got to Kelly's barn with no issues (unlike last time), managed to get the trailer turned around. Didn'trealize how tight it was because last time I was here, ht etrailer hadn't been lengthened yet. Once I was parked, I went and found Kelly and asked her if I could let Dollar loose in the arena to loosen up a bit before our ride. She said sure, so I got him out of the trailer and let him loose in the arena. All he did was walk around and go look at himself in the viewing room window and walk around some more. Didn't feel like running at all. Since he seemed like he was done walking around, I grabbed him and tied him up in the alleyway and gave him his grain. I met Natalie (another one, not my sister) who was riding with us and Michelle, who also boards where Kelly is. We all got our horses ready and Kelly gave me the fly-mask that I asked her to pick up, so I put that underneath his bridle to keep the flies out of his eyes. And he looked so cute!!

Dollar looking cute in his fly-mask

 

Ready to go!!

Kelly had to kick out some horses and then we all got ready to go on our ride. And the nice thing is that this group doesn't run! Yeah! We headed off down the driveway, just all chatting away. Dollar seemed pretty happy to be out and about.

We walked all the way to Birds Hill Park and then proceeded to inside the park. Before we got in the park, we found something dead on the trail taht we were on. Me and Kelly couldn't figure out what it was, so we decided to take a picture of it. And then Dollar decided to step on it when he turned around. Oh boy.

The dead thingy

Michelle was having some fun with Renegade because Renegade wanted to do his own thing and kept going everywhere else, except where we were going. Silly Renners. We were heading out to some fields to walk around in the had some xc jumps, but we came across a little bit of construction zone. It almost looked like they were making a road going through the field for something. I tried getting Dollar to cross it, but he wasn't doing it. So we walked back to the road and that's where we saw a pony pulling a cart. Looked so cute!

Heeeere's Johnny!!

Pony pulling a cart

When we got across the main road, I saw the wall jump and was going to trot Dollar over there. I guess Dollar accidentally spooked Taffy, Natalie's horse and he ended up bucking off Natalie and trotting off. Natalie landed on her back. Kelly told me and Michelle to get Taffy and she would look after Natalie. I was slowly walking Dollar towards Taffy while whistling fo rhim, but he slowly kept walking away. So Michelle gave me Renegade to hold and she got a hold of Taffy. Natalie was up on her feet but was feeling a bit dizzy (she wasn't wearing a helmet), so we walked over to the picnic tables that were nearby and let her sit down a bit. She said she was fine a couple minutes later, so she hopped back on and then we went to the wall jump.

When me and Dollar got closer to it, he stopped about 5-10 feet away and just stared at it. Lol. Always looking out for me and scary stuff. I got him closer to the wall and then we continued on our way. On the next road, there was a paved shoulder, so I had Dolalr walking on there to help toughen up his tendons.

Walked all the way there and found the XC course. Played around in the water complex for a bit and then kept on walking.

Marching through the grass

Standing in the water jump

Kelly & Johnny

Found some small xc jumps and decided to try Dollar over one. Nope. I jogged him up to it and he just stopped, trying to figure out what this thing is. He tried putting his leg over it, but decided not to. Oh Dollar. So I found a smaller one and actually got him over it! He still seemed like he was being cautious, but that's OK, I'll take that. Kelly got some video of us doing the jump and then we just walked around the field for a bit.

At this point Natalie and Michelle changed horses and Taffy was pushing Natalie around, so Michelle offered to ride Taffy and Natalie took Renegade. We waited while Michelle re-did the cinch and lengthened the legs on the saddle before heading off to the ranch to grab something to drink.

Walked all the way to the ranch and Dollar just kept marching way ahead of everyone and I had to keep stopping him so that they could keep up. Seems that Dollar likes being in charge. Lol. Got to the ranch and tied up the horses to the hitching post and went inside and sat where we could see them. Got a drink and some pizza pops as I was pretty hungry, wtched the horses and chatted around the table for a bit. Pretty good conversations. After a while, there where some kids outside who started feeding all the horses some grass and all the horses seemed to be loving the attention. Nice.

Dollar waiting for us at the ranch

After we were done at the ranch, we got the horses ready to go and started haeding back to the barn. And the horses knew that we were heading back because all of a suddenly all the horses were marching pretty good. I was talking to Kelly during the ride back and I swear Dollar was trying to rush back. He was almost speed marching and tried trottingon me a couple times. Such a silly boy. But I got him back down to a walk and continued on. We got to the highway to cross and Dollar stood at attention while we waited for the cars to pass. Almost all the other horses were moving around and Dollar was barely moving a muscle. Yes, he's a gentleman. Got over the highway and continued the march home. By now allt eh horses knew that we were heading home, so we were all speed marching. Oh well, it's a good workout for Dollar.


Got back to the barn and started getting everyone untacked. No breathing issues with Dollar because we just walked so I wasn't worried about him. But by the time we got back, we had been gone for 5 hours!! 5 HOURS!!! OMG!! But me and Dollar really needed that. It was a good workout for us. I gave him the rest of his grain and got him ready to go home. Talked with Kelly for a bit more while Dollar finished eating and thanked her for the ride. Definitly have to do this again. Once Dollar was done, I loaded up everything and got ready to hed for home.

On the way home, I did a quick stop by Deacon's Corner to grab something to drink and eat and continued on our way. Got to my parents place in good time, dropped Dollar off at pasture along with my tack and then dropped the trailer off at my parents place. Went inside and Mom had some pizza left over so I grabbed that and shoved it down my throat. Natalie told me that I had to take Mars back to pasture because Sam was in too much of a hurry to bring him back before. Sigh. So I went to the back, put his halter and lead rope on him, hopped on and rode him back to the pasture. Wow, high as a kite. Natalie was picking me up at the pasture, so she drove beside us so that Madison could see Mars. Got to the pasture without Mars killing me, put him in there with Dollar and then headed home.

Got home around 8:30 and hopped in the shower as Keith doesn't like me smelling like horse. Once I was all cleaned up, I spent the rest of the evening with him and didn't get to bed until close to midnight.

So this actually took care of a couple things on my 101 list:
#27 - Go on at least 1 trail ride a year (1/3)
#45 - Try at least 1 XC jump with Dollar (non-competition)
#20 - Get a fly-mask

Sweet!!

Work-out and Video!!

Well, today turned out to be a busy day. My sister picked me up close to 10 am so that I could watch her kids while she rode her horse at my parents place before she had to work at noon. The nice thing about this arrangement is that once the kiddos were down for a nap around 1, I could go ride my horse.

Once my sister was done riding, I had a couple minutes to quickly go grab Dollar. So I grabbed one of the 4-wheelers and tried to get it going. It decided not to start. So I tried the other one and couldn't get that one going either. So I just resorted to grabbing a bicycle and cycling over to the pasture. Could tell that I haven't done that in a while. My legs were KILLING ME!!

When I got to the pasture, I couldn't see the horses anywheres. Oh oh. And Dollar wasn't coming when I called his name (sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't and decides to make his mom worry). So I went and checked out the bushes. I finally found them (trying to hide on me), grabbed Dollar and headed towards the gate. Thankfully, this time Mars didn't follow us. Once I got Dollar out of the gate, I hopped on him bareback with halter and lead rope and made the trek home.

I was a little apprehensive to see how his feet would do since his barefoot trim last week, but they held up nicely. He was being a little picky as to where he was walking, but he always it. He actually prefers walking in the ditches than walking on the road, so that's where he always heads to. Silly boy.

Got him home and threw him into pasture with the other horses until I could ride him once the kids go down for thier nap. Once the kids were down for their nap, I went out to grab Dollar and decided to take a video of him lunging so that you can see how he moves. He moves a little stiff, he is 18 after all, so I'm trying to keep stretching him out and finding some supplement stuff to give to him to help him with that issue. He looks pretty good lunging, just being his stubborn old self and moving slowly.

Once we were done lunging, I tacked him up in his English again and worked on some simple Dressage stuff, basically working on our half-passes and straight lines. He warmed up pretty good and was doing some decent half-passes, but he was not very willing to move his butt very fast. I had my spurs on and even that wasn't encouraging him. I actually hopped off at one point to find the whip, but couldn't find it anywhere's. I have a feeling that Sam left it somewhere. Oh well, that just means that I go and buy my own. Mwhahaha.

Anyways, Dollar did pretty good during our work-out, but I could tell that he needed to go for a hack soon. Unfortunately with the kids sleeping inside, I couldn't leave. But luckily, I have a couple day soff next week that we can go for hacks and we're also going for a trail ride with my friend Kelly next Saturday, so that will definitely brighten him up.

After we were done our work-out, I put him back out in pasture and went inside to check on the kidlings.

Starting out in English with Dollar

Well thank you Mother Nature for ruining my plans for today. See my hubby starts work at 6 am, so I thought that I'd drive him to work and then go ride Dollar to escape the heat. Haha. It was FREEZING outside and wasn't even 20*. Yes this was cold compared to last week when it was almost 30-something degrees EVERY SINGLE DAY and the Humidex was INSANE! So this was my plan: go ride Dollar in the early morning to escape the heat and it would be easier for both of us. Seeing as it was pretty cold outside, I opted to wait until noon to see what the weather did. So I did some stuff around the house and got Dollar's new grooming tub ready (yes!!) and left the house around 12:30.

Got down to the barn (which is conveniently located at my parents place), brought my stuff to the barn, grabbed my bridle and the 4-wheeler and gunned it off to the pasture where Dollar is, about ¼ mile away. Yes, I could've taken my car, but I had warmer clothes in there if I needed them. Walked out to Dollar in pasture, where of course, he stood like the perfect gentleman. Unfortunately, I had to spend some time re-adjusting his bridle because it was used on another horse that I was hoping to do Dressage with, but ultimately was told no by my Dad, so the bridle was fitted a bit small for Mr. Prince's big head. And he kept yawning at me! As if saying that he was bored already. Oh Dollar. I tried getting a picture of it, but as soon as I got my camera out, he stopped yawning. Oh well. Once he was all fitted with his bridle, we headed towards the gate and home.

Well, at this time, his pasture buddy Mars decided that it would be cool to try to charge the gate to come with us. Haha, yeah right Mars. No can do. And that's when I noticed that Mars was lame. He came up to the fence and just held out his front left leg totally off the ground and looked like he didn't want to put weight on it. Huh, weird. Seeing as we were already at the gate, I left Dollar standing there and went to take a look at Mars' leg. Couldn't feel any heat, so I made myself a mental note to let Sam (my sister) know when I got back to the house. Once I got Dollar out of the pasture (and continually trying to scare Mars away from the gate), I hopped on him bareback and started our ¼ mile hack home.

This is the really nice thing about having Dollar out in pasture. I can ride him home and start warming him up on that ¼ mile ride back. He usually has more energy when heading towards home, so we alternate between walking and trotting, just to get him a bit warmed-up before we do more riding with the saddle. Yes, I do more warm-ups in the ring once we get to actual riding. The other nice thing is that with the ride home, I can assess how he's breathing because of his heaves and figure out our riding plan on the way home. Well, today he was huffing and puffing a bit, along with a tiny bit of wheezing possibly. I say possibly because he is out of shape and sometimes confuse the being out of breath and wheezing. He is a bit weird in that department. Got him home with no issues (other than wanting to run home), got him in the coral, put up some of the gates that were down and turned him loose to roam around while I got his grain ready. I did go chase him around a bit, which he loved. As I was mixing his grain, he tried getting into the barn and when that didn't work, he kept following me back and forth, hoping to get some grain. Once I was almost done mixing the grain, I ran into the house and grabbed some vegetable oil and some Nature Valley granola bars. My friend over at The Jumping Percheron says that her horse loves them, so I decided to try them on Dollar. He just about took my hand off! Guess he loves them. Lol.


Once I was done mixing his grain, I gave it to him outside and then went to cleaning the barn. See, normally we kick all the horses out during the summer, but because it has been so wet and everything, Dad's been keeping the Reiners inside so that they don't lose their sliders. Well, they're still stuck inside in thsi 30*C heat. Feel so bad for them. And I couldn't kick them out while I was cleaning because otherwise they'll chase Dollar away from his grain and I need him to eat all that. Sigh.

After I was done cleaning the barn, I took some photos of Dollar's feet, seeing as this is the last days that he is wearing shoes. The farrier is coming tomorrow and those shoes are coming off permanently. He is 18 and is on very light work duty. He has been wearing shoes since he was 5 and there is no reason for him to wear them (yes, Andrea converted me to going barefoot). I know that there are better solutions for feet and just not realizing this until now. So, starting tomorrow, those shoes are off and we're going to be looking at doing stuff barefoot. Never mind that he old, and he doesn't really need them, they also hurt my wallet as well, since it's about $20-30 more just for shoes.

 Left Front

 Left Back

 Right Back (yes he took a chunk out of his foot. Oh Dollar...)

 Right Front

Trotting around the arena

Enjoying his grain

Anyways, I tacked up Dollar in English and started warming him up. During our warm-up, Natalie showed up and said that she was go get Mars. I told her about his leg and she said that she'll check it when she gets there, grabbed the 4-wheeler and took off. We continued on our warm-up just doing walking and jogging, getting him to loosen up. I tried getting him into a trot, but he was back to being slow and lazy. Dang it. I wanted him fresh! Oh well, we'll deal with it.

A couple minutes later Natalie called me to ask me to come help her get Mars home. Natalie was leading him with the 4-wheeler because she knows that she can't ride him home, he's just too pumped full of energy. But apparently, he was trying to go in front of the quad and almost trying to kick. So I went down there on Dollar (they weren't too far from home, about halfway between pasture and home) to get Mars home. Haha, yeah right. I grabbed the lead rope and let Dollar slowly start walking towards home. Mars?? Well, Mars was high as a kite and I had to continually tell him to slow and calm down. Nope. I had to keep his head held up high so that he wouldn't pull any stupid stunts, yet he was still trying. So Natalie took the quad home and then walked to us, grabbed Mars and walked with him home. So glad Dollar doesn't act up like that.

Once we got back home, I continued working Dollar. He was being very light and responsive (as always) of everything I asked for. Around this time, Sam came home with her barrel racing Percheron because she wanted to do some work with him. And Natalie was riding her horse. Yes, it was a bit crowded, but we're used to that.

I worked Dollar both ways walking, trotting and loping. I actually had to get my whip to use with him to get him to actually trot. He just didn't want to lengthen his strides at all. And the whip seemed to help.

After going both ways and working Dollar quite a bit, I decided to have some fun and set up a little jump for Dollar. So I took our Barrel racing cans, set them on their sides and made a tiny cross-rail (I'm not kidding. Maybe 1 foot) and proceeded to trot Dollar over that. Well, it seems that he has retained that information that we shouldn't touch any jumping poles at all. So while we were trotting over the tiny jump, Dollar was daintily clearing the jump with out no hesitation at all, unlike Reno (post link here).

And then Sam decided to try something with her Percheron. Seems she might have an idea making her Perch into something like Klein. So I took down the poles so that he could get sued to just jogging through. Yeah...ummm...No. He jogged up to them totally fine and then balked when he saw the barrels. So Sam had to convince him that it was safe to go through the barrels and just kept going back and forth until he did it without hesitation. Hey, he might have a new career after all.

After Sam was done with the jumps, I set them back up, but put the poles straight this time, so they were maybe 2 feet and let Dollar lope over them. Again, very dainty with how he jumps. And no hesitations.

All tacked up in English!!

Oh, and the best part?!?! I got some video. I will say this before hand, that yes, I was not hearing a helmet, I know I should and I always do (except for this time). I couldn't find my helmet anywheres and I wasn't planning on jumping today. But I did find it and it is will all my other stuff with strict instructions to my sister not to take it for her speed events.

Once we were done, I put the barrels and poles back where they belonged, grabbed Dollar and took him back to pasture. Tomorrow....Dollar's is officially going Barefoot!!