There haven’t been any real updates since the show because sadly, sir Smitty is a little under the weather.
After his post-show vacation I went to check on him, and saw a little discharge coming from his nose. Since he otherwise appeared bright eyed and ready to go, I saddled up and apparently worked the snot out of him, because soon there was yellow goop running down his nose and he started coughing throughout.
After calling it a day, I wiped him down, checked his temperature (101) and texted the vet that we needed some antibiotics. He’s now been on them for several days and looking markedly better, but still with a bit of discharge. The cough seems to have mostly gone away.
I’m keeping an eye on him and waiting for this little cold to completely clear up, but doing minimal work (read: 20 minutes WTC) makes for somewhat underwhelming blog content.
I have no problem admitting that I spoil my horses. Besides raining praise down on them when they are doing the right thing, I also like to give them treats to reward good behavior. I also do think that treats can strengthen your relationship with a horse, helping them to view you as a source of pleasure rather than strictly work.
However.
I have a personal no-peppermint, no-sweeties rule when it comes to treats. My own experience has been that sugary rewards turn polite horses into treat hounds, rudely searching pockets and fingers and sometimes even pushing a human over looking for a minty morsel (which some days, I get it- cravings are real, yo).
Treats please, human.
Instead I try to buy treats with more natural flavors, like carrot or apple or oats. The reward is still there, but the rooting and shoving tendencies are less so. A friend gave me these low-sugar, apple based treats as a yay-new-pony gift and both Smitty and I liked them so much (him for the taste, me for the texture) I ordered more all the way from Florida.
Even with the low sugar rule, I have to be careful about how I reward the babysaurus. With his incredibly mouthy tendencies, I can’t just stuff cookies in his mouth anytime. Typically, he gets a treat for standing still while I mount, and occasionally when I turn him out [if he’s behaved that day]. It’s meant I’ve had to learn some self restraint from the days of hello-cookies, washbay-cookies, goodbye-cookies, and well, you get the jist. But slowly, Smitty is starting to understand when he gets a treat and more glacially, when things do and do not go in his mouth.
One day I hope that he will grow out of this orally-obsessed phase and I can start to treat him and reward with food more often, but for now I have to be the restrained Scrooge of treats, stowing them away out of sight until he’s adult enough to earn them.
Do you have any treat preferences? Any rules about when ponykins gets a treat, or is your barn a reward free for all?
Horse Auctions are one of those things that tends to polarize people- either you are totally on board with buying a horse from an auction (and maybe have even done so), or you would never-in-a-million years buy a horse from an auction and think those that do so belong in the loony bin.
I’ve been to lots of auctions in my time, of all different calibers. Legitimate Haflinger auctions in Ohio, Draft horse [read:Amish central] auctions in Pennsylvania, Canadian sport horse auctions in Ontario, the po-dunk auction up the street, and everything in between.
As a kid we would frequent a local auction where routinely, between the many horses, saddles, etc, you could also expect to see a herd (flock?) of emus be escorted into the ring to be bid on by lot number. We rarely bought anything there, more attending for the entertainment value and the people watching. But still, the excitement of hearing an auctioneer in full swing and the adrenaline of even a remote chance at adding a 4-legged-member to the family in a matter of 60 seconds or less is intense.
The family obsession with auctions goes further than horses, though. Both my father and my brother have their auctioneers license, and they’ve ployed this trade occasionally in everything from Alpaca auctions calling the bids, to charity functions and beyond.
I could not find a photo of them in auction mode, so enjoy this image of my brother doing a handstand.
Despite auctions being exceptionally exciting, there are of course pitfalls to buying horses this way. There was a horse named Strawberry Bill that was described as a kid’s horse, only to come home and attempt to kick my parents’ heads in. There was a pony mare that was not advertised as pregnant and dropped a baby to our surprise just a month after arrival. And in case you haven’t been to an auction, some of them can be dangerous places. Horses crammed into every corner, running up and down aisles, being chased with plastic bags to make them step higher, and carts and trailers and children all running amok. It’s like the worst, busiest horse show you’ve ever been to, on crack.
But there’s been some brilliant horses we’ve had over the years that came from an auction, really too many to list here. Most notable, perhaps, were Blue Boy, the appaloosa gelding my mother purchased for $500 including tack at an auction that became her winning showjumper.
Ribbons with Blue Boy
Others include the Haflinger stallion I evented, a draft cross named Scrumpy Jack, and even a little donkey weanling.
Have any of you ever attended a horse auction before? If so, what were your impressions? If not, would you ever go to one? What are your thoughts on buying a horse (or equid) in this way?
Now that I’ve had time to process our whirlwind first show experience, I can attempt to put together the lessons learned, both for Smitty and myself.
I think my own overarching feeling is that of relief in terms of the weekend. There have been times in the last couple months when I wondered what I have gotten myself into with a talented youngster [read: handful] like Smitty. I doubted that I would have the confidence to lead such a horse through new experiences and create a positive outcome. But driving away from the show, I felt that even the speed bumps along the way that I made the right decisions and gave Smitty the best experience I could given the environment. He learned to be polite in his stall, to look to me for guidance over new fences, and to focus on his person rather than the horses around him. Though he continues to need lessons in some ground manners, for instance the difference between nuzzling and nipping, I am learning that I can trust him and I learned that giving him a job is the best way to navigate any mental obstacles he may face.
This is my dance space, this is your dance space. Figure it out, Smitty.
As part of giving him a job, I think I will be proactive rather than reactive in terms of lunging. Getting him moving, and his brain engaged, was a good way of balancing the atmosphere of a show, and while shows are still a novel thing to him, we’ll calculate lunging into our warm up plans. I’m not a fan of lunging much in general, but it’s the safer alternative to a ticking baby bomb. Though next time hopefully he won’t be so tired that I feel like I have to hump and kick him to get him forward in a basic walk trot test.
We also learned that as far as a plan, at this point in time it’s safe to say that having extra folks around is a necessity. Holding a wiggle worm that attempts to eat anything and everything in sight makes even sponging him off a two man job. Once standing is easier, maybe we can manage showing on our own, but for now… not so much.
How I feel trying to manage Smitty and basically anything else
One of the wonderful things about the weekend was feeling like Smitty and I bonded a bit, as cheesy as that sounds. There were moments walking around, or in his stall, or just hanging out in warmup, that I felt like he would turn and look at me. It’s those little moments when I can tell him he’s a good boy (or you know, yell it at him a thousand times in a row) that makes me see a glimmer of a partnership down the road. Though basically I relish any opportunity to communicate with him that’s beyond “get that out of your mouth” at this point.
Smitty is getting a full 3 days off to recover from his long weekend and hopefully process all that happened. And I’m taking the 3 days off to recover and soak my aching everything. After being stepped on at least 4 times, my feet have been thoroughly abused and staying horizontal is the name of the game until Thursday.
What I haven’t decided yet is where to go from here. I have a couple off-property lessons I am attempting to plan, but no shows on the calendar for now. I think a W/T/C test could easily be in the books next time, but where and when are still up in the air. Still, lots to think about and lots to be excited about for now!
While I’m having a serious bout of horse show hangover (y’all, it was 2 years since my last show!), I can definitely look back on Smitty’s first competition and smile.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and settled him into his stall, and he seemed fairly content to relax and munch his hay and drink his water like a good boy. We walked a few laps of the venue and let him see the bikes, kids, dogs, tents, and other general show atmosphere that was slowly building. Since he handled it well, I tacked up and schooled him a bit. Luckily for us, there was only one other rider schooling, which had little to do with Smitty and a lot to do with my mental composure. Once I relaxed my death grip on the reins and gave us both a job of moving forward and changing direction, life got suddenly easier and we were able to find a good note to end on.
The next morning we went on another walk around the venue, which was decidedly much busier than the day before. All was well until about 10 minutes in, when the atmosphere got to Smitty’s baby brain and resulted in a minor meltdown. In the interest of self preservation, and of those around me (read: horses, children, dogs everywhere), I found a quiet unused field to lunge him and get the sillies out. It took a lot longer than I would have hoped to do so, but eventually he got his brain reinstalled and was listening and doing transitions politely on the lunge line and it felt safe to venture back into polite society.
At that point it was almost time for my dressage, and so we tacked up and found another somewhat quiet area to do warm up before heading into the arena. Baby pony was tired at this point, but put in an obedient test and was completely unfazed by his sandbox experience. We had wiggly centerlines (straight lines are hard, yo!), and geometry in general left some points on the table, as well as a lack of free walk (which we haven’t introduced yet). But given that, Smitty still scored a 29.7 and got his first 9 for a movement- what more could I ask for?
After dressage, Smitty got to nap for a couple hours before heading out to show jumping. The Green as Grass showjumping was held on the grass, and I was surprised to see the cross rails of the past replaced with a full set of verticals and even an oxer, complete with gates (which I have no idea if he’s ever seen) and ferns and the like. It was a proper mini showjumping course.
Celebrating dressage with some Chardonneighneigh
My warm up consisted of a couple trot circles, one lazy jump over the warm up cross rail, and heading into the arena. Smitty perked up a bit at the sight of the new fences, and we proceeded to fence one. At each new jump, I could feel the baby brain wondering why this one didn’t look like the last. But he was incredibly honest and with a little encouragement took each one with increasing confidence. As you can hear in the video, I did my best to convince him that he was superman after every fence, the dominator of 18″ fences all over the world. Apparently my nattering was highly entertaining to my friends, so enjoy the commentary.
Our clear showjumping result left us in 2nd place (or 1st, they haven’t posted official results) out of 10 horses, and I couldn’t be happier. With the help of wonderful friends, and a great venue, baby Smitty had a wonderful first show experience and hopefully set the bar for things to come.
In order to prepare for baby Smitty’s first show, we do a slew of things.
And by a slew of things, I really mean, nothing at all.
I don’t think that besides the day-in and day-out work of molding him into a good citizen, and our schooling on the flat, there’s not really anything else to be done but wait and see how it goes. We’ve officially got a saddle that has been professionally fitted and should alleviate some of Smitty’s sore lower back, and after the show he’ll get a few days off to think on his experience and recover.
But other than the general tack cleaning and list-making, baby horse is just going to do what he’s going to do.
And hopefully that means being a good boy. We’ll see.
Sorry for the lack of exciting posts this week! It’s a circus over here!
Among all my frustrations about saddle shopping was a nagging fear that all of my blankets, nary a season old, would also not fit the lanky new pony. So of course I stuck my head in the sand and decided I would just pull them out when it was cold, and pray they would fit. Because nothing says fall like pumpkin spice lattesscarvesleaves changing color dropping a few hundred dollars on new blankets.
But praise be, the blankets fit. Apparently Smitty’s length makes up for Foster’s breadth, so we won’t have anything to worry about for the time being.
And then my farrier showed up to do another horse, and while Smitty was in the cross ties, happened to point out- “you know your horse is bum high, right?”
And sure enough, he is. No wonder he’s been looking a bit lanky again this last week. I was hoping he’d go wide before he went tall, but looks like that’s not to be. My farrier assured me, my dreams of a 16.2h horse are basically shot.
One thing from my dressage lesson that really stuck with me (beyond how to get my tail out from between my legs), was my trainer stating that it was likely going to be a year before I felt a real partnership with Smitty.
It’s 2 months in, and though I’m getting to know him a lot better, I’d have a hard time describing him as a partner. Right now, much of our relationship seems to be focused on what happens on the ground, more so than in the saddle. Our communication feels like it’s constantly “please stand still,” or “give me your hoof” and more often than not, “don’t eat that,” followed by, “no, seriously don’t effing eat that!” (especially when it comes to my PS of Sweden reins!) Rather than partner, I feel like my role is teacher and often disciplinarian, and he is the unruly pupil with ADD.
In between admonishments I’m trying to remember to praise any and all good behavior. So when he does stand, he gets a pat and a verbal congratulations for not being a prat. When I don’t have to grab something from his gob he gets told he’s a good boy. Right now, because of the latter issue, treats are basically a no-go unless it’s to help me mount up. (More on that later)
Get that out of your mouth Smitty!
Our time in the saddle is getting better, in that transitions are coming easier, he’s coming on to the bit more consistently, and we survived our first jumping lesson together. All accomplishments that I’m proud of, to be sure.
Is it the groundwork and our relationship out of the tack why I don’t feel the partnership yet? Not to say that I don’t like Smitty, I do, he cracks me up and I think he’s got all the tools to help me accomplish my goals and more. And I think we’ll get there. It’s all about the journey for now, moving towards that partnership one little step at a time.
What is it about your horse that makes him feel like a partner? Was there a transitional moment that made you feel like a team? What is your greatest accomplishment together? If a partnership didn’t develop, what made you realize this?
How has it been two months since I first met Smitty? How time flies! But now that I know the little fella a bit, I can make a list of goals, of both the pie-in-the-sky and realistic variety, for us to aim for before the end of the year.
The Horse
Mouthy baby is mouthy- reduce the inclination to have to be pacified in order to behave (this includes chewing on reins, stealing my dressage whip, and even hinting at putting parts of the human in his mouth)
Get his mane pulled without antics
Jump off-property
Meet a dressage court [and stay inside of it]
Jump the first cross country jumps
The Tack
Find a [cheap] dressage saddle with smaller blocks
Get the jumping saddle [and possible dressage saddle] professionally OK’d/fitted
Red on the Right 