A Good Cushion Can Help

I got to try my new ThinLine shock absorbing pad on MJ during my lesson on Wednesday.

Addison helped me groom MJ and tack him up until Debbie drove up. We put MJ's Fenwick Western pad on first with the ThinLine+ Contour pad on top of it, then the saddle. I had brought out a longer girth just in case…

Time for a Change

Sorry I've been gone for a while. NOTHING much was happening, sometimes the weather did not cooperate with my riding, Shannon had health problems, and sometimes my gut was not happy with the world. MJ has decided that his old method of making his back as hard as concrete is the way to go in the riding ring.…

Finally Some Progress

The same old, the same old, how many times can I write an interesting blog when nothing changes? That is why I have been absent, nothing much new happened.

MJ got a bad case of thrush under his full pad for his navicular disease, so now he is just in regular shoes still according to the alignment of his…

A Time for Ice Vests

It has been HOT down here in the southern central part of NC. Weeks of highs in the 90s F, with some days getting over 100 F, and it is humid. Thunderstorms roll through some afternoons and I hear thunder all around me, the lights flicker (and stay on, I am fortunate) and the air conditioning feels pretty good compared to outside.…

R.I.P. Mia

Last Sunday, Debbie put Mia, the bay mare in my avatar photo, down. Mia was somewhere around 40 years old and looked it. Debbie had been quibbling about putting Mia down for over a month, I said goodbye several times, then Debbie would tell me she just could not go through with putting her down. Mia might have been OLD, but turned out with the other really old horses she finally…

Still at a Standstill

Sometimes it seems like nothing ever changes much. Since January 2020 when I got Covid-19 the pandemic has really messed up my riding life. I am not alone, I know, but I am getting FRUSTRATED even though the idea of progress with elderly Not Quite Right (NQR) horses is sort of ludicrous. I am equally frustrated by the reduction in effective physical therapy for my MS,…

Older Horses' Legs

As horses get older and all the shocks from hooves landing at speed accumulate horses' joints tend to get REALLY sensitive when the weather changes. This spring has been chock full of weather changes, days of really nice weather, then the Polar Vortex visits us and all the cold weather gear has to come out yet again, over and over again. Springtime is not always wonderful for…

I love Readers Digest, there is always some gem to be found in there.

In this months it was an article talking about pets and what they are trying to tell us. Included was that when a dog wags their tails to the right they are curious, interested, engaged, they are working from the left side of the brain. When dogs wag their tails to the left it shows they are worried or fearful, working from the right side of their brain.

It is along the same lines as a horse spooking and…

Do Some Horses NEED to Toe Out?

MJ was so much better for my lesson than he was in my lesson last week.

Last week he had gotten his new shoes, with a new alignment, on. He no longer has a bar across his frog for protection, he now has a full pad across the bottom of his front hooves, and as directed by the veterinarian from…

The month of March was one of... winter is over... not it's not... yes, finally.... no, it's back.... now it's clear... no, still more snow...make up your mind!!

So annoying.

Eager plans to get busy training were stopped cold (yeah, pun intended) by the vagaries of weather. Kind of hard to work on a rope when confronted with freezing whiteout conditions and whipping winds. Of course, on the days I wasn't planning to train, because of my day job, the weather was warm and…

Cautiously Optimistic

In between the rains, bitterly cold morning, MJ's shoeing problems and me occasionally getting sick I have not been riding much this past winter. I did not have anything much to write about this month other than being frustrated about not riding much.

Now spring is here, and I do have some progress to…

Those single whorl horses. They have an amazing reputation in the horse whorld. Steady, dependable, unchanging. They are the unicorn of whorls.

Yes, this is mostly deserved. It’s entirely possible that they can be those things.That single whorl shows a lack of extremes. Extremes are good to avoid with anything in life. The middle of the road, a little of everything and not too much of anything.

Most of the time a single whorl comes with a straight profile, squared off muzzle, a…

I'm excited to show off my beautiful new mare, Tessa! 

They have a bad reputation. Watch out for those double whorls. Nothing but trouble. Said to have double personalities, wildly swinging mood changes. Jekyll and Hyde temperament. Avoid them when you can.

And yet.

There are a select few of us who like our double whorls.

What is a double whorl?

For this purpose it is two whorls stacked on top of each other or next to each other. There are other whorl patterns with two whorls but they aren’t usually included in this.…

Ottawa, ON, March 9, 2022 – The Equestrian Canada (EC) Board approved a resolution today condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the breaking of the Olympic Truce, and Belarus’ support of the attacks. EC joins the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee (IPC), Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) in banning Russian and Belarusian athletes, horses and officials from sport…