Sunday, June 24, 2012

Welcome Home, Cole!

Two weeks ago, I was completely frustrated with local horse shopping and was planning a trip to Ohio to look at horses. I had a list of about 7 horses, 2 of which looked especially promising. While searching, I had seen an ad on equine.com for a big bay Thoroughbred gelding in Lexington and figured I'd give the owner a call. He was so close that even if I didn't like him, the trip wouldn't be much of a waste.

As it turned out, I really liked him. He was tall, dark, and handsome. I was a bit worried about just how BIG he was, but Julie and Mandy both assured me that substance is good, even in a potential upper level horse. I took him to Masterson three days after our first meeting and he was fabulous. It was only his second "field trip", but he took it all in stride. He was very pumped up at first, assuring me that he was indeed hot enough. We did the big questions- ditch, bank, and water, and he didn't bat an eye. He actually got better the more he was challenged. That sealed the deal and I called Dr. Martha to leave a message.

Super pumped-up pony.

No horse eating ditch monsters here!

Calming down by the end of the ride.

Dr. Martha is a super-awesome vet with a busy schedule and limited appointment times, so it took until Wednesday to get her out for a pre-purchase. He flexed well enough that we went to take the x-rays, but as soon as we got all set up, the x-ray machine wouldn't fire. With some creative appointment switching, we re-scheduled for Thursday. Thankfully the x-ray machine must of just been in a bad mood on Wednesday, because the next day it worked perfectly. With each view we took, Dr. Martha kept commenting on how clean each x-ray was for how big he is. Unfortunately we did find a bone chip in his front left fetlock, but he had flexed sound on it, so Dr. Martha didn't think it would be a big deal. Armed with Dr. Martha's professional opinion, I made the decision to purchase Cole, but to invest in surgery to remove the bone chip. She said that although there's a risk each time a horse goes for surgery, the arthroscopic surgery to remove a small bone chip was relatively non-invasive and had a great prognosis. In all it should take Cole about 2 months to get back to regular work, but I'll be happy to have the bone chip gone before it has a chance to become a problem. 

Yesterday I was so thrilled to pick Cole up. He settled in much quicker than I anticipated, mostly due to how delicious he thinks Julie's hay is. I haven't gotten a chance to ride him yet, but tomorrow I plan on changing that and showing him around the farm. (I can't wait!)

Onto the trailer...

The hay net on the other side, despite being filled with the exact same hay, was apparently much tastier than the hay in front of his face. 

Into the barn...

All settled in!

So, Team Riley fans, meet Cole!:

Cole is a 5 year old Thoroughbred gelding, registered with the Jockey Club as Cole's Connection. Cole stands at about 17.1 hands. His sire is The Cliff's Edge and his dam is Irish Ides, by Proud Irish. He raced as a 3 and 4 year old, but didn't have much luck against the smaller horses after breaking his maiden at Turfway. Cole raced in mostly claimers for a total of 9 races and about $7000 in winnings. His last race was in August of 2011, before his previous mother bought him as a dressage horse. After a winter off, his dressage career was progressing well, and near the end of May, he was officially listed for sale. 

As a side note, my mother bought me a bottle of wine last week- Fourteen Hands Hot to Trot. She told me I couldn't open it until we had a new horse, and thankfully I didn't have to wait too long. We popped it open last night to celebrate!


Sunday, June 17, 2012

The Half Ass School of Riding

As many of you may know, and a few may not know, I am in what we like to call the Half Ass School of Riding. Let me explain, about two years ago, I finally got my chance to ride a horse. After 24 years of living in Kentucky, I finally don't have to acknowledge the "sin" of being a true Kentuckian and never having ridden a horse. I began on the best, and we use that term lightly at times, lesson horse we could find, Riley (the poster child of Team Riley Eventing). He was perfect; lazy when he wanted to be and not really that spooky. The only thing he really didn't like was the large pile of wood along the trail. Apparently he has heard that there was a giant monster living in it.

Thus began the Half Ass School of Riding. My very patient (which is odd to say) teacher: Maggie

I started out just hacking along, learning the reins, how to turn, keep my heels down, keep my heels down, oh and if I forgot KEEP YOUR HEELS DOWN! Just recently I got a compliment on how I keep my heels down by Julie, at least I've finally learned something.

It was a very slow going process, ask me to play any sport involving a ball or me not being in control of a large animal, I'm pretty much golden. It also didn't help that after that summer I moved back to Louisville for work and only saw the Maggie and the boys on the weekend. I know Riley loved it. It meant that he didn't have to work hard that day and that he got twice the treats. Then came that fateful day when Riley got leased. I didn't have my lesson pony anymore and the way everyone talked about Will, I didn't know if I was going to get to ride him.

This is when the Half Ass School got fun. The first day I got to ride Willard the whole barn was stunned. Every person had the same response when they heard I was getting ready to, "Maggie don't hurt John, we really like John." What they didn't know was that Will was going to be on his best behavior for me. He was great, he knew I was on him. The only problem sometimes was finding a second horse so Maggie and I could hack together, she still didn't trust Willard enough to let me hack on my own yet. My teacher also had an alternate motive too. I fell into the eventing world head first when I met Maggie and wanted to learn more.

It was a little bit of a crash course at the beginning, especially when I was put on the lung line to learn how to post at the trot. Thats when Maggie got to have a little fun and push the limits: "You wanna canter now?" Really? well why not. And that was my first and only fall off of Willard, well more of a I'm falling so I'm going to tuck and role.

Ransom, the local pony on the block, did his fair share of putting up with me. He let me trot on him, do a little beginner cantering, and even some jumping. Later on after the fact I learned that I actually took Ransom on one of his first cross country schooling days, even over his first ditch.

After consistently riding Ransom I got to try my shot at trotting Will again. They best part was stunning Maggie when I just picked up the trot, I even threw in a flying lead change for the fun of it. Actually that was Willard, trying to scare the crap outta me. Low and behold, the Half Ass School was paying off. I felt like I finally conquered Will. I could talk days about Willard, I still miss him whenever I ride another horse, I got so used to his quirks.

The Half Assed School likes to test the waters a little too. I think Maggie likes see what I can handle. I even got to jump Will, that will forever be one of my favorite memories, it wasn't pretty, but I made it. That getting a Pink Ribbon at Snowbird.

Now that Riley is back I've started to learn more again. Like Maggie, I've learned to like big thoroughbreds. Two years later I'm finally going to learn how to balance and canter well.

There's a reason it's called the Half Ass School of Riding, Its slow and steady and a little laid back, but I enjoy it, I love riding.

-John

Thursday, June 7, 2012

All Quiet on the Pony-Shopping Front

The past few weeks have been going by with nothing too exciting on the pony-shopping front.

I looked at what felt like a million horses at Elaine Schott's farm in Versailles a few weeks back. They were lovely horses, but they just weren't what I'm looking for. On Monday, I travelled north to the Hoosier state to look at 5 off the track guys (and gal). One freshly retired gelding was pretty nice, but didn't knock my socks off when I hopped on. I had a blast on the mare, but she's not as leggy as I'd like. She made me re-evaluate and perhaps start thinking that even 16 hands is too short, so now I'm really thinking 16.2 or taller. For every 10 horses for sale, I think I can find 1 or 2 that fit what I want, but nothing has really clicked. I keep telling myself I'll know it when I feel it, but some days I wonder about that (and really, really hope it's true).

One of the guys I saw Monday

They had babies at one of the farms!

In the meantime, I fell in love with the ad for a CANTER horse in Ohio. I was dying to go look at him because everything about him sounded wonderful (and it didn't hurt that he was just as tall, dark, and drop-dead-handsome as Will). It turns out that he has osselets in his ankle and can't jump, so that was a huge bummer. But the contact person was very friendly and helpful and was happy to give me some good leads.

So now my focus turns to the Buckeye state, where I'm planning on going in 2 weeks to look at a line-up of horses. I feel like there's a time-bomb ticking underneath me to make a decision on my #1 horse, but I just have to have something nice to compare him to- I don't want to be backed into a corner for fear of losing out, and then be sorely disappointed when he's not everything I want and more.

I've also been approved for adoption at the Secretariat Center, so I'm going to make an appointment soon to check out a filly they have. I'm crossing my fingers that one goes well, since when I thought she was amazing when I saw her at Rolex. My CANTER MI adoption is pending, but there's a horse that they just got in who sounds like someone I'd enjoy.

In other news, little Riley has been plugging along. It seems as though he can't decide when, or if, his extended vacation should end. He was sound right before Maydaze and going to watch all the horses really made me hopeful. I started making plans in my head for what we'd do once he got going again. He saw the chiropractor on Memorial Day and was going to be scheduled for one last lameness exam this week to get the go-ahead for full work. So of course when I tried to ride him on Tuesday, he was terribly lame. This time the vet thinks it's just a strained muscle, so with all luck that's it (and we've finally gotten to the bottom of all his problems). We had a little talk about one more big vet bill and he can have a year or two off if he'd like, and I think that might of knocked some sense into him because he's been sound all this week.

Some days I think Riley gets a kick out of making me worried. His leg decided to swell up, so after I wrapped it, John and I decided to sign his "cast".