Best Horse Ever!

I think Edgar has to be one of the best horses I've ever owned.. I've owned a few really good ones..  Shammy, Abbey, Oakley and now Edgar!  He's always been special but I get a lot of joy when I see moments like this..

Rachel's niece had been wanting to start riding lessons so we decided to start using Edgar for those.  Sophia is only 7 and she's a true cowgirl.. she's not one bit afraid of big ole Edgar!  Maybe a little intimidated by him when standing next to him, but she was not afraid to climb up on him and ride.  She's got a lot to learn, as she struggles with keeping him walking and remembering the word "whoa" and remembering to use her reins to turn and stop him but I have no doubts she'll progress and be riding off on her own soon.  For now, she is still on the lunge line and she prefers my big 17.5" saddle than this bareback pad.  She's wearing Rachel's 30yr old english attire that she just found in storage and looks super cute..  Rachel had told Sophia months and months ago she couldnt start riding lessons until she saved up enough money to buy her own helmet...  well look at her now!  She's a great kid and I thoroughly enjoy watching our Edgar help her learn how to ride.  He may not be a fancy show horse, but he is safe!!  Plus she has to work really hard to make him listen, her little tap tap of her legs does nothing for him..  :)  This last lesson, we gave her a little crop/whip to smack him with to get him moving.. but how hard does a 7yr old really smack?? ....  not that hard!  lol

Suzi is still leasing Edgar as well, we just borrow him once a week for our lessons here..  The more work Edgar gets, the better.. helps keep him healthy and sound.  Although we did have a health scare with him just a week after we lost Oakley.  It was the night of Sophia's lesson and I came home and could see from inside my house, that something was wrong with Edgar, he was visibly shaking.  I went out to the barn and tied him up, his body was shivering/shaking from head to tail..  I phoned the vet for advice and she said if he had a fever, to give him a dose of banamine, to watch him and see how he does in a few hours.  I blanketed him, gave him his dinner right away and that was helping, he slowly was eating, although not 100% normal.  I saw him go for water too, so that was good.  I had to wait for Derek to get home, as I asked him to stop and buy a thermometer.  His shaking really slowed down by the time Derek arrived, but upon taking his temp, realized he definately was sick as he was running 104 temp!  Horses avg is about 99-100.  I gave him a dose of banamine, stood talking with Rachel for a while, she left, I picked up manure and walked back into the barn. By this time it had been 45 minutes since I'd given him the meds and he was sweating really badly!  His body temp was very hot under the blanket, so I phoned the vet again, concerned about what I saw.. she said it was normal, he was sweating off his fever and to just leave him be and check on him in an hour.  Well a hour or two later, I did check on him, his temp was down to 100 and he was no longer sweating..   I went to bed hoping he would be back to normal, as the vet indicated if the fever came back, she'd need to come see him.

As I walked in the barn the next morning, he nickered at me to feed him and I knew right away he was just fine!  Took his temp, it was 99..  I took a sigh of relief.  All night I tossed and turned, my heart hurt at the thought of something happening to him, especially so soon after Oakley.  I dont know what exactly he had, maybe he just got cold.. but for now he remains blanketed until the weather warms up, not taking any chances of him getting sick again.  Maybe with his older age and because he's started to shed his winter coat already, he just caught a cold..  I cant loose Edgar..  I am so happy to have him back home, I never imagined how much joy and happiness I would feel inside just by simply providing a horse for others to enjoy.

Deja Vu

It was exactly a year ago that I had just started the search for my next horse.. here we are again, now on the search for Derek's next horse.  I had plans to start riding every weekend that I could, not driving all over the state!  Lets hope we dont have to drag this on for months and months, but the pickin's are slim right now in our area and although I'm seeing some great horses out there, they are far enough away to warrant overnight trips!  Maybe the plus side of that, is that Derek & I can have a bunch of mini-vacations coming up..   Always trying to find the bright side of the story!

Horse #1 was supposed to be a 15.1h 8yr Palomino gelding.  I saw this picture and immediately liked his build.. just look at that butt!  He was up in Mt Vernon, $2000 and he had a lot of trail experience that we were expecting in Derek's next horse. 

When we arrived, he was MAYBE 15h at the whithers, but he had a much bigger dip/sway back than it shows in this picture and his actual back was probably only 14.2..  He was short!!  He was well built though, stocky little bugger and he was very sweet and calm.  Stood quietly as we fiddled around and looked him over etc.  At this point, I was already 75% sure he wasnt going to work, I just felt he was too short, but Derek was OK with it, so  we put Dereks saddle on him, seemed to fit okay and then I bridled him and started to lead him around. 

His energy gears kicked in as soon as I started to lead him away..  He was a bit antsy, wanted to move and wasnt too keen on standing still.  I led him over to an area where Rachel (my friend) could get on him.  She offered to come along and ride the horse for Derek so we could see how he moved and just watch how he behaved under saddle.  He was pissy when I tried to move his body over to Rachel, he started moving as she mounted and she almost came off, but finally prevailed and was on his back.  By this time I was 95% sure I was not liking this horse.  Rachel rode him off and he was full of it.. he was wanting to trot, lope, his head was straight up the entire time and he just wasnt relaxed and laid back at all.  Rachel had a decent ride on him, but come to find out he basically has had 6 months off and he would require someone else to get the kinks back out of him before he was ready for Derek. 

I was 100% sure by the time we unsaddled him, that I wasnt going to be ok with buying him.  Derek and Rachel really liked his ground manners and were quite impressed by that and Rachel even thought he was worth a 2nd look out on a trail ride.. BUT in reality, we need a horse that can sit for a couple months and be the same horse as it would be if ridden daily...  Derek doesnt have the ability or want-to of riding a horse like that.  So the search continues..

Not sure how to label this post, so I won't...  Most our family and friends know already but we suffered a pretty tragic loss the day before Valentines Day.  A friend was on her way to my house, we were going to start WW that night, but when I went out to the barn to feed the horses, I noticed Oakley was flat out laying in his stall.  My horses dont use their stalls for laying down (EVER), they lay outside as I dont provide bedding in the stalls so I knew something was wrong immediately.  I ran to the house to put my muck boots on, called Derek to get him to hurry home and rushed back to Oakley.  He was covered in sweat and goat poop (from the stall floor), he'd been down for hours from what I could see.  The barn walls were all tweaked and bent out, the stall door chainlink wire was mangled and he was missing a couple shoes..  None of these were good signs.  I was able to get him up and he staggered out of the stall into the gravel area and I got him walking around.  He was exhausted..

I let him lay back down as he just didnt have the energy to keep moving and he didnt seem to be wanting to roll a lot, he just wanted to lay down.  I was quite concerned that he had spent hours rolling around when we were not home and that his intestines were twisted already and we were too late.

It took about 45 minutes or so to get ahold of a vet, apparently it was a busy night!  :(  She was about 45 minutes away, all we could do was wait.  We tried for quite some time to get him back up, 4 of us pushing and pulling on him and he just wasnt putting any effort in.  I knew he needed to be up for the vet exam and right before she got there, I heard Derek utter the word "Duck"..  DING DING DING..  My eyes filled with excitement and I told him "If anything will get this horse up, it will be the scent of a dead duck!"

The neighbors were over as well, I felt badly for Suzi to have to see this going on, but also realized that this is the reality of horse ownership and although I didnt feel we were on a very good path with Oakley at the moment, you cant hide from this happening forever. 

So Derek comes back with the dead duck and we put it down by Oakley's nose and that horse jumped up so fast, you'd have thought he was on fire!!  We all cheered and even laughed, I think the onlookers wouldnt have believed it if they hadnt seen it happen. 

Long story short, Oakley had a blockage in his small intestine and the outlook was very poor.  It was not likely he would recover from this on his own and surgery was not an option ($10k plus!) so we made the heart-wrenching decision to put him down immediately.  We gave the neighbor kids the time to come over and say goodbye to him and then everyone left except my friend Rachel.  So it was an intimate setting I guess you could say for Oakley's last moments..  We all shed tears, Derek, myself, Rachel and even the vet....  Oakley was the perfect horse for Derek and it will be hard to replace him. 

Drama Drama Drama

This has turned into the week of Drama and I'm ready for my brain to shut down; however it is not cooperating!  I love gossip and drama, just not when it is directed at me.  We've been dealing with a bit of family drama the past couple weeks that I am curious, nervous, scared and a little hopeful to see how it all turns out, but it does not directly affect me.  Then there's been the personal drama that I am smack dab in the middle of, circulating around me this week and this is why my brain is in overload.  Feel like a mental patient just starring off blankely, feel like Charlie Browns parents (whah whah wha wha wha whah), feel like the monotone commercial guy that says "dry eyes...."    Thank goodness for good friends to help me smile and move forward.  Then there is the animal drama..  took Willie and Edgar to an arena last night so my friend Rachel could give her niece a lesson.  She was going to ride Willie.  Well her niece is just too young and inexperienced to be off the leadline, so Rachel spent the first part of the lesson on the ground leading Sophia around while I got on Willie to warm him up.  He was a complete ass, nearly dumped me at one end of the arena while almost running through another horse that was being lunged.. Thank god what balance I do have stuck with me and I was able to get him under control and kept him from colliding with the other horse.. Poor gal that was lunging her horse looked a bit scared when she saw crazy Willie headed towards her horse!   So I decided my mindset was already in a bad place and to avoid wanting to kill my horse, I rode him a few more minutes then got off and swapped with Rachel.. He did fine with her, she kept him moving.  She's a good rider and has great balance and enjoyed working with him so I was happy to let her do it.  My brain was telling me to sell him, give him away, ditch him...  I was thankful she was there to fill in when my head clearly was in no mood to ride.

Derek and I have been fairly occupied lately, always something going on.  He started hiking with Lance a few weeks ago, they've been on a couple good hikes so far and he loves it.  Our dog club is starting to get active again now that hunting season is over, we've got a lot of weekends planned out already for the summer between the horse club and dog club, as well as 2 family reunion camping trips this year!  Our dog club is hosting 2 major events this year that we will be very involved with, a Duck Dog Challenge in Mid May and then 2 weeks later a Hunt Test..  should be interesting since it will be our first events and we are new to being involved in things like this, but should be fun too!!  Oh and thats another area of drama is this hunting retriever club we are part of..  there is some bad blood between a few board members of our club and the board members of another local club (although our members have taken the high road and are trying to move on)... unfortunately the other club is pushing their big wig weight around back east and keeping us from getting our affiliation with the main HRC club and its been a challenging, frustrating, eye opening adventure to be involved with.  Derek and I have become fairly involved now in this process of trying to move forward and get our affiliation.

Sometimes I wish I were a drinking person so I could just use that excuse to put the shit behind me and just go have a drink!!