Gearing up, so to speak.

While winter beats on mercilessly in the Northeast, I've been starting to think about the year ahead for Riley and I. I have come up some some short-term goals but they are all contingent upon various things falling into place! Looking ahead for the next 4-6 weeks they look something like this:

*Leg Riley back up -- he's been on vacation for roughly 2 months and was ridden very lightly in November. We'll start road walking and hacking followed by some trot interval stuff before I ask him for anything proper.
*Move to new farm -- that's happening soon, so the transition period maybe interesting to say the least (more on this in a minute)
*Look at some clinics/shows to knock the dust off (tentatively, we are thinking maybe the end of April as a rough goal for a baby HT)
*Train him on the Equineciser (sp?) to work on a baseline of fitness even if the weather is bad -- this is going to be a very cool addition to his schedule!
*Re-introduce the Pessoa to help with his topline. He goes pretty well in this regardless, but I want him to have at least a little work under his belt before I ask him to work 'hard'.
*Get Riley's front shoes put back on at his next trim.

Treats go here.

Over the weekend we had some seriously balmy weather (you know, a high of 50 on Sunday, what!?) so I was hoping to try to ride, but you know what happens when you start making plans... I got to visit the new farm on Saturday and I am super excited. Don't get me wrong, our current place is huge, and hilly and all the things you could possibly want, except it isn't. Walking a 1/4 mile down the road to my horses paddock is NOT ideal (not to mention the paddock itself is 20 acres), we've only had a ring for a few months and it's barely been useable since November, when the weather DOES warm up, everything grass turns to thick, clay-like mud, which is just not fun at all. Turning out horses takes a super long time because of the distance between the barn and the paddocks! We just wanted something that was more compact for our needs and we found a terrific (smaller) property. The barn itself is gorgeous, 10 stalls with big windows and stalls guards (gates)... it feels so open and airy in there and I think the horses are going to love being able to poke their heads over the gates! A huge tack room, a hot/cold wash stall, a round pen and an equineciser (it's like a freewalker that you can  jog/walk up to 6 horses on in both directions). The turnouts are steps away from the barn which will make everything SO much easier and less time consuming! It's also steps away from Phillip Dutton's farm, amongst others, so we'll have access to some good XC schooling as well as indoors. Oh and the hacking is awesome!!!! So, we are excited, but it also means moving AGAIN and with lots of horses and it's going to be a challenge to get everything done in one day! We spent some time Saturday getting all of our stuff in order to make the move a little easier, but it's amazing just how much stuff one horse acquires!

Sunday I really hoped to ride, but the stars were just not aligned that day for me. It started with my drive taking 2+ hours due to an accident en route and a very out of the way detour. I arrived to the barn and it was a ghost town, not even the owner was home! But, Riley was near the gate, so I ran down the road to collect him with some peppermints in tow... and a chain shank. He was very sweet being caught but after about 20 feet he realized that I was actually going to take him away from the Bad Boys Club, so he protested. Luckily, just crinkling the wrappers got his little feet moving (he's so easy to bribe). I was very glad I brought the chain because I knew once we got up the road he started getting goofy and a few of his fellow herd mates were turned out in smaller paddocks near the barn and they started wheeling around and things got pretty interesting.

 (*yes, that is a bell boot attached to his blanket)

As we walked down the road I heard a funny noise (the sound of chain running through a piece of metal) and then I felt the shank go limp.

Uh oh.

I turned around and the chain had inexplicably unhooked and slipped through his halter leaving me standing a few feet away from him him with the shank in my hand and a loose horse on the road.

Yikes.

I had a momentary panic and then simply said Whoa and he stood still while I reattached the chain! Phew!

Alert horse is ALERT.

I tossed him in a stall to let him settle down and after a lot of shenanigans I decided it was best to leave riding for another day. I think with the taste of spring in the air, ALL the horses were acting nutty and he pretty much never stopped screaming his head off. Normally, I am pretty brave about riding by myself, but without the ring as an option it meant hacking alone and that just didn't seem safe.  I figured, I'd clean him up, make sure his rain rot was healed, and try on my ear bonnet prototype!

As you can see he's looking a bit like a fraggle/over-grown pony. All the spots where he was missing hair (either from rain rot) or bites etc have sprouted weird, new hair. His body condition looks pretty good. He's lost all his fitness obviously, but actually, his neck doesn't look so bad. I know he gets fit really easily, so it won't be long until I get rid of his big belly! He reluctantly let me comb out his tail, and I thought about pulling his mane, but he was thrashing around on the cross ties, so it seemed like it probably wasn't the best day for that (he's usually very good for that).

Pretty much the most legit conformation shot ever:)

Um, not sure why he looks so butt high (I really hope he hasn't grown again) but his body looks okay to me (he might not seem that chubby in this shot, but he's rotund!). Also, he JUST got trimmed last week and for some reason his front toes look long, but I think it just might be the way I took this photo. Again, this was in between moments of him dancing around and calling to whoever would answer. He's very roly poly though huh? Look at how thick his tail has gotten!!! I combed it out carefully, and trimmed the very tip.

The shape looks odd here, but it's because the right side didn't want to lay flat.

Really good fit!

The only thing I might change is making the space between the arrows a little thicker by maybe two rows.

You can kinda see where the halter fits over the back portion, which is pretty much ideal.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of *volunteers to help with sizing out a few other options for fit and then I will write a full pattern post! This was made with yarn I just had lying around and it was a bit too soft for this purpose, I will go for something a little stiffer for the next horse-sized model. I'd love to get some feedback on things you'd like to see with these (decorations, fabrics, colors, size issues, thoughts). Also, there are all sorts of cool trim patterns I've found for crocheting, so I'm going to have a little fun with that too.

*Thanks for Allison + Dino for volunteering to be the pony/cob size guinea pig... anyone with a very LARGE horse want to help me with the oversize model?

One last photo of Riley giving me the "Will-you-please-take-me-back-to-my-friends-now" face