Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Third Time Not the Charm

For the last three years in a row I have been unable to compete Seneca. The first spring she developed a joint problem. This was due to her time as a racehorse and the fact that she'd been on a joint supplement for who knows how long while she was racing but I never had her on one until she started coming up off and on lame in the back.  So enter Cosequin(after about 500$ in vet bills which showed nothing) and now she's sound.

The year after that I was just returning from my deployment to Afghanistan and came home to find that my regular farrier had taken a break, my husband could not get ahold of the back up, and my horses hadn't been trimmed in a few months. Enter the merry-go-round of farriers.  I finally get the back-up to come out and not only was he rude, but on the second appointment he didn't show up and ditched not only my appointment but my friend down the road, and my trainers whole barn too.  Yeah he was a great guy.  In a panic to get my horse's trimmed I called someone I didn't know, but came with decent recommendations.  *sigh*  They cut my mare too short and she was lame for at least two weeks.  Finally on the third try I got a wonderful farrier, who is patient with my young horse who gets bored easily, and is full of a wealth of knowledge besides doing an excellent job.

So this was our year. I was home, on shore duty so I wasn't going to be deploying for long stretches of time, and I finally had my own trailer.  And here we hit the problem. Between my deployment and not having a trailer of my own Seneca hadn't been trailered in a year. So of course when I brought my new trailer home I immediately tried to load her.  *sigh*  The High Queen has deemed my used trailer not up to her standards of transportation and thus will not load.  Her brother on the other hand whom I call the Spotted Beast(He's a flashy Appaloosa gelding) who it took us an hour and a half the day we picked him up as a yearling learned to load himself while I was gone and will load in to anything as long as some sort of food is offered, sometimes there doesn't even need to be food his own curiousity propels him in.

I thought that Seneca just deemed my trailer as unacceptable. That was until I borrowed a big open stock bumper pull. Nope, she's an equal opportunity trailer hater. And of course during the two hours that it took me to finally realize she was not going to get in to that trailer that day Seneca managed to tear up the sole of her right front hoof and we're now looking at an abscess.  Total fun let me tell you.

Our show season is cursed I swear.  Then again there is always the Spotted Beast.  He just turned three and I've been on him half a dozen times. He's good, learns quickly, doesn't forget. And I know first hand that not only is he a very lovely mover (better than the High Queen), he's a mad jumper.  As a yearling he could jump the five foot pasture gates. So maybe some dressage schooling shows this summer,  a little pre-jump training in the fall, rest for the winter and attack this eventing thing from a whole new spotted angle next spring. Unless of course the High Queen will stop injuring herself and get off her silk cushions.  We'll see.

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