Hooves. And Farriers.

I have had a rough time finding a good farrier in South Carolina. Or maybe its just that I have had some serious issues in the past two years.

In 2010, probably around March or so, the farrier I was using did not return my calls when Avalon ripped off his shoe and a chunk of his foot. Avalon was dead lame, and he needed a shoe put on in order to give him some relief - he always went lame when he lost a shoe. We've got granite chunks in the pasture that pop up like weeds after every rain.

After a few days of no return call no show I found another farrier. I'm not going to name names here - let's just call him Barefoot Guy. I call him Barefoot Guy because he was very into the natural shoeing trend that's going around. And you know what? In many places, for many horses, you can go without shoes and it's better for them. That did not end up being the case for Avalon.

When he came he took one look at Avalon's feet and said that he had some heel problems. He was right. A few years ago I had to switch farriers when one collapsed Avalon's heel (the same heel) through fitting the horse to the shoe instead of the other way around. He was lame for 3 months off of that. As a side note, total South Carolina farrier count so far is 4 with Barefoot Guy being the 4th. So Barefoot Guy put shoes on all 4 of Avalon's feet for a couple of months, then said that his back feet probably didn't need them. I was concerned about it, but I gave it a try, and you know what, it worked. Avalon is still barefoot in back, in fact.

We continue to put shoes on the front, until Barefoot Guy tells me that he cannot fix the problems we are having with Avalon's heel by putting shoes on. He tells me that he's just in a holding pattern, and shoes are preventing Avalon from getting the kind of growth he needs to grow out that collapsed heel. I decide to give it a shot, since it worked well in back, and we pull his shoes in August of 2010.

Avalon goes dead lame, but Barefoot Guy says this is normal, and horses generally need a couple of months for their feet to toughen up enough to prevent bruising, and once they do they get healthy feet. He tells me it's temporary, and about two months later (right before he's due for a trim) Avalon seems to be getting sounder.

It doesn't last. Avalon gets sounder when his feet are long, and lame after a trim. The Barefoot Guy keeps telling me it's temporary, but my horse is lame. I call the vet out in November, because Barefoot Guy has me half convinced that the problem isn't bruising now, but that heel problem we are trying to correct. We nerve block parts of Avalon's feet to see where the pain is coming from - and it is definitely his sole.

I ask Barefoot Guy in December to put shoes back on Avalon's feet. My horse has been lame for nearly 6 months with him continually telling me that his feet will toughen up any day now, but my gut is telling me 6 months is too long for this to be a temporary issue. I want my horse back. Barefoot guy refuses to put shoes on him, saying that it will undue all the work he's put into Avalon's feet and that eventually Avalon will be permanently lame if he has shoes put back on, ever.

I find a new farrier in January. Farrier Number 5.

Farrier Number 5 is my current farrier, but I am now so paranoid about crappy farriers I have serious concerns about Avalon's feet. Next month (aka when I have money), I am going to get a vet to come take xrays of his feet and make sure they are balanced. Avalon is sound. But the way his feet look, I don't think he will be for long.

I took these pictures on July 3rd, which was a couple of days before Farrier 5 was supposed to come out and trim him. These pictures really concerned me.

This is his funky foot. The one I have had past heel issues (twice!) with, and the one that looks different than the other 3. I don't think it's a true club foot, but it's definitely low compared to the rest of his feet. I do NOT like the way his heel looks. It looks completely underrun/collapsed to me.

I always doubt myself with hoof issues because I'm not a farrier and I'm not a vet, and what do I know. That self doubt is why I let Avalon be barefoot and lame for 6 months - my farrier convinced me that he knew better than I.

This is the other foot. Far more upright, heel looks maybe a little but underrun, but really not like the other foot. Toe is too long, I think, but he's due for trim.

This is a front view. I am 90% sure that the "dishing" you see, or the flares, are a bad thing. My understanding is that this shows that the white line is separating from the rest of the hoof, because the feet are out of balance or too long.

I really think I was directly behind the foot when I took this photo. Shouldn't his leg be straight, not kind of bent inward? Are the two sides of his heel growing at different speeds or lengths or is the farrier just not balancing him right?

His funky foot is even worse. I know his heel is collapsed here, and I am worried that this picture shoes a prolapsing frog.

The pictures I took after the trim show significant improvement. But...I cannot just trust the farrier. Too many bad experiences. I want xrays and vet consult, because my gut is telling me that if I don't get this done right then I'm going to have a lame horse again.

Maybe the vet will tell me I just wasted $500.00. But I'm pretty sure he's not going to say that.

Do I really need that second horse?

I have decided to give Pete back to his owner. She asked how things were going last week, and told my trainer that in August she would only have one horse on her property, and she would take Pete back if I was ok with it so he could be a pasture buddy.

I had to make this decision with my head.

I like Pete. He can get bratty under saddle, but he's not vicious. He's not trying to get me off, he's just expressing his displeasure at being worked in the heat or having too much time off. And on the ground he is the sweetest horse ever. He's super affectionate, and will come up to say hi in the pasture, even if you're all the way across the pasture from where he's eating his hay. He comes to the gate when you come out to the fence. If he could be trusted at the canter he would be the perfect Pony Club horse for a little girl.

I like him a lot.

But I don't have a trailer. I'm trying to save up for a trip to Japan in the next couple of years. And I have a perfectly sound horse to ride that's mine.

Spending $300 a month because I like a horse doesn't make too much sense at this point.

Pete taught me a lot. I am more confident in my leg, and I have a much faster reaction time to misbehavior or bad situations than I did before I started riding him. I know how to do a shoulder-in now, and I use my outside rein like I am supposed to. I have the confidence to loop the inside rein and trust that the horse will stay on the bit. Stuff that would have thrown me for a mental loop a year ago doesn't phase me today.

It was worth having him, especially while Avalon was lame. But I think I have learned the important things I could get out of riding him. My trainer thinks so, too. Horses will always continue to teach you, but I think in this case it's time for me to start concentrating on my own horse again.

I think I would have come to a different conclusion if I had a trailer. Showing Pete would have been something that could have really helped me gain confidence in the show ring. It's funny, I don't 100% trust Pete at the canter, but I doubt he would get as worked up as Avalon does going off the property. Going to a show where you can concentrate on your riding  and your own nerves instead of your horse's nerves would be a great thing for me to experience - but I need a trailer to do that. And the Great Trailering Accident of 2010 (also known as the I Hate Alabama incident) took care of that.

I need to save up for a trailer. I'm doing a good job of knocking my debts out one by one, but I haven't made much progress towards the trailer as a result. $300 a month can make a big difference.

And Pete's owner loves him as much as I do. It's time to give him back.

My saddle is back!

My saddle is back with brand new billets! Pete is back to work, and I'm positive he's gonna kick my ass for giving him so much time off.

I have a really tough time riding on a regular schedule for five days a week. I can ride three days a week regularly, but when I hit five it seems like I always have an excuse or a time shortage. And, honestly, if I want to improve enough to compete, I need to be riding five days a week.

So I'm setting a new goal.

I will ride 5 times a week for the next two weeks. I won't ride both horses every day, but I will ride at least one horse five times a week. After I accomplish that, I'm going to set a new goal. I plan on snowballing little changes into one huge change - with my end goal being to ride both horses five times a week.

Riding Update

I have a lesson scheduled for Monday - and I NEED it. I never seem to get very far when I'm on my own. For instance, this week I was trying to get good shoulder ins from my two horses, who are completely capable of doing this, and who's toplines need some more muscle (especially Avalon) for my peace of mind. Shoulder ins help build up those muscles.

I think I started out really good. Get decent on the bit trotwork going, spend some time shortening and lengthening the trot, do some leg yields on a small circle to the rail, get some good lengthened trotwork on the diagonal and some nice collection coming around the corner out of it. All of that worked well for me, on both horses. Then I start the shoulder in.

FAIL.

I get something a little more like a shoulder in from Avalon, but there's something off about his hind end. I don't know what it is, and I have no one on the ground to tell me why he feels weird. His shoulder is mostly in the right place, and his head and neck are probably a little too bent to the inside. Not quite there.

Pete, on the other hand, thinks I'm a blinking idiot and just walks on the rail with his head and neck bent way too far towards the inside. As soon as I get his shoulder off the rail, he swings it back into line with his hind end. I cannot for the life of me get it right, not even for a split second.

Pete's definitely the horse I'm taking my lesson on.

Outside of my complete failure to practice a new skill and simultaneously limber and build muscle on my horses, things went OK. Avalon is still giving me this dainty miniature trot he's been giving me since he came off my attempted barefoot disaster, but I can usually get him to give me his big swinging trot after the canterwork, and sometimes just after some good trotwork. It's something that's worrying me, but he hasn't taken a lame step since I put shoes back on him, so I think it's just that it hurt for so long he got into the habit of trotting defensively. Or maybe I'm just taking more contact because I rode Pete for so long, and Avalon hasn't quite figured out that it's ok to trot big with that much contact. This is what I get for trying to ride him backwards for so many years, now I have to work to get him to move forward.

I made a really awesome discovery on Pete. He tends to have hissy fits (stick his head in the air and crophops a bit before settling down) when you ask for an upward transition to a canter. My trainer has been telling be to overbend him towards the inside when I ask, to reduce that, which works, but didn't eliminate it entirely. Turns out, if you loop the inside rein while you're asking (but keep contact on your outside) during the upward transition and take only minimum contact in the canter, he's chill. This is not a one side thing, so I don't think it's a pain response, I think I just rely too heavily in my inside rein and Pete is just not a fan. I can live with that. When he's not trying to get me off, Pete's canter is almost as nice as Avalon's.

We all know who the favorite child is.

Just a quick thought...

Yesterday I got the nicest upward transition to a canter I had ever had on Pete. The only problem is that I didn't ask for it. I wanted more energy in his trot.

Now if I can just figure out how to repeat it....

I promise to update sometime in the next couple of days. Lots of work stuff went down this week, so I'm a bit behind on posting here.

Getting there...

Well Pete has decided that I'm no longer screwing up when I'm supposed to be leg yielding, which is good. I haven't had any hissy fits related to the right rein for a while, though he's still throwing his random "I don't wanna!" pops in there. I'm actually ok with that, since its not something I'm causing, and therefore not a pain reaction.

Pete is, however, FAT. We've got more grass in the pastures right now than we've had for a long time with South Carolina's drought/flood cycle, and boy is he taking advantage. He's a porker. This is normally not good, but Pete has bad hocks, which means all that extra weight can cause him some real problems. I've cut his grain and hay down by half, and I've been riding him almost every day it isn't raining. He hasn't lost anything, but then again it doesn't look like he's gained either. I've started to do intervals on him, hopefully that will help. Maybe I'll drop some pounds, too.

Avalon has been kind of avoiding me in the bit, not quite getting as deep as he needs to. He's also been popping his head up and trying to run through my half-halts. Yesterday I had him long and low in the bit (Finally!) and I while he's still popping his head up and resisting during some half-halts at the trot, he's not running through me at the walk or canter. It's not perfect, but it's getting there.

Progress!

First lesson back...

...and it was a disaster.

I hadn't had a lesson since December or early January, because I basically paused my entire life in order to take the bar at the end of February. I didn't even ride in February, I just went out and groomed my horses and left. I was so overwhelmingly stressed at that point I couldn't imagine spending an hour riding that I could have used to study.

And I may have still failed, but that's another issue completely.

This last Sunday I had my first lesson back.

My trainer commented I had my "hunter perch" going on in the first couple of minutes of warm up (I started hunter and now do dressage/eventing) so I knew from step one I had let some of my old bad habits creep back into my riding. It even took me a few minutes longer than usual to get Pete on the bit.

My leg was a disaster. I had gone hiking (6.6 miles!) on Saturday then rode both Pete and Avalon, and then had a lesson on Sunday. I could not for the life of me get my leg to stay in the position I wanted it to, nor did it feel like I had enough power to push him over for a leg yield. I don't know if it was from working so hard the day before or if I had just lost muscle strength from my slacking, but I ride again this afternoon so we'll find out sooner or later.

Pete was giving me fits when I tried to push him into a leg yield towards the right, something to do with the right rein. When I just left the right rein alone and tried to get him over using my legs and just the left rein for half halts he didn't spaz out. I don't know if I was trying to overcompensate for my lack of strength in my leg by being too harsh with the rein, but I'm hoping it was just a temporary issue. He was definitely telling me something was up, so I'm just going to be careful with that rein for a while, hoping it was my discombobulation that was the issue. If he's still doing it for next weeks lesson I think I'm going to call the vet and make sure it's not an abscess or something up with his mouth. I didn't see anything when I checked, and adjusted the bridle, so we'll see.

Despite how pathetic my leg yields were Sunday, I did have some good moments. Pete's extended trot across the diagonal is coming along nicely, so that's a positive.

At least now I know what to work on when I'm out there! I hate riding around without a real plan.

About that horse thing...

I couldn't figure out what to start writing about. So I decided I was going to post my handy-dandy 27 in 27 list, and tally up how many entries I had into vague categories. Whichever had the most goal entries was going to be the first thing I wrote about. Unscientific, but probably pretty accurate way to gauge what is most important to me at this point in my life.

Horses and travel tied at 5 entries each. And I'm probably not going to go overseas this afternoon, but I will go ride a couple of horses. Seems like we have a topic!

I've been riding for almost as long as I can remember. I have a picture of me at 3 or so sitting happily up on a dead broke quarter horse in a western saddle. My hair was a mess, the horse looked like he was bored to death, and the guy holding the horse was giving the camera the side-eye, but I was grinning like a fool. One of the most influential people of my childhood is a riding instructor who taught me from the 3rd grade until I moved away to college at 18. For three years of college my job was caring for horses. My current riding instructor got me my law job. It is a huge part of my life.

I got my first horse when I was 17. Avalon is a grey thoroughbred I got off the track when he was 4.

I still have him. I also have custody of another grey, Pete, whom I do not have a good picture of at the moment.

A lot of people think horses are something that only rich people have, like Rolls Royces or beach houses. The people who think this don't personally know anyone who has horses. Most horse owners, especially college students and younger, work very hard to keep their horse. I used to do all the barn chores in exchange for the stable I was at to waive board fees. Many people keep their horse in rural areas they have to commute 30 minutes to an hour to go see their horse. Some people keep their horse in their backyard. Horse owners are the same as dog owners: some people have their dog pampered at dog spas, buy them sweaters, and cart them around in Louis Vuitton brand dog carriers. Other dog owners tie their dog up outside their house and refuse to pay for the animal's vet care. The standards of costs and care swing just as widely for horses.

That said, I know I have been very privileged. I would not have been able to keep my horse through college without my parents' generosity (Thanks Dad!). It is very difficult to hold down a job to pay your living expenses, hold down a job to pay your horse's expenses, and still go to class full time and pass. I never earned enough working during college to pay both my and my horse's expenses. I did what I could, and there were months where I was eating ramen so that my horse's vet bills would be paid.

I've had people ask me why I bother spending so much time, money, and energy on something that few people see any benefit in. And it's dumb, but there's not really any way to explain it. Some people spend their time and money on trailing for marathons. Everyone else thinks they are crazy because they're running 26 miles voluntarily. (Please completely ignore the fact that, without training for it, no one can run 26 miles involuntarily, either.) You do it because you love it. I, personally, cannot see why anyone would want to play golf, but people spend countless hours and thousands of dollars on that, too. To each his own.

I ride dressage, mostly. I would like to event, and Avalon is a pretty good jumper, but I am very lazy about setting up jumps in the area, so I am a very bad jumper due to lack of practice. I hope that will change this year. I have no idea if Pete can jump. I got him about 6 months ago, and I am mostly engaged in trying to convince him that randomly trying to buck me off is a bad idea. 

Due to school, I have not seriously competed in years, but my skills (and Avalon's emotional well being) are the best they've ever been, so I hope to change that. I lost my trailer in an accident last June, so that is a barrier to getting to do the things I had hoped to this year.

I also believe that the reason I got chunky in law school is at least partially related to the fact that I only got a chance to ride about a third of the time I was accustomed to during college. I am SO GLAD I am finished with law school!

P.S.: So far I have been unable to find more than a couple of quality horse-related (or semi-horse related) blogs out there. Any suggestions?