Fall Weekends

Saturday morning the barn was pretty empty as 4 horses were away at the Rolling Hills show. The farm's equestrian team brought home tons of ribbons from that show including a reserve and a grand champion, maybe one day Whisper and I will get a chance to join them. For now, I was all pumped up for a morning ride.

But first, as the morning chill began to wear off, I ditched a sweatshirt layer. Hmm... Auburn oversized sweatshirt in hand... little unsuspecting mini horse in the barn.... I wonder

Yep, it fits. 

All advice and common sense says that riding Whisper after she's been on turn-out instead of in the stall, should help with this early training managing her incredible energy. My life with my children doesn't allow this to happen very often until today when my hubby kept them for the morning, that gave me a pass to see how she would do coming off 12 hour pasture turn-out and took away the sun disappearing deadline we've had in the evening. 

Whisper was also pretty pumped up about this idea. In fact, she stood in the wash rack with her head jacked up, blowing like a deer doe standing her ground, at every little breeze and noise. She lost contact with the ground through her front feet more than once as I did up the girth, and during bridling I lost her all together as she ran through the barn. 

No problem, I've got lots of time, I'll just longe her, long line ground drive, all sorts of stuff I can do before I get on. I finally got her fully tacked and down to the ring. No longe lines. Shoot. I hadn't even thought about the show team needing them on site and had left mine at home. Instead I hand walked her until she stopped spooking at every little noise.

I went to mount up and some jerk (that's the G rated version of the word that comes to mind) driving by thought that was a perfect time to blast his horn. Why people think it's a good idea to honk driving by horses, I'll never ever know. 

Needless to say, when my rear hit the gear, my horse was already off and running. One full hour I rode her circling tight right each and every time she broke from a walk. It gave her a chance to work bending and reinforced that deciding not to walk was going to make it harder for her.

She began to come down, she chose to walk and earn her straight lines. Her head came down. An hour and a half into the ride, I felt everything in her relax, we could have been any horse on any trail walking relaxed in the fall sun. It was awesome! 

I was hoping the workout for the morning had prepared Whisper for that afternoon. My oldest daughter, Sage, was turning 5 and having the party at the farm. She had asked a thousand times to ride Whisper and for obvious reasons I've always said, "no". I  wanted to let her try and sit on Whisper for a lead line walk special for her birthday. Sage is pretty good at sticking on a horse and my bareback pad includes a strap to grip so I hoped the odds were slightly in my favor that it will go smoothly. 

Party was great, games went well, and Beethoven forgave me for shirting him and took part in festivities (yes, these are all my kids)

We rounded up all of the little ones, put up balloons and breezy crepe paper, to get ready for Sage and Whisper's big moment. 

Whisper was an angel. Sage weighs so little you could almost assume Whisper thought she only was wearing a saddle, but trust me, she knew. Sage was thrilled and all ended perfectly well.

On other fronts, Whisper's feed has been changed. I had her on Triple Crown Senior (she's been on free choice hay the entire time), she wasn't skinny on a high volume of that feed but she also wasn't adding the weight that I felt like she needed. We added in Rice Bran Oil to see if the pure fat would help, it did a little over 2 months, but she hated the stuff. Corn oil too. She'd eat around her feed and leave anything oily behind. The farm manager suggested a change to the 10-10 feed most of the adult age horses at the farm eat, considering that the levels of protein to fat may be more conducive to weight gain without adding a lot of heat to her. We did that with some soaked timothy cubes added in. She loved the new feed, just not the timothy, she'd eat around the soaked cubes. This week we've changed her to soaked beet pulp as the mix-in to the 10-10 grain. Maybe that will help those hips fill in just a little more and get us ready for winter. 

Speaking of winter, all of the horses are getting fuzzy. *happy sigh* they smell so good after warming in the sun and feel like big plush stuffies. On the really cool nights, we're blanketing the show horses and I'm including Whisper in that category when temps go lower than 50. I want her to get a nice winter coat, but odds are it'll be next year before her body produces a more climate acceptable coat for our area. The girls were also worried about their pony with the dropping evening temperatures...

Finally, the farm welcomed a new horse, this time a Thoroughbred. I have to say, the more I'm with them, the deeper I'm falling in love with this breed.