Sunday was another long day. We headed out early to pick up a friend of ours Ahna, who had come down for the show and take her to the airport. We had lunch, she left for her flight and then we had a few hours to kill... So we headed out to Bass Pro Shops to wander around. That was good for two hours. Now what?
We headed to the park and let the girls run around a bit. They played on the swings, went down the slides and wore themselves out a bit. It was good for them to stretch their legs and ours too trying to keep up. Then it was back to the airport again. This time for coffee and to meet a fellow blogger a few of you may know- Fern Valley and family.
Hey, look who I found! They had a couple hours layover in Phoenix and she had sent their flight info so we could meet them on their way back from a well deserved vacation. It was great getting to meet you guys and I'm glad we could finally hook up!
This past weekend I was able to get a bit more caught up and actually get a couple pics of our old mare Berry.
She has been shedding and the hair is falling out, but not all the way off. So she has acquired a rather matted look to her coat. Here I had already hosed off her left side and the hair literally flew off of her at times.
She is so not amused!
It took about a half hour to hose off both sides and help her shed out what was coming off. Then I turned her loose and of course-
she rolls...
all the way over, getting good and dirty again!
Then she took off running around like crazy. Not bad for being close to 30 years old! She still gets around like nobodies business.
When it warms up enough, I like to hose them off instead of using a shedding blade. If there is any mud matting the hair together- it is softened by the water and more likely to come off that way. Using a shedding blade- the hair is pulled out, mud or not. The dead hair has already lost it's luster, but if it is still clumped to the hair that hasn't come loose yet, pulling on it can hurt. Especially in the areas which may be more sensitive, like the flanks, girth area, etc. I will most likely give her another week or two. If she still is a hairy mess- I'm getting out the clippers! Of course I will try to get pictures and maybe video of the process.
9 comments:
What a pair we are! hard to find a pic with both of us smiling (never make it as a model this kid!) It was wonderful to see you .I remember as I was walking along the hallway out of customs kind of wondering if I would spot you and recognise you right away , then I saw those 2 little redheads, and ,well you saw the smile.Made my day !!!
Your old mare still has a spark in her , must feel pretty good the get all that old hair off
That video was well timed. It's supposed to be rainy, snowy here tomorrow (fingers crossed it misses us yet again) so I dug out my jump building books and will start on my cavallettis. I am determined to have at least one horse this year that is started on fences. I just know that bay horse that is going to the trainer at the end of the month will be an awesome English horse. Don't know what my brother is going to think about that-LOL. Not sure he is going to appreciate me turning his future heading horse into a jumping horse.
Awesome you got to meet fern in person. Yea, I'm guessing picking you and your girls out of a crowd isn't real difficult...LOL.
Fern a few of mine, one of us were incredibly blurry or both, then one of them I was incredibly bug eyed looking. Not a good look for anyone. The red hair is a bit of a give-away isn't it?
BEC's I am planning on getting Mondo going over at least some low crossrails too. He may not make it as a Grand Prix horse, but he can at least learn how to go over them!
Chicks had jump cups for $1.99 a while back. Yeah, I bought a few... There are also free instructions for jump standards online.
How cool is that?!
Tired of winter...
I did not see the wreck. It sounds very scary. I always hate when a horse goes down doing anything but fences make me doubly squeemish for some reason.
I'm so glad you guys got to meet. That is very cool.
I like to rinse horses that are shedding too when I can. The hair comes off so much easier and the horses seem to appreciate it too.
Rising Rainbow- To me it looked like the horse never stood a chance on that jump. She took off, but didn't much leave the ground and sorta crashed over and thru it instead. It was near the wall in the Equidome and as the horse landed she ended up with her legs up against the wall as if cast. She did struggle a bit which is how she was able to finally push away from the wall, get up and headed off right towards me. I just reached out to grab the reins as she went by and quietly said whoa. Everyone was ok and hooray for soft arena footing!
I forgot to mention in my post about the last horse, the gray. He is an Arab/Andalusian cross and when they bring him in for a class, they have to lead him into the arena, shut the gate, then mount up. Once he has completed the course- he expects his cookie before leaving the arena. He is a bold jumper though and fun to watch.
Sounds like she got to the jump unprepared. That's too bad.I'm glad that you were able to catch her so easily. Terrified horses in an arena can get into lots of trouble.
The gray horse sounds like something of a diva. In pleasure classes the rules won't allow a horse not to be ridden into the arena. Seems odd the jumpers would get away with that, but who knows, I'm not up on jumper rules because it's been a long time since I worked a horse show that had hunter classes and when I did, I wasn't the manager so I didn't need to know the rules for each class.
The video you were in is on The Pleasure Horse Blog (the link is on my page, near the bottom of my Remuda List.
That was a hairy one to watch, I can't imagine actually being there!
Enjoy the sun- it's gonna start raining soon!
RR- the biggest thing is people start trying to chase the horse to catch them.
Pleasure classes and h/j classes are sometimes different on the rules and what they will allow or won't. Then you add in the rest of the performance classes- some with their own associations altogether (reining & cutting come to mind) and you can end up with a mile high pile of rulebooks. Some are the same- others contradict and it could easliy lead to some confusion.
Vaquro Girl- A link to the video perhaps? I will go look for it. WOuld be interesting to see from the camera man's angle.
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