Miss Mazy

While Casey has been doing her best to stay sidelined, Mazy still needs to work and lately I have also gotten a chance to fix a few things on me too. 

First we needed to work on her bending and not counterbending, especially thru the turns. I put her back in the lines for this and a friend of mine has suggested a book called "Bending the Driving Horse". 

I can ride the ponies and we work on bending that way. It seems to be working since last Wednesday when working Mazy, we had bend to the inside, we drove deep into our corners and a few other things happened too.  

Mazy has been light and quiet in the bridle. I have been working on a few things with my hands lately. Placement on the reins for one. Quietness is another. Not just asking for the bend but also allowing it. Having an even hold on the reins is something I work at a Lot. Not too long or short, holding them both at the same spot (this one I struggle with) and letting them have light contact on the inside rein for guidance and support while using the outside rein to guide them back to the rail, but also letting it out some when asking for a turn. 

When I'm working a horse in long lines, it's easy to just have quiet hands. The lines go thru the rings and the rings don't move around like our hands do when we ride. Quiet hands help achieve a horse that's quiet in the bridle. They're not gaping at the mouth or as Mazy likes to do when she's bored, impatient or pissed- she bites her teeth. You can hear her going around biting the air to vent her frustrations. 

She's just such a fancy mover. She knows it too. Lol 

Another change we made was the bit. You can see in this last picture that she is going in a simple d-ring snaffle. It has a little thinner mouthpiece and she really seems to like it. The funny thing is I bought this bit for Casey. Well Casey did okay in it, but she prefers the French link for driving. Mazy has been going so well in this d-ring snaffle that we have also been able to work on a lot of long & low movement on a loose rein. The loose rein part is where we struggle also, but Mazy is learning to work with it. When she is working well on a loose line I give her a little bit more. If she speeds up then I can half halt and check her to make sure she understands. As she's moving though I just tend to let her do her own thing. We've done a lot of big circles, small circles, serpentines and just about everything in between and we're getting to the point where Mazy can be working on a looser rein, maintaining her frame and looking amazing as ever. 

What now?

So Casey is on the mend and we get a good workout in on Friday. She's a little lit and giving it her all, but we work thru it and have a good experience. Lots of bending left and right, moving this way and that, circles and serpentines, loose rein and contact, just about everything we can do, we do. 

She has a tendency to stop whenever she hears me say anything so to fix that- I pull out my phone and hit the Pandora app. With music the horses learn to deal with noise around them. It also has a rythym they can adjust theirs to and usually they just plain like it. Sure they like different genre's too like us and different songs more than others. 

I like to sing along, so it helps keep me breathing and relaxed. Music also helps the horses pick out when to listen to me and when they can sort of ignore the noise and keep moving. Besides it's not all voice commands. They should be feeling the reins & bit and I will lay the whip acdoss their hip or down the side of their body. Honestly I forget to use it most of the time. Rules are that you have to have it in your hand or on the cart so I carry one but forget to use it. 

So ffwd a week and yesterday am when I went to feed and swap the mares around. Casey comes walking to me from across the pasture. My eyes immediately drop to her lower legs.

WTF???? So I call over the other border for a second opinion. As she walks up I asked her take a look at Casey tell me what you see. Her eyes immediately hit the same thing. Right front fetlock and pastern are swollen and at first to me it looks like her hoof angles are off as well.

But then as I'm colld hosing I glance up and see this in her girth area. She's managed to get herself all tore up on who knows what.  Ugh! 

And then there's this.... The first night it doesn't look all that bad. 

But then a day later? Yeah. WTH? This is the outside of the front right. I'm just really glad its not any deeper. 

I took a walk along the fenceline in the pasture to see if I could find anything there and no such luck. There are no feeders, no ring for a round bale or anything else she could be getting hung up on so who knows. Some horses seem to invent shit to hurt themselves on. I'm hoping Casey isn't one of them. 

Setbacks suck

I finally got a pasture at the barn for the girls. The one boarder has 7 horses and was struggling to find (and afford) hay. Her horses were taking up 2 of the smaller pastures and the barn owner had her kick them all out into a larger pasture with a few other boarders horses. This pasture is probably a few acres so plenty of room and grass. 

When she showed up to bring them all back in, she was a bit put off that my girls were in the one pasture. She asked me why I don't put my ponies out in the big pasture with the other horses? Um because 1) I feel that my ponies are worth likely more than all of the horses out there combined and 2) I don't need those vet bills..... Mazy doesn't always play well with others. She is known to corner and kick the holy shit out of other horses no matter their size. She's done it before and I've caught her in the act. 

So the girls were going out at night and coming in for the day because Casey has a lot of pink skin and I would rather not deal with sunburns. She had come to me with rain rot all over and we got past that, so let's not revisit tender skin. Am I right? 

Sunday night about 10pm I get a phone call from another lady at the barn. Mazy cornered Casey and beat her up. Her husband and daughter seen it happen and he "has never seen a horse kick that many times, that fast. I didn't know they could Do that."  Apparently Mazy went off rapid fire and nailed Casey about 20 times in nothing flat. 

There were plenty of expletives said under my breath about Mazy being such a ______ ______ _______ f_____ b_____!!!!  They were able to catch Casey pretty easily as she ran to them for help. Once she was out of the corner she took off and Mazy was right on her tail trying to run her down. As Casey came to the gate where they were standing (minds blown by what they seen), Mazy backed off and went about her business of grazing. 

When I got to the barn.... Casey was upset about being separated. She has become a bit herdbound with Mazy. But there were a lot of places all over her left hip and flank, croup, and a couple other spots with missing skin and hair. Likely a lot of bruising underneath the dark hair that didn't show. 

This is her hip and flank after spraying everything with Vetricyn. 

No idea if this was bites or if Mazy got her feet this high up?

More of the left hip and yes the 'bubble' in the white hair sorta in the middle- is a tear in the muscle. She came with that and it causes no issue. 

Somehow Mazy even managed to tear up some hair and shin on Casey's chest. Not sure if Casey did this on the water tub, fence or ??? trying to get out of the way, but its there. 

She had already tore up her left front across the heal and coronet band, destroying the bell boot in the process. Thankfully again it is all just superficial wounds missing hair and skin. 

This is on the outside of the front hoof. This is Why she wears bell boots 90% of the time and Always when I'm working her. 

Yesterday I was able to drive her again for the first time since all of the drama- cart is repaired, skin has scabbed over and healing, life is back on track. More on that later.

Crackle & Pop

I mentioned the chiropractor was out on Wednesday to work on the girls. They seriously needed it. 

Casey was up first and in the initial assessment- she had a few ribs out here and there but the main thing was her right shoulder and possibly her poll. A pull here, push there, stretch this, rub that and a bunch of cracks and pops later, she's loose as a goose, licking, chewing and still not sure what happened but I feel so much better! Lol

Then it was Mazy's turn. Similar assessment- a few smaller ribs, poll and for her it's the left shoulder.... Stretches, pulls, belly rubs, push here, Crack goes that, a huge Pop and the eyes soften instantly and she's no longer a fire breathing dragon.  

It's amazing to me how their posture, attitude and even appearance changes in just a moment or two when something pops back into place and they're no longer in pain. Mazy was so much calmer and agreeable in her work lately. We have gotten a lot more long and low work on a semi loose rein.  Not something I've gotten with her in a long time. She is also starting to get back to her big, freely swinging walk where she looks like a warmblood. Yay! 

Drives 7, 8 & 9

A lot has happened since my last post. I've driven some, ridden some, went to a driving event and just had a lot going on. But I'll try and get this all caught up. 

Drive #7 went well enough that I was able to get some video. 

Drive #8 I was only able to get a few pics, but they're on a friend's phone and they haven't been sent to me yet to post. 

Casey handled everything well and that led to Drive #9 from Wednesday after the chiro left. When people talk about things going wrong and the wheels falling off- well yes sometimes they do. 

This is my friends cart and we were at a trot when the left wheel worked its way loose and came off. Casey managed about 2 strides like this when I said 'whoa' and she stopped. She stood quietly while we unhitched and led her back inside to unpack. 

This is a teachable moment and two things come to mind in this- A) Cart or carriage Maintenance is never a bad thing. We check the air in the tires, but how often do we go over our carriage or cart and check all the bolts are tight, grease moving parts or at least spray them with some lubricant? Sometimes not as often as we should. 

B) We should always train for when things go wrong. Life isn't always perfect and when it is- things are great. But how often does that happen and how long does it usually last? This could have been a Huge accident, but since taking our time with Casey and Mazy means building up their trust and confidence, when things go wrong or even just get a little sideways, they trust us to get them thru it.  

Thankfully this happened in the arena because I'm glad it wasn't far to put the cart away to work on it later. Not like if we were a mile or 3 down the road with no tools. One of the nuts wore out over time and stripped. Axle bolt replacement was in order and things are right as rain at minimal cost. That's always a plus.

Fair is fair

Since Mazy got shavings for her stall, it's only fair that Casey does too. Mazy's came sooner as necessity. She's a bit more messy pony than Casey. Mazy craps all over the stall and probably kicks it around, buries some and it's everywhere. Casey goes in 2 spots- one along the wall where she stands with her head over the door, the other at the back of the stall in the corner. One wet spot as well. 

With the shavings- this is all that comes out of Mazy's stall. 

This is after cleaning Casey's stall with very little shavings left. That's about how much was coming out of Mazy's stall, so combined I was getting a full wheelbarrow load. 

All stripped and ready for the fresh stuff. 

One bag is about 6 big wheelbarrow loads. I don't mind shoveling and moving it this way- I don't have to go to the gym that day, or at least that's what I tell myself. Sure there may be a few small pieces of wood that make it thru the chipper, but when leveling it with the fork- these are easily removed. 

Of course tonight when I got there, Casey's stall looked like she threw an Epic rave in there last night. There were huge holes and big mounds piled next to them, notice along the walls. She still only pooped in her two usual spots, but dang. What was she doing in there? Lol It sure makes a difference only scooping out about a 1/4 of a wheelbarrow for both stalls and this should last each mare at least a couple/few months. No stripping stalls for a while. Yay!