Time Heals All Wounds...

Oh, wow. So so so very much has been happening around here and I am just praying that following my gut won't get me in too deep! First off, Duelly was sent back to his owner after long collaboration between my trainers and myself. His heart just wasn't in his work and it is hard to build a relationship on that. Talent can only get you so far in this sport.

Moving on, I decided to take a chance on another horse and what a chance that is turning out to be!

Meet Scottie, otherwise known as Sir Prescott. Pictured above is just about all Scottie does as of right now: hand walk and eat. This is because he has a mildly strained suspensory in his right hind, but he was free so I figured I would give it a go. Why you might ask? Scottie is a seasoned training level packer that has evented all over area 4 and 5 with a few riders, most notably a junior in which he placed very respectively at some big competitions. Oh yeah, and he was free! Right about now you are probably thinking that I have lost my ever-loving mind. Well, jump on the bandwagon and know that I don't give a damn! Scottie has been given an 85% chance of full recovery and everyone that knows me knows that I do this sport on a shoestring budget. I don't have the financial means to go buy a $15,000 horse. Here's to hoping that a little time and TLC will get me there!

 

Cue more issues, as always. Upon Scottie's follow-up visit to EMA it was discovered that he has EPM. Luckily we caught the disease before it progressed to horrible proportions. His test results from before I got him (which I did not know about at the time) indicated an elevated inflammatory response and low titer but now his numbers were through the roof. He has been started on a cycle of Dr. Ellison's product Oroquin-10 and is wrapping up that round tomorrow. We know in 4-6 weeks, upon another retest, if the treatment worked. In the meantime, his lameness is getting better, his toe dragging has reduced, and his tripping is nearly eliminated. All good signs! If the treatment doesn't work, well... I just don't know but I cant think about that right now. Right now, I have to be strong for myself and for my horse who seems to have had a fairly rough life.

 

Riding is never an easy sport, for anyone. It comes with ups and downs of epic proportion. As of late I have been questioning myself and my dreams. Why do I do this? Why do I put myself through this? Is it really meant to be? Is it even &^*#!%@ worth it? But then I walk into the barn and hear that loving nicker and my heart melts. Instantly I know exactly why I do this. I do it not only for the love of the sport but for the love of the relationship between horse and rider. Scottie is a loving, sweet boy who really brings back memories of Stretch. I miss that horse more than anything and find myself staring at his pictures every night thinking "what might have been" but I know I made the right decision for him. Scottie is my chance to move on. With him, I get that familiar nicker when I walk in the barn. A knowing nuzzle when I have treats. A random lick across my arm or face just because. It touches my heart and I know this horse is what I need right now. This WAS meant to be. I need this horse and this bond just as much as he needs me. I am confident that it will all work out in the end and we will be unstoppable! Time heals all wounds, all doubts, all fears but you cant just sit and wait for things to fall in your lap. Take a chance. Take a risk. Make a change. Follow your heart.

 

More updates to come but until then, keep kicking!

Rough Waters

Since my last post several events have happened, many of those leading me to the decision to put Stretch up for sale once and for all. The upper levels just aren't in the cards for him and it is in his best interest to pair him with a rider that accepts that and has other goals in mind. It hit me today when I loaded him in the trailer that I am about to say goodbye to one of my best friends of nearly six years. I realize that I have to look at this as a business decision and that it is best for him, but it is still difficult. Thus far two families are very interested and hope to look at him soon. I believe that he would be very happy in either situation.

On the other hand, I would like to welcome Dance Of War, aka Duelly, to the Up A Creek Eventing team! Duelly is a 9yo warmblood gelding out of a Seattle Slew mare by Der Radetzky. Needless to say, athletic might as well be his middle name! Duelly has joined the team on a two year free lease and I can now proudly say that I have my first "owner", the wonderful Ms. Linda Dany. It makes me feel so professional!!! Duelly came to me as a blank slate after only 30 days with Lee Johnson and a week with Dynah. We have been paired together for nearly three months now and have both improved by leaps and bounds! He is a completely different ride from what I am used to and nothing could be better for me at this stage in my career. When we first started together, Duelly had never seen more than trot rails and had to learn all about that darn stadium thing! I can thank grids for that one!! We have since completed two schooling shows with incredible results. Duelly's first outing was the Lily Pond CT in which we ran green as grass and finished on our dressage score of a 33.0 to land us in first place. Second on our list was the Gallery Farm CT where we ran in the starter division and finished on our dressage score of a 31.5 to finish in second. Duelly was quite the show stopper at Gallery and had the entire xc warm-up sitting on the sidelines watching him school! I am so proud of my new little grey pocket rocket! He is turning into such a super star and I cannot wait to see where the two of us go in the future!

The down side is that the future has been temporarily put on hold. About two weeks ago I was kicked in the knee while working with a three year old filly and have been down for the count since. Two sets of xrays and two weeks later we have determined that there are no broken bones and we are in the process of scheduling a CT scan to evaluate any possible tendon damage. Unfortunately, the only thing I have been riding is the couch! The fall plan was to aim Duelly for his first recognized event at Texas Rose HT the first weekend of November, but he needed the full two months prior of heavy schooling to be ready to run beginner novice. Scratch that plan. Now I am just hoping that I will be back in the saddle in time to run him in a schooling HT at Southern Hills in mid November and would like to attend at clinic at Feather Creek in either December or January. Only time will tell if these will be possibilities and hopefully we will have more results this week.

Today has been a particularly hard one and I have never missed being on the back of a horse this much. Im not sure why, but it seems as though every time my dreams are finally within grasp something terrible has to happen. Nevertheless, if there is one thing that eventing has taught me it is that things don't always go according to plan and that we must make the most of any situation. I will keep kicking! All this down time is at least giving me the opportunity to step back and evaluate some things in my life and really think about some decisions. Not yet sure what the future holds in that respect but expect to see great things from the little grey come spring because I can't stay down for long!

Never Admit Defeat...

I know that it has been a while since my last post and that a new one is long since overdue. To be honest, I just haven't had the heart to write lately. To say that things have not gone according to plan would be an understatement. Stretch's first novice event was Feather Creek Farms in Norman, OK. He was such a trooper and, despite the trials and tribulations of the weekend, I could not have been more proud of my baby. We were sitting fourth after dressage on an extremely respectable score of a 31. Cross country presented some issues, with a stop at the bank up and a run-out at part B of the ditch, along with quite a bit of time. The ditch and time were certainly my fault and the bank up was just too early on course for being maxed out with scary bushes. Stadium went well with only one rail that was, again, my fault. Needless to say, we did not recieve our first qualifying ride.

After Feather Creek, we returned home and went back to work to try to improve upon our performance before Mill Creek. It was then that every horse owner's nightmare occured. If you are one of those "show and go" riders that never spends time with your horse and does not partake in their day to day training and care, then you probably will not know what I am about to mention. However, if you are the rider that knows your horse inside-and-out and has that unspeakable, unbelievable bond with him, then you will fully understand. Stretch never took a lame step, and really was never "off" either, but he certainly wasn't right. I could tell in the way his stride fell and the way that his ears would twitch or his head would toss that something was not right, but to the naked eye on the ground, or even someone on his back that didn't know what to look for, everything seemed fine and I was just overreacting. Come to find out it was a mildly strained suspensory. Scratch Mill Creek.

As every horse owner knows, despite your rider catagory, when things start to get bad, they always get worse. Due to reasons that are not exactly up to me to make public, I then lost access to some rather neccessary items. IE: trailer and saddles. Thus the long road to trailer shopping has begun. With financial limitations and size obligations (that's what happens when your horse is 16.3hh and weighs 1,300 pounds!), finding an appropriate box with wheels is easier said than done! We won't even mention saddles right now. That pandora's box can be opened at a later date. The trailer must be conquered first!

Back to the Stretchy pony, rehab has since begun. However, about two weeks in, a shoe goes missing. It just so happened to take half of the foot with it. For me, this was the equivalent of "Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200." Great! Six more weeks off and two farriers later, Stretch has a somewhat normal foot, two new shoes, and a fabulous new farrier that I would highly recommend *cough*Arlo Bruesch*cough*. Rehab continues. Up to 25' walk, 10' trot, 2' canter, 5' light dressage work. Cue 115 degree heat! I suppose I owe a rather sarcastic thanks to Oklahoma's crazy weather for kinking my plans yet again. It is suicide to work in this heat, so on nights that the temperature drops back into double digits work ensues, otherwise nada.

I guess this post was the long way of saying that when life hands you manure, make fertilizer. My plans for the summer, and in fact the entire year, have more bullet holes in them than a wild west saloon but I just keep trudging on. Things will get better. Stretch will get sounder. The weather will get cooler. The bank will get a little bigger. Okay, well maybe not that last one because horse's certainly have a way of draining it! The bottom line is this: never admit defeat in your goals. There will be another year for the novice Classic and there are some exciting opportunities just around the bend!