Christmas wishes

 

I SWEAR I have been a Good boy Santa!!!! 

Lets Have Fun in Texas

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine, my man and I made a trip over towards Austin. Back to the place we went for the driving clinic in December. A lot of the same people were there and since her ponies weren't ready to compete,  we decided to volunteer. Driving clubs can always use extra hands for everything and of course they were happy to have us. 

The TD for the event was Keith Yutzy that has done them not only in Texas but also in Az when I competed there. His wife Linda was also doing the scoring I believe, as she has also done a Lot of those as well. Eileen Leek was in charge, Trisha Clements was in charge of volunteers and there was plenty of good company to go around. 

The judge for the event was a really nice lady out of Indiana named Kristin Wittington. She had a Lot of helpful comments for everyone and strongly suggested for everyone to scribe at least once. That's one thing I haven't done yet, but at some point maybe I will get to. 

I also got to ride on one of the carriages as a navigator or 'Gator as we kindly call them. What a Blast! I think the woman I rode with probably got sick of me saying how much fun it was back there and I'm pretty sure I ate more than a few bugs because I was smiling the whole time. There was only 19 competitors it all seemed to go so fast, but that's pretty normal when you're on course. If course once you finish, you want to go again! She won the cones portion for Training Level, Single Horse and placed 3rd in the marathon. Not sure how she did in dressage, but she said several times- it's not their strong suit. Where have I heard that before? Lol 

I learned a few things while I was there but I will list that all in another post. It was nice to be back on course at a competition and around such a great group of people. Looking forward to getting back into competition....

Grass Ridge cones

Lots of pics, so get your drinks and snacks. This was the next ADT after Coolidge where he Lit Up on me and showed me he could really RUN! 

Getting to the In gate to start 

Hit the gas....

Yes we did the whole course at a Full. on. Gallop!
 

Red on the right!

Stretching out in full stride. Wheeeee!

After we went through 8, I lost track of where 9 was. We circled around while I tried to find it. Locked in and continued on our way....

You can see we both drop our shoulder as we lean into the turn. 

Charge!

A few more cones to navigate as we make what turned out to be a double clear round- no balls down and no time penalties which come from being too slow. In fact we had the fastest time on course out of all the competitors that day. 

Loose reins and giving him his head

Thru #19 and on to the last cones #20...

Last one straight ahead! 

Go Little Man! Go!

Even in driving its ear, shoulder, hip, heel just a little differently. Look where you're going!

Victory Lap!

Little Man loved cones and running like what seemed almost out of control.

I was joking and hanging into the rein rail like I was scared. Dave said it was tough to see us on course from the vapor trails and dust we kicked up ripping around.  My feet always stayed at the edge of the cart so I could move around and try to keep the wheels on the ground. Such a Blast! 

Grass Ridge 2014

I recently found a disc with photos from Grass Ridge 2014. This was the only time that I was able to take Kat there to compete. This was also the last of the driving competitions hosted by Grass Ridge since one of the owners had passed away. The wife had lost her battle with cancer and it wasn't long after she passed and they hosted this event in her honor, that her husband also passed away as well. I've wondered what happened to the facility and by now it's likely houses or something. Sad to see horse facilities pushed out for the sake of development. 😢

Here are a few of the photos from our dressage test. I haven't located the actual test sheet with our scores so I don't remember what all we got for each movement. My friend Sheri's husband Dave took these pictures and also pictures of us in cones.

Here Kat is stretching out in the extended trot part of our test. The ADT's actually allow for boots in all parts of the competition. We go from dressage straight over to the cones portion so there's not much time to stop and add, remove or change equipment. I've changed bits before but it's not fun being crunched for time.

Here we are back to the working trot. This was our 3rd time out at Prelim. The first time was at the Apache Junction ADT. The second time was at the Coolidge ADT. I know that the dressage test had circles, serpentines and a lengthened trot, but otherwise is not much different than training level.

Yes my little man and I were all matchy-matchy. The fleece saddle pad for under the harness and the cover for the breast collar keeps everything cleaner. Besides I can toss it all in the washer and dryer.  Cones pics to follow when I get a chance to post them. 

Validation!

Last weekend a friend of mine and I went over to Austin with the ponies and had a driving clinic/ playdate. Dinner on Saturday night was at a pleasant little place and the food was really good. The gentleman doing the clinic Tom O'Caroll, was with us and quite a pleasant man. When I asked how long he had been driving and how he got started? He chuckled and said he can't remember a time when he didn't drive. He had grown up in Ireland and drove the horse to town once a week- 20 miles away- to deliver the produce raised on the family farm. While he was there he would pick up whatever supplies they needed and drive the horse the 20 miles back home again. I can't even imagine. I'm sure at the time it was just what you do. I think it would just be so cool and definitely life at a slower pace. 

Sunday was a clinic of sorts where a few of us were invited to bring our ponies and give the local pony club members a chance to try driving.  Of course Kat was a perfect gentleman for the harnessing demo and was a little wound since he hasn't driven in a while. A few of the kids were so excited to drive him and he handled it really well considering nobody else has ever really driven him. A few of the kids were thrilled to take the reins and talk about how their horse should do this Really well. 

Luckily before the trip I had checked the weather forecast. While it wasn't bad here at home, overnight in Austin it was down to 38° which was quite cold for the ponies. We brought their blankets along so they were fine and thankfully there was also no wind which I was told by the facility owner that typically there is.  Some places just have a lot of wind and with it blowing as a constant, it gets old fast.  

We brought my friends pony along just for the experience. While she didn't exactly handle the trip very well, she did fine once we were there. She traveled with her nose to the floor and at one point when she brought her head up she had watery blood running from both nostrils. Poor baby was stressing. I would tell Kat to reassure her and tell her it would be fine.  Once she was off the trailer and walked around she seemed to be ok. 

Towards the end of the morning I could tell Kat was Starting to wear down and it looked like he needed to pee. Seem like a good idea so I took him back to the trailer to unhitch so we could both use the bathroom. At that point there was discussion of putting to the other pony and it seemed like a good idea. As I got her out and started to harness up the group started to trickle back over to the arena where the trailers were parked and lunch was being served. This was good since her pony was getting used to people and everything going on around her. Earlier they had a PA system too so she got used to that  too. 

By the time I had her put to the cart everyone else had come back over and the dressage arena we were using was clear. This worked to our advantage as her pony had seen the carriages going around from her stall and now she was getting to go out into the field where we could work. This pony is super talented and rather green but she has a really good mind to her. I used her Liverpool bit for just a little extra control should I need it and it was perfect for the occasion. We headed out to the field and I could tell she was feeling a little up, but she managed to hold it all together as we walked around so she could loosen up  before getting to work.

The dressage arena was a big open field and quite lovely. We walked both directions did a lot of circles and some serpentine's. When she started to relax I asked the pony to trot and we got a lot of really good work in. Again we did a lot of big circles, smaller circles and serpentine's going both directions and she was really working nicely. She was still looking around at the horses in the other field and the arena where the stalls were, but that's ok. Horses do that when they are in new places. As she worked and started to blow off steam she really settled in and was moving quite nicely. We did some working trot and some extended trot, brought it back down to a walk and let her relax a little before doing some more trotting work. She's quite a lovely mare and when we found a good place to stop, I let her have a little rest and then headed back to unhitch. 

By this time all of the kids and their parents were gone and it was just the event organizers left. They were all sitting in the stands talking and as I came into the arena they motioned for me to come over there. As I drove her up and stopped, they were all saying how they had been watching us work and she is a Really, Really nice moving pony. They had Lots of compliments and questions so I took her over to unhitch.  

While we were talking I explained that this pony has had less than 20 drives on her and how at one point she had not been driven for almost a year, but I was able to just harness up and put her to the cart and she worked to fine. When the discussion of two major driving shows came up, everyone agreed that this pony could certainly hold her own and do well at either one. She's That. Good. I finally asked the group if there was anything we needed to work on? Tom spoke up and said, "What you're doing with her, keep doing That." Again I asked- Any suggestions? Tips? Things to do? Things to leave alone and not worry about??? There's always something to work on.... Again Tom said "She looks really good with what you're doing. Just keep doing That."

My mind was blown. Such good things to hear about a pony I have been bringing along and teaching to drive. Funny thing is, she was supposed to be a hunter pony and while she loves to jump, she enjoys driving more. Now she just needs to travel more and we need to find or arrange more play dates she can go to, to put miles on her. 

Working out

Lately I have been working my ponyman since his hooves are back to almost where they should be. Since clearing up more memory on my phone, this means more pics too. 

Sometimes we do long line work and sometimes it's just working him on the lunge line. 

Everything starts and ends with the walk and my little man is still rocking his walk. 

Of course he's still rockin the trot too. I'm not pushing him for much more since its been a while since he's been worked regularly and the arena ground has also been packed pretty hard too. 

And of course that deep, rich color of his and the accents of his mane and tail. I should have had his bell boots on but they need to be washed.

Not quite as engaged as the pic above, but here's his working trot and a bit more relaxed. Still in the stages of loosening up here going the other direction.

Moving out a bit more here and yes again, he needs his bell boots. 

Especially when he turns up the heat and starts moving out like this. 

He knows he's still got it going on. Kat is such a character and always quite pleased with himself. 

Nip & trim

Sometimes we just have to take things in life head on. When it comes to our horses/ponies, we are their advocate and we need to stand up for their best interests, safety and their health. This includes hoof care. 

I have posted here before about dealing with an inferior farrier and the issues involving Kat's feet.  I trimmed his feet before and have no problem trimming them again. Then I switched farriers and while the new guy does a good job and all, for some reason I can't get him to take enough hoof off when trimming Katman. 

At 4 weeks the other pony in the barn that wasn't growing hoof- was already long and starting to chip the edges. She has not been on hoof supplements this last month and neither has Kat. And for not being in supplements, he was overreaching really bad at the walk the other night. Normally he overreaches at the trot when he is due for a trim- to the point you can hear him literally clicking with every stride as his hooves make contact. 

So at 4 weeks I sent a text they needed a trim. She's starting to chip, he's overreaching and how can we get this done? The other boarder that moved in with 5 horses and uses him now too, hers are still in good shape and can go a little longer. A week or two later and I let him know that if I need to, I can trailer out and meet him somewhere to get them done. 

Any wonder Why he might be overreaching at 4 weeks? 

So I grabbed my nippers, knife, rasp and got to work. 

Right front was first and while it is a touch long still for him, it looks a whole lot better than it did. 

Nice and short like it should be and balanced once again.  

Texting with a friend of mine that also uses the same farrier, she agreed that Kats feet should not be that long. 

His heels should not be the length of my thumb. Rest assured- they aren't anymore. Kat may still have some unresolved issues with deep cracking in the frog area, but that's a work in progress. And thanks to him fidgeting while I was rasping, the knuckle of my thumb is now missing a couple layers of skin. 

The difference in his hind feet after trimming the right one and before starting on the left.

Both hind feet have been taken down to where they belong. Its funny that Kat stood there licking and chewing as I worked on his feet. Each time I would set one down and let him have a break, (and me too) he would turn his head to me as if expressing his thanks. Anything to help out my little man.  

Visionary

Katman got a fresh load of shavings and proceeded to scare the crap out of me. Rolling in a freshly bedded stall is something they all do and he is no exception. This time however, he got something in his right eye. I whipped out my bottle of Vetracyn ophthalmic gel  and put a generous glob in his eye. In return I got back about a pea sized chunk of gray nasty something that was obviously causing the issue. 

The red part under the eyelid- this has recessed quite a bit but when it first happened that was sticking out under the eyelid and in plain sight on a much larger scale. The bottom eyelid was also swollen and puffy. 

After getting the pea sized chunk of crap out it had to feel so much better. He wasn't done yet though because next came a healthy glob of some terramycin an ophthalmic antibiotic. For $20-$25 a tube it is definitely something good to have in your first aid kit!  His other eye also got a healthy dose of gel and salve just in case. Fly mask went on for the night and I hoped for the best.  

The left eye still showing a little bit of pink irritation on the inside bottom. 

The next day there was a marked improvement- swelling was almost gone and the eyelid was almost back to normal. I also had a plan for a better way to flush the eyes. 

I have some packets of saline solution for flushing sinuses, so I took a handful of these to the barn. A bottle of water from the tack room fridge and a small container from the $1 store, I mixed up a batch of saline. A small syringe and we were good to go. Kat was again very patient while I rinsed his eyes and flushed away anything and everything caught in there. Another glob of terramycin and put the mask on again to wait to see.  

A few days later and much improved. Still a little pink but no more swelling and he's not rubbing his face on things. It doesn't look like he suffered any injury to his eye or vision so that's always good. The fly mask stays on now too since those pesky bugs have returned. 

Silver dapples

The weather has warmed up enough that everyone at the barn is shedding like crazy. Kat and one of the other horses there have pretty fluffy winter coats that will take some time to shed out. My pony is lucky since I body clipped him. Speed up the process a bit... Lol

He went from a silver dapple color-  

Kat showing off his deep chocolate brown color.

To a silver color with dapples- 

He's such a unique color and yet every year when I clip him or he sheds out- he changes just a little bit more. 

He is still and always will be - a character with a Huge personality. And now that he has short hair again, I can rinse him and he will be dry in a few minutes tops.  Hooray for that!

With his feet coming back around too, it won't be long before I'm back to driving him again and he's tearing it up. I'm betting we qualify for the old farts class before long. Lol  

He loves a good roll.

Making it work

Everyone and anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big supporter of and I champion the cause of ground driving and long line work. Fix the horse first and we can work on fixing us later. 

For the English crowd long line work is not lost if you don't have a surcingle. Use what you have- saddle, bridle and a piece of baling twine. 

Drop your irons and use the baling twine to tie them together underneath the horse. This is a little closer look and you can see the blue baling twine on the inside of the iron. Just like with a western saddle, this will limit the swing and keep them closer to the horse more like a surcingle. 

To keep your reins up and out of the way you can run them under your leathers and buckle them on top of the seat. This will still allow your horse plenty of room to stretch out and down when working. 

In the past I have also seen the reins run under the flap and buckled on top of the seat. This shortens them a bit and works more like side reins, but for long line work- this doesn't help. You don't want your reins giving one signal and your long lines another. You can also either take them off altogether or twist them up, buckled around the neck and run thru the throatlatch on the bridle. Whatever works for you. Now you're ready to get to work and fix the horse. 

Fine tuning

The cart has undergone some changes and now the overall picture is a better one, but... There are still a few more changes that could be made. 

One would be bigger, solid wheels. Anything above training level does not allow pneumatic tires. If the wheels on this cart were a little bigger, it would help to level out the shafts giving a more balanced look.  

The paint is another issue. While I like this color- Matte Sage Green- and it is a primer & paint all on one- it's coming off onto my harness and chipping in places. I may end up sanding it all down again, hitting it with a coat of primer and painting it a glossy black to match my other cart. Then if the color comes off anymore, it's black on black and not noticeable. 

Another thing that would help is to drop the tugs one more hole and straighten out the shafts. The straighter the line of draft, more level the shafts are and balanced the cart is- the more pleasant the overall picture and also the easier it is on the horse. 

Another less noticeable necessity is the trace extenders.  The length of traces are a bit short and although I bought extenders, I need the next one up. This will let the breeching keep the cart back off the ponys rear end which helps keep everything where it should be. 

The last thing I need to work on is a pad for the harness saddle and also a sleeve for both the breast collar and the breaching. These will all make harness cleaning much easier since I can take off the 3 pieces and throw them in the wash. These also let me add a bit of color to the turnout to keep things fun. 

*My apologies for the oversize pics. Blogger wouldn't allow me to use a smaller size with the format. Every time I tried to go back to a smaller size the text got all screwed up., stuff got shifted all around and the whole thing looked like a mess. Is anyone surprised? * 

Small changes

As I mentioned at the end of the last post there are a few small issues with the set up we had. I will start with one of the most glaring issues as it is the first thing Gary pointed out when I sent him the pics of this pony. 

Look at where the shaft is and how high up it is in relation to the traces and 'the line of draft' as it is called. I let Gary know that there is room to punch holes and drop the tugs some which will fix part of the issue but the cart could also use bigger wheels too which would bring it Up a little in the back, helping to level out the shafts. 

Problem #2 with this pic is the part of the shaft from the tug stop to the tip.  The tug stop is typically closer to the tug so this tells me I may be able to let out the traces a few holes and forgo the trace extenders. Wahoo!  But if the shaft and cart come forward where they should be, then the length of this part of the shaft comes into question. Not a problem. The tips are a little rough for my taste and I had gotten rubber stoppers to cram in them before. Trimming them off a little is not a problem.... They are also incredibly straight. The length and straightness both add to the problem of poking into the pony's neck when she tries to turn. Bigger sweeping turns aren't so bad, but smaller circles and tighter turns will be a problem. 

Shaft level and line of draft seems to be an issue with me. Lol 😆 This was from the show in Luling a couple years ago. I had swapped out the marathon shafts for the straighter, more traditional shafts for the show- and forgot to drop the tugs on the harness to accommodate this. My bad! 

See how high up the shafts are in relation to the traces. This is also making the hold back straps on the breeching look a bit awkward. I took the harness home and punched a couple holes on both sides and dropped the tugs.  Easy enough...

The tugs have come down into a better position. There may still be another hole that I can drop them again. I need to check, but I have since brought the cart home for the other changes. 

From a distance though it already presents a nicer look with things being more level and even.  As for the length and the lack of curve, both easily remedied by a trip to Lowe's for a pipe bender. I already had the pipe cutter and it didn't take much to measure from the tug stop out 12" and mark the shafts for cutting. Put the cutter on, spin it around a few times and done. File the edges smooth of the new cut, popped out the old plugs from the scrap ends and of course they won't fit damn the luck. No big deal because I wanted to bend the tips out and thought I may have to heat things up - which would melt the plugs anyways so this worked out. Another trip to Lowe's for the next size bigger plugs and some other things. 

I also found some Pale Sage paint that caught my eye so before I heated up the pipe to make bending them easier, I busted out the sander and some 80 grit to take off the layers of paint where it was chipping off anyways.... 

I measured 6" in from the tip ends, bent the ends with the pipe bender and gave it a couple light coats of paint. Lucky for me I didn't have to heat up anything and was able to get it done. 

I still need to remove the wheels and seat to finish the paint job, but theres no rush. Funny thing is, the cart was originally close to this same color when I got it several years ago. It was also bright red too at some time in the past. The sage seems to go nicely with the vinyl on the new seat. Now all that's left is finding new/ different/ bigger spoked wheels instead of the pneumatic wheels on it. Once you move up out of training level, pneumatic wheels are no longer allowed. But then there's always something more to consider...