Hunterland, hooves and head shaking. **Edited with working videos!

Nerd alert.

First up: I rode in my first hunter show in about a billion years on a horse I had ridden once and it was his very first horse show of any kind. Did I mention he's a multiple stakes winner OTTB? Well, turns out he's also a class act and despite not having a confirmed right lead canter, we actually won something! I definitely felt very, very out of place in hunterland, but it was fun and I would do it again in a second! I really liked just being able to go in the ring over and over again to get a feel for things. I had no idea how self-conscious I would feel in the ring though... at least in eventing you feel like you are competing against yourself when you are in the ring (or rather, that's how I feel) but it's hard not to feel self-conscious in a ring full of really nice horses where everyone knows what the are doing and I'm just trying not to make a fool out of myself! The day started off a little rough because of imminent thunderstorms. We got the horses tacked up, walked around and then hacked down to the rings (it was quite a distance) and just as we get there, I hear the hounds (the show was at the facility of a local hunt club) baying and lightning strikes really close by (I nearly pee myself) and then KABOOM (thunder)! My lovely catch ride, stood stock still while I dismounted and everyone walked back to the trailers to hide for the insane 20 minute storm! He also didn't flinch during a WTC class where a horse bolted straight at us and dumped his rider. Thoroughbreds, man... so good. I'm so lucky to have really nice horses to ride while mine is doing... well, what is he doing???

I can tell you what he's NOT doing.

He's not head shaking!

It's been roughly 3 months since his first symptoms showed up (beginning of May, though i think he had some signs in late April), by June they were so severe I was really worried about what the outcome might be. It's been at least a month since I asked him to do anything on the lunge line and the last time I tried to ride him was a disaster so I just kind of ignored him for awhile. Keeping him under a microscope was doing my nerves no good and it was making me a bit bonkers (just ask my horse friends).

I kept hearing more and more updates about how well he seemed and that his symptoms had all but disappeared so I thought Saturday I try to stick him on the lunge line during the hottest part of the day to test it out.

And while he was naughty... save for a few sneezes, he showed no signs. If you look at the videos from previous posts about this the change is remarkable. Ps. If he looks a bit short in these it's because he's barefoot on crumbly hooves.

I actually cried into his neck after this one (a combination of things, but more out of sheer joy to see my horse feeling better).

And I have to say, for a horse that hasn't been ridden or worked since May, he's looking pretty nice. He fist up very easily and he's quite fat and sassy right now, so we'll be lunging for a few weeks until he gets shoes back on and his head is back in the game. I'm still going to be carefully watching for indications of head shaking, because I want to keep him as happy/comfortable as possible and with the weather being as hot and humid as it's been, there's still a chance that we're not out of the woods yet and I'm not sure how he'll be under saddle.

I lunged him again last night and he sneezed a bunch (normal) and I maybe, maybe saw a tiny glimmer of the head shaking, but he was also being VERY cheeky!

I tried to take video but literally every time I did he took it as an opportunity to bolt and spazz out because there was weed whacking in progress nearby. Twit.

Thinking cap engaged.

Full of sass.

Not too shabby for a horse 3+ months out of work, eh?

So, he gets shoes back on August 4th, and the farrier is going to tidy up his crumbling hooves tomorrow so they don't completely fall apart before then due to him stomping flies and growing out the old nail holes. I was going to maybe take him to a hunter pace Saturday, but I want to leave his feet alone and I think it wouldn't be the best idea to risk bruising his soles. So I'll just ride something else (I'm so lucky to have access to lots of other ponies)!

In case you are curious... what's seems to be working:
35 grams of Magnesiumin feed
Taurine (he's part of a study on HS that we just started -- it's an amino acid that is supposed to help with nerve disorders)
Night turnout

*He was on Shake No More Gold for a month, but we just finished it and I am giving him a few weeks off to see if it was a contributing factor. I am very grateful that we haven't had to go the steroid/drug route yet.

Oh, and I have a lesson with a local BNR Thursday! She's going to teach me on one of her cool former upper level horses! Wish me luck!

What we've been up to. Wait and See, and other games.

This is what a life of leisure looks like

We're in a bit of a holding pattern over here, and I'm sorry to leave you guys hanging. There hasn't been a lot to report, but we do have some improvement!

Monitoring and distracting (complete with lots of boring video)

so damn cute.

I had not-so-secretly hoped that if I left Riley alone for a week (while on heavy amounts of magnesium) that I would arrive to the farm Saturday to a bright, happy and pain-free horse.

Not so.

He was bright and happy enough, but only in his stall.

My plan had been to run through a few tests with him again to see how the Mg was working and possible get on him to see just how bad things felt under saddle. He managed to spring the heel on one of his shoes (so riding was out) -- it was just barely sprung and not twisted or anything so the farrier said he'd come out a few days later to tack it back on. I wrapped it up in vet wrap just to make sure he didn't make it any worse and stuck another bell boot on him!

First I stuck him in the round pen to get an idea of how he was doing:

As you can see, the head shaking is about as bad as a was last week. I would be lying if I said I wasn't pretty heart-broken. I know it's naive of me to think he's suddenly going to feel better, but the problem with head shaking is that it makes you feel a bit nuts, like you are making up the symptoms or imagining things!

So I tried him with a nose net (home made with some old pantyhose) and he was actually worse. Lots and lots of sneezing and plenty of head shaking.

Riley's expression and distinctive head shake in this video of him at rest show his very clear reaction to direct sunlight. The head shake looks as though "a bee flew in his nose".

I've been keeping a record of the temperatures and pollen counts for the last month not surprisingly, the warmer, humid weather = higher grass pollen counts = worse head shaking. Last week he was much less symptomatic, but the weather was unseasonably cool, overcast and the pollen counts were next to nothing. This week things are warming up again, with high pollen counts, so we'll see how he fairs. He's still coming in during the day and going out at night, though his turnout buddies keep removing his flymask overnight, so we might have to turn him out alone.

The plan is to keep him on the loading does of Quiessence for one more week (as last week was so uncharacteristically cool and mild) and then scale him back to a normal dose. If his symptoms stay the same or get worse in th enext week, I'm going to have the vet out to talk about further treatment. 

Over the course of the weekend, I decided that since I can't ride Riley and he's happy enough inside, I would try doing some clicker training to stimulate his mind and maybe help give him a distraction. There's a very cool woman on Youtube named Shawna Karrasch (who was once a Seaworld trainer) that uses clicker training to encourage wanted behaviors and to discourage bad behavior. Her techniques are useful in all sorts of situations (like having a problem trailer loader or a spooky horse). I started very basic with Riley training him not to be a brute about food. I rarely, if ever, give him treats because he learned very quickly how to be a butt head when food was involved. He became pushy and mouthy and I hate that, but I knew that being so food-motivated would be an asset in clicker training.

First lesson... introduce clicker, then reward when horses head is in neutral position (he is allowed to investigate what I am doing etc), but I discourage him from getting at the food and he very quickly learns to turn his head away for a reward.

He caught on to this pretty quickly. For reference, the clicker is in my left hand and the food is 12% pelleted grain (nothing too fancy). His second lesson was targeting, which is a stepping stone to teaching various behaviors like ground tying, self loading, desensitization to scary things, lowering head... etc.

For this exercise, I presented a "target" (little green cone) and Riley was rewarded each time he touched it with his nose. As you can see in the video, he's not always touching it intentionally, but you reward for those moments too. It's very neat to see the light bulb moment when he figures out what I am looking for though.

Each session is roughly 5 minutes long, with lots of time in between. It's just enough for him to grasp the concept, but not get dull to the experience. Each time I ask for a little bit more out of him... for example, for the second session with cone I moved it up, down, left, right and further out of his reach. He seems to really like the activity and if anything I think it will help further our bond. It's painful for me not being able to do anything with him, but seeing how miserable he is in the sunlight solidifies my decision of not riding him until he's feeling a bit better. I might try him in the equciser (which is shady and cool) to see if he can at least get some exercise and be comfortable. I'd like to take him to an indoor to see if that makes any difference too, but I am worried about how worked up he's going to get having a bridle on and if that's going to make him very aggravated.

Riley gets an A+ for his targeting lesson!

Thanks for all your kind words and support, and to everyone who has reached out to me with advice or references via the blog, facebook and email. We are so grateful to have such wonderful support from all of you guys and it makes me feel just a little less crazy to know you guys are rooting for us! Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this soon and get Riley back on track!

Feeling blue.

I've been sporting an enormous smile on my face coming off the heels of a very special cross country road trip. To say life is good would be a massive understatement. I was eager to get back to my pony and start looking ahead at our plans for the summer, and then nearly all at once, my hopes, and plans and dreams were brought to a screeching halt.

I didn't want to write this post.

Meanwhile, over on the COTH

I was alerted to the fact that there was an old discussion going on regarding Riley's conformation/potential as a 3 year old (with old photos) on The Chronicle of the Horse Eventing Forum. We thought it would be fun if I posted an update, so if you're bored and wanna check it out, here's the link.

COTH -- hone your eye

*My update is on the 4th page, but I thought you guys might get a kick out of the comments people had to say about him and just how different he looked back then!

Spring fever!

View from the passenger seat didn't change much all day!

 You guys... taking care of two barns and 30 horses is a lot of work...

We were farm sitting over the weekend for a friend who has a lovely place about 35 minutes from our farm so we made the most of the opportunity by shipping Riley down and back twice for some real rides!

Road trip update

Here's an update of our projected route!

Let me know if you are along the way!

**Also, I am driving to Florida this weekend and back up here next week if you happen to be along the East Coast get in touch with me!!!!

Weekend recap -- progress made?

Muddy Mudskipper (click for weird hairiness)

Phew! A bit of a whirlwind weekend there! I have to go out of town this upcoming weekend to take care of my Mom while she undergoes neck surgery (in Florida), so I wanted to get the most out of this weekend as possible. The forecast promised two beautiful spring days and with 4 new horses showing up in the last week, I was needed as an extra hand around the farm to help get the sales horses ready for clients! We were up early Saturday morning, as my trainer was taking a sales horse over to Philly Dutton's for a client. I was attending to the farm chores and putting a couple of our guys on the Equiciser to warm them up. Though it was a beautiful day with temps nearing 60, the wind was HOWLING. We are essentially out in the countryside/woods and when the wind picks up it can be downright daunting (think haunted woods). Gusts of 40 mph meant that our scheduled hack to the indoor was going to be interesting.

Brooklawn Double, Brody.

 Through a series of serendipitous connections, my trainer was going to be showing two of her sales horses to Suzanne of Confessions of an AA Rider, I was secretly more excited about meeting a fellow blogger in person, but also happy to help get the horses ready and hack them over to the indoor. I would be riding Brody who is a 6 year old, 16.2+ TB. it's amazing how those few inches can make a huge difference to someone my size. Riley is a big bodied 16 hh horse, but he's a very smooth, fluid mover and is truly, just the right size for me. Anything bigger and I feel like I'm a little kid! Brody is not only tall, but he's also a really big mover, it's pretty amazing. The effort needed to post his trot is exponentially higher than riding my pony! But, in the crazy wind and the 2 mile hack over, we mostly trotted (to escape the wind) and I was actually able to keep up with his movement! The two boys were both so great in the decidedly spooky weather... it's easy to forget you are riding thoroughbreds when they are just so level-headed.

Legging up -- considerations

Go away snow + mud!

With the worst of winter behind us in the Northeast, it's time to start legging our horses back up. Unless you're lucky enough to have an indoor, keeping a horse fit and going up here has been nearly impossible (even trailering to an indoor has been tough!). In previous years, I remember distinctly seeing groups of riders walking and trotting along the roads near our farm all season long. This winter, the roads were much quieter, either people migrated to Aiken for a few months, or conditions on the roads were just too treacherous (see: ice).  So, with the ice melted and very little snow on the ground, we've finally been able to get our guys going again. *ps. while I could have technically gotten Riley going a little sooner, starting and stopping with him isn't good for anyone!

After a full weekend of what I consider a good start to getting him legged up, I found myself thinking about the process and what I consider when bringing a horse into work after several months off.

Readers! A request.

Hi all,

Just out of curiosity sake... Do any of you live near the route highlighted on this map? If so, I might need a couch to crash on along the way -- in roughly 6 weeks! It would be super cool to meet some fellow bloggers when this little road trip takes place!

Tentative route

Spring forward -- and a lengthy update!

Finally!

The clocks have gone forward, the days are longer and dare I say it, the weather is warming up. Which can only mean one thing...

Spring Mud Season

Yep, all the snow and ice we've had lying around is quickly melting into little estuaries and streams around the farm. There are giant mud pits around the gates and water troughs, but I don't care... I'm completely over winter and I'll take a muddy mess over frozen hands and toes and constant wind burn on my face. The new farm appears to have decent drainage and thankfully the owners know exactly just how muddy the property gets so we're not freaking out that the horses are making a mess.

Winter is good for something

All this horrible weather has found me in serious hibernation mode. As a result, I was able to finally finish some paper cuts I had started months ago (to be fair, a lot of things happened in between me starting and finishing these). I am so happy they are complete and I think they turned out really well. I'm eager to start more and now that things are settled in my life, I have the focus and time to really devote to all my little art projects!

This one is mounted on lovely iridescent paper (it's hard to tell from my photo)

I love how this one turned out! What a cute face!

I am really fortunate right now to have such creative, inspiring people in my life. Even more that, I feel supported in my creative endeavors and I can feel that energy stirring within me again.