It’s been a Year

….And this is the next instalment of why my pony is still the bestest pony ever...

- Hanging with his best buddy -

The last time I posted on this blog, we had gone on an amazing trail ride, and had the best fun. So what did we get up to the rest of the year of 2017?

Well, I packed up the family and we moved overseas to Thailand.

Yeah, you did read that correctly!

We left on the 24th of April 2017, and I was going to write more about it while we were over there, but I got pretty sick due to not being able to access my treatments for my hypothyroidism - oh hey, I haven't written about that either! - so it never really happened.

The short story is: I didn't want to sell Copper. I've tried to do that before, when I had both Joey and Copper. (remember Joey? He broke my elbow in four places... But he was smart and cute when he wasn't being a brat)

Back then I had had a lot of interest in Copper, and on paper he sounds like an ammy rider's dream. The problem is, he is in every way except under saddle.

He's got impeccable ground manners, he is an excellent doer, he's got rock solid feet, he travels like a dream, and he's quiet and reliable. He is brilliant no matter how long you throw him out in the paddock for, he will come back to you and try whatever you ask of him. He doesn't break himself very often, and rarely needs a vet.

But he's not an easy ride. He is gentle, and can't buck, won't rear. But he is sensitive. He will take off on you if you ride hanging on to his mouth.

 

It's funny how many people get on him and can't ride him for nuts. And yes, there was this one time that a lady tried him out and he came so close to bolting on her. She was literally balancing herself on his mouth right from the beginning. He hadn’t even gone two steps before he started to panic. I had to teach her how to do an emergency one rein stop right then and there.

The downside is he is also nowhere near educated enough for an experienced rider to take him on. He'd need a super special home and to be honest, I really just couldn't bear the thought of him going somewhere that wouldn't love him for what he is - an honest horse, who is willing to show up do whatever you ask (within reason of course!).

So that left me with a huge dilemma! What to do with Copper while we spend two years or so in South East Asia?

Thankfully after a lot of agonizing, I found an amazing agistment/spelling place that would take him under unusual circumstances, i.e. - his owner is going away overseas and won't be able to check up on him at all!

So we moved him out Yass way. It's an hour out of Canberra, in the middle of nowhere, but it's cheap, and he has taken to the change like a total champ!

I finally got to go out and see him on the weekend, and I was sooooo happy when I saw how good he was looking.

- Just look at those muscles tho!! He looks so, so good! -

He has been a bit weak and untoned since his bout of stringhalt in 2016 - he lost so much muscle on his hind quarters, particularly around his gaskins. They literally withered away with muscle atrophy.

But I swear he looks better than he ever has - except for the time I was riding him regularly and we had a great lesson program, his topline was perfect then... But anyway, right now, despite not being touched for a year, he looks so good.

He doesn't have that lovely topline, but he doesn't look like a pregnant land whale, so I am incredibly chuffed to see how well he has done.

And of course, I had to ride him!

I started first with a little bit of groundwork to see what he remembered (all of it – clever boy!) and to gauge what kind of mood he was in - willing to try!

So I hopped on bareback and toodled around the arena. He felt strong and well shaped underneath me, but stiff. Oh, so very stiff! We had to remember that yes sideways *IS* possible and you can move one foot over at a time. Hah!

- Best Pony. Happy Face. -

That's to be expected, and even though he wasn't anywhere as responsive as he normally is, I couldn't stop grinning. Man, I love that horse.

We even did a bit of trotting on a 20m circle, and finished the ride off after about twenty or so minutes. Not a long ride, but so satisfactory.

I can't tell you how good it's been to be home, but it’s been made even better seeing Copper again.

If it was any other horse I wouldn’t be able to do this with him. I just wouldn’t. There’d be no point as the horse would either break themselves in the paddock, or need extra feed, or go mental being left to run wild for that long. But it’s Copper. There’s no way around it, he’s special.

He takes it all in his stride and is still a brilliant horse!

- The difficulties of taking selfies with your horse’s giant mug. Still smiling though!! -

I hope to visit him at least once more before we fly back to Thailand. It's a long way out to see him, but it's so worth it.

I also have to make sure his teeth and feet checked over before I leave so that gives me a good reason to get out there, and you better believe I can't wait to ride him again.

- It surprised me to see Copper bossing about the ponies! He is usually the lowest man in the herd, so this was interesting to me. Guess he figured out that he’s bigger then they are! -

See ya,

Bonita

Facing Reality

It has been one of those years.

I know that it’s been ages since the last update and for good reason.

I have been so overwhelmed by all the drama going on that I just could not cope with riding, or anything more than feeding and grooming him. And sometimes, even that was a difficult stretch…. Yeah. It was that bad…

I really can’t go into the details, also, I really don’t want to revisit it. But in my last post (aptly titled Barn Drama), I was relating the problems we’d had at the beginning of this year with our new paddock arrangements. I thought we had gotten through it, and I had been feeling cautiously optimistic that we may have found a workable solution.

Turns out, not so much.

The subsequent incident that exploded on us in July was far worse than the one at the beginning of the year, and left me with very few options to work with. Suffice to say, we did manage to find a spot for Copper at the paddocks, but the consequences of the whole event affected him and I for months after. I didn’t ride for months, and even now, it’s not a sure thing that I will ride just once a week.

The fallout is still affecting us daily.

I don’t know if next year I will still be able to keep my horse. That’s how bad it is… It breaks my heart to even think of selling him, but I can’t see how we will get around it when winter comes.

So for now, I’m not thinking that far ahead.

I just can’t.

I can’t keep thinking about the whys, the hows, and the what-do-I-dos of keeping my horse. I’m just taking it one day at a time.

Every chance I get to ride is the best day ever, and I’m not thinking any further than that.

See ya,

Bonita

Moving Shenanigans & Settling In

Shenanigans > (greater than) Settling into new paddocks. That about says it all doesn’t it?
Sunday morning, out in the paddock…

- “Rawh! My treatz!” says Copper to Robbie, his best bud -

- “Oh-tay, we iz fwends agin… Wut you mean – Buh Beye? I dunna get it…” -

- “Oh, dis wut you mean… One of dese homen-beanz horse gobbling fingz.” -

- “Srsly – agin with de clicky fing? No… Won’t smile… Wanna eat.” -

- “Weh you goin’? …Mom! …Mom!! DON”T LEAVE ME!!! I DON’T NOE ANYONEZ HERH!!” -

- “Told ya not to go…. *insert smirk*” -

- “I didn’t noes fencez bit! Honest!” -

- “Hai… I iz glad you here…” -

- *omnomnomnom* -

So long story - everything was going really smoothly with our move...  Turns out, it didn’t quite stay that way!!  :O

We started by picking up the hire float, then fetching Copper in from the paddock.

I prepped him for travel with float boots and plaiting up his tail. Copper walked up the ramp, stopped – had a sniff and a look, then marched right on.

I was so relieved… I didn’t expect any trouble, I know he’s been well trained with floats being an ex-racer off the track, but counting it up – Copper hasn’t been out on a float in over four years!  So I was kind of wondering if he’d be easy or a bit tricky.

We got over to our new home in 45 minutes or so – and he travelled really well, no clopping or clattering around – just eating from his hay net.  I should take him out more often…  :P

He unloaded fine, we walked around and explored; said hello to new pony faces over the fences, and then walked every inch of his new boundary fences.  *phew!* That took a while – and less than half way through he was all: “Can we stahp? Bored now… I want munchies!”

Copper was looking fairly settled - still a bit stressed and anxious, but he wasn't pacing or anything. He was eating, drinking, pooping and peeing - very normal horse behaviour, so I went home to fetch a hose and come back to fill up his trough.


In the hour or so that I was gone the dingbat ran through a border fence between paddocks and ended up in the neighbour's paddock!!



He was okay, but had to be rescued by the neighbour. He ended up with some abrasions on the front of his hind cannons - right on the front/under his hocks.

There was also a minor cut that was a bit deep, it had a skin flap that I gently pulled back and flushed with a ton of betadine!

I bandaged the cut, I was hoping that would hold the skin flap on so it would reattach, but the bandage slipped down in the night and the skin flap was half attached, and half dried up when I came back out the next morning.  

I fully expected to see swelling and lameness, but he was actually pretty good. So I guess it’s all’s well that ends well – for that kind of incident it could have been a lot worse.

If it teaches him to respect the fence though, I guess that's good, because seriously horse!



Such a silly boy...

But he is all "Don't leave me!!" when I go down, so I do feel sorry for him.



He's uncharacteristically clingy...

He is fretting a bit, and won't go into the actual paddock to eat. He's just staying the lane way down the front which isn’t very large, and doesn’t have much grass at all.

I mean, it's not like he couldn't stand to lose a few (Let’s be real here - a lot!) kilos, but I don't want him to colic.

I have been visiting him twice a day – once in the morning, and once in the evening for the last three days; Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, this happened:

Yep, first ride in new place… 

There’s not much to say about it, except he was a lot more rideable than what I’d been expecting!

With a little lunge (when he was trotting he exhaled the giant breath he’d been holding… Lol) and some lateral work at a walk, he was listening and felt quite relaxed when I hopped off 20 minutes later!

I was stoked – I feel like the work we’ve be doing towards learning how to relax even in tense moments has really been sinking in! He had all his marbles, but he was nice and forward – I was thinking that this would be a great competition frame of mind. ;)

It’s all groovy baby. 

See ya,
bonita

Wave Goodbye; We Are Off To A New Paddock

It is exciting and sort of scary, but definitely exciting – Copper and I are moving to a new equestrian complex this weekend.

We’ve been agisting at the same paddocks for over a decade, and it’s been great. The people and horses at our paddocks are fabulous – we all get along and have never really had any of that barn drama.

I’m going to miss them all.

Copper’s been running with his herd for years, and I know he’s going to miss his friends too.

I’m also going to miss the familiar, beautiful stretches of golden fields. But I have got to say – I’m so excited to move too.

And the whole reason we are moving?

We’re upgrading to a private, two horse paddock with all the facilities you could want for riding!

I’ve been waiting for this for years, and I’m so thrilled!

Still, saying goodbye to all this… 

   

It’s going to be sad.

In many ways…

… It’s the end of an era.

  

See ya,

bonita

Rain, rain go away.

As you can guess from the title, not much has been happening around here. The radio silence has pretty much been due to some heavy rains for the last two weeks.  Which brings me to the topic of my agistment. 

One thing I really dislike about keeping my horses at a government paddock is the fact that I don’t have access to an indoor arena.  I will go out and visit the ponies when it is windy, dark, hot or foggy; pretty much any weather but rain. 

Not only does the ground get really soggy and slippery which is pretty challenging in itself, but I don’t have any where dry to put Joey while I groom or tack up either.  It's basically all open paddocks.  

Which is very budget friendly, so the price is right, but also, again, a pain in bad weather.  Or when you have a lame/sick horse and you have to pen him up in the yards in the middle of summer with no shade…  Yeah, that’s not good either. 

Not that it’s been a real problem for me yet, but I know it has been for other horse owners at my yards.  In fact, one of the owners had to put up some shade cloth to shade her horse when he was being kept in everyday because of a bout of impaction colic.  Thankfully, the sails are still up, so if we do ever need to use them, we can.  They aren’t the best form of shade out there – I think well a ventilated stable or a great big shady tree would be better, but they certainly are the best thing for the set up we have. 

One day I am dreaming of my own property with a big barn with all the niceties, an indoor arena, an outdoor riding ring, a round pen, jumping paddock and perfectly fenced paddocks for the horses.   I don’t want much do I?  In the mean time, you can see some of the set up we have. 

Our arena.  It’s not a very clear shot, but you can see the crazy amounts of grass growing all through our riding area.  It’s nuts!

Joey, grazing in Paddock 1, up the top end near the gate.  The rest of the herd is hiding down by the dam as it’s the only dry ground in the paddock.  The field is literally a swamp at the moment; most of it is under a couple of inches of water.

Rusty, my sister’s horse, in the metal pens/yards that is the main holding area.

Another view of the yards – we have two small pens that share a water trough and a larger pen on the end that is usually where I tie up Joey to tack up and feed.  You can see the sail cloth that’s on the end, shading that pen. 

See ya,

bonita