Finding Balance

Here I am again checking in, shocked to find months have passed since my last post. This summer has just been one stressful situation after another, piling up so that I can barely breath past it all. Playing with my pony has been one of my few havens in this storm of adversity.  And he's been on again, off again lame for a few months now. 

So I haven't really been riding. I think I've ridden Fox twice in the last three months and Cowboy once.  Yes you read that right I pulled on my big girl panties and rode the Spotted Crack Beast but I'll talk about that later.

Somewhere in my crazy brain I decided that Fox's feet, after being bare for over a year needed shoes. After three months of more lameness than soundness and the absolute fiasco of the last visit from the farrier where we tried to get shoes on Fox, I have decided to let that fantasy go. 

Would his feet benefit from the 24/7 protection of shoes? Sure.  Are his feet willing to cooperate? Not in this lifetime. He's had two sets, each time his been a little harder to control when the farrier was nailing them on. This last go round Fox was so adamant about not getting shoes put on that the farrier and I both decided it wasn't going to happen that day.  Then I took a long, hard look at the history of Fox's feet and came to the conclusion that the shoes weren't worth the money or the mental and physical stress on my horse.

So I had the Farrier Fairy K. come out last evening, she was awesome enough to do a fly by after her last appointment which was around the corner. She gave his feet a bit of a tune up trim to keep him on track, addressed a nasty crack he's got coming on in Fox's rear left foot and we got down to brass tacks about the hoof plan for the future.  Basically, back in to the boots for everything but pasture turn out. I'm going to look in to some pasture turn out therapy boots but he's okay for now.

That was the balancing of my goals and Fox's hoof issues.  The other balancing act was my pony's growing attitude issue. From my friend A's description of his behavior while I was gone he was a raging donkey.  She says he charged her twice and stole the grain bucket.  I don't know how much belief I want to give that but I did make some changes to Fox's diet just to be on the safe side.  The last thing I want to do is piss off the people who agree to feed my ponies when I have to go out of town.

I cut Fox's grain in half and filled in the gap with timothy hay pellets.  I expanded his hay ration for when the good pastures are recovering and also added timothy/alfalfa cubes as well as some gut balancing powder that friends of my with horses who have ulcers give to their horses to help soothe their stomachs.  I don't really believe that Fox has ulcers but it can't hurt.

What's on the horizon for Eventing at Midnight?  Well for the next month nothing.  Work is dragging me out of town for three weeks.  When I get back I'm hoping the weather will be a bit cooler and I can really start trying to get ready for the one event I want to do this fall.  It's a starter trial at the Carolina Horse Park in October.  They let you school the XC the day before the trial and it happens to fall on the one four day weekend I have in October.  Perfect timing all the way around. That's the plan anyway.  I'm also hoping to do some XC schooling and really nail our cantering issue.

Here's hoping, keep it between the flags everyone.