my favourite kind of shopping

That is, shopping with someone else's money.

This Saturday, my friend Jess and I have a date with some horses retiring out of Suffolk Downs in Boston. She wants to buy an OTTB and asked me for my advice a while back. Here is what I wrote back to her:


-don't buy the first one you try (unlike I did...it worked out in the end but I had a very frustrating year or so before she actually started to be "fun" to ride)
-take someone experienced with you to videotape your ride
-ask to see all of the vet records. specifically I'd be interested in if the horse had been scoped for ulcers. most TB's off the track have them and they are very expensive to treat.
-ask what the horse eats and if it requires any maintenance or supplements.
-if you decide to get the horse, don't skimp on the vet check. it is TOTALLY worth the $$ to get the x-rays. most OTTB's will have some early arthritic changes so don't panic if you see that, but catching anything advanced before you own it could save you lots of cash and heartbreak down the road.
-some TB's have funky back conformation that makes fitting a saddle to them really difficult. some won't fit in anything except $$$$ custom saddles, so pay special attention to how the horse is built.
-try to get a horse that has at least been "let down", i.e. had some time out in turnout to learn how to be a horse and chill out a bit. basic retraining is really nice, too, and by that I mean confident w/t/c in both directions.
-ask if the horse has been trail ridden and if it likes getting out of the ring, or is it too spooky/hot?
-check out the feet and see if they look like they're well-formed and at least somewhat balanced. Lucy has three good feet and one bad one that makes me want to scream.


I have never been with someone to look at a horse that is still at the track, so I wasn't speaking from personal experience, but I was offering advice that aligned with best practices I've read and heard about.

Anyway, I also offered to go with her and she gladly accepted, so we are trekking out to the track bright and early on Saturday to go shopping! I am very excited. I will serve as a second set of eyes, photographer, and videographer. I also have a friend who works at the track who is doing some homework for us behind the scenes to see which of the horses we like are as nice as they sound on CANTER's website.

Have any of you bought a horse directly off the track? Do you have any advice?

I am feeling quite accomplished.

Today, my friends, we conquered 3', and we did it in style. Even better: Kenny took photos AND videos!

I am so pumped about this! Lucy was a SUPERSTAR.

We even warmed up in the field, complete with flying lead changes in both directions:

Then we had a nice gallop up the hill:

Then we jumped around, ending up at 3':

Photos:

One of the many reasons she wears bell boots. I mean, come ON. She even has her
right foot over the ground pole.

It goes without saying that I am so head over heels in love with this mare and she gets better and better every time I ride. I am so lucky to have her in my life.

look where you're going!

Maybe one of the reasons that Lucy failed miserably as a racehorse is that she doesn't look where she's going.

Lu, you might want to pay attention to that fence that's rapidly approaching.

Lucy said, "ok, I'll go the other way!"

"Hmm, there's a fence in my way again. Maybe I should start paying attention."

Can we also talk about the dapple EXPLOSION?

 

With her new friend, Nick, who came to the barn the first of this month.
Nick is in love with Lucy.
Lucy is too busy to care much.

In other great news, my former childhood lease horse came to my barn last week. My barn owner was casually looking for a new horse for her step-daughter and this horse, Dreamer, was looking for a new home as a free lease. He carted me around the hunters and jumpers when I leased him back throughout middle school and high school, and is an incredibly special horse. I know he will teach his new girl lots of great things while at the same time boosting her confidence, encouraging her to be brave, and showing her how to really enjoy horses.

I just love him.

condition update

I bribed Lucy to stand "nicely" and prick her ears (separately these aren't that difficult to achieve, but together they have continued to prove quite tricky), and Kenny snapped a conformation/condition shot.

Her dark winter coat has started to peek through her burnt summer coat, but so have the dapples!

C comes to visit

My friend C came again today to visit and ride Lucy. I tried to coerce her into jumping ;) but she preferred to stay on the flat since dressage is her specialty. She has such a gift with horses and it is always a pleasure to watch her work her magic.

mini-tantrum

video of a mini course

My barn owner took some video of Lucy and I tackling a mini course today!



And here's a video from last week that I finally uploaded:

loopy

Yesterday I had a loopy ride.

Lucy wasn't loopy.

I wasn't loopy.

The reins were very loopy.

Lucy isn't the best at maintaining her own pace, well, not unless she's going flat-out. She tends to go along like a train down a steady incline: faster and faster and faster and faster...well you get the point. It's very rare that I can leave her face alone and just truck along at a steady pace without frequent half-halts.

She was so quiet and steady yesterday that I had a constant loop in the reins and communicated with her more with my seat and voice than anything else. It was awesome.

We practiced over a blue tarp that I have. We've worked with this tarp before (I even have a "tarps" tag for this blog!) but it has been quite a while since I pulled it out. I was kind of expecting the shock and horror response of "I've NEVER seen that before!! AHHH!" but she instead responded with a "meh, whatever" and went over it happily at all three gaits.

how cute is that?

Today I am looking forward to spending most of the day at the barn. We have a few potential projects to work on: either painting the aisle walls, building more turnouts, or cleaning a whole slew of tack. Somewhere in there I'll probably ride, too. The trails are calling my name...

a fun weekend project

I decided to tackle a fun little project this week with the help of my very handy husband: making some new jumps.

First I had to go and purchase the materials. I was thinking I could make three jumps for under $100. Here's a little reality check: not gonna happen. Just the wood and the PVC poles alone were $115 at Home Depot. The jump cups were $8 for a set of them and I got two sets per jump, so that's another $50. And that was just for three jumps.

My Home Depot trip results. Is is possible to spend less
than $100 there in one trip? I don't think so.

Next we had to measure everything out. We had no power at home due to the hurricane that had just come through, but Kenny has a gas-powered chain saw and we used that to do a lot of the cutting.

Measuring out the standards. We started with 4"x4"x8' pieces of wood. Those
were cut in half so that we had two 4' long sections. These would become the
standards.

I measured out the sections of 4"x2"x10' pieces of wood that would become
the base supports for the standards. Cairo helped...of course.

I used a Sharpie marker to mark where we wanted to cut.

Kenny cut the sections with the chain saw.

On the standards, I measured and marked in three inch increments. Later we
drilled 1/2" holes into the standards, which is where the jump cups would go.

At the barn (where there was power!), Kenny used his electric
screwdriver to screw in the supports.

After the standards were finished, we put the jump cups on and I set
the new jumps up in the ring.

Of course I had to try them out!

Irene brought it, big time!

WOW, I have been off the grid for almost three days!

Irene has come and gone and in her wake, over 300,000 homes were without power. My house was one of them. We lost power very early Sunday morning and just got it back at around 9pm tonight (Tuesday). Kenny and I actually played card games multiple times over the last three days, and cooked dinner one night over a fire in the back yard!

On Sunday, when the hurricane actually hit, I was able to make it to the barn twice to check on Lu and make sure she had everything she needed. She ate almost an entire bale of hay in that one day, but what she really wanted was to go out. Apparently she really has started to enjoy turnout and she was clearly unhappy at being cooped up in her stall for the day. I tried to explain to her that 6o+ mph wind gusts weren't that cool, but she didn't want to hear it.

To make it up to her, we tried out some barrel racing in the indoor (which held up without any issues!):

Kenny tried it out first.

Then I tried! She was awesome!

The tight turns were something new for her but she got the hang of it quickly
and for being almost 17 hands tall, she did really well!

Getting sassy ;)

My cow pony.

Keep in mind there was a hurricane going on outside.

Oh yeah, she's crazy.

Other than being off the grid for what seemed like a century, things went without a hitch. The horses that were evacuated to our barn were able to return to their barn the day after the storm. No horses got loose and no trees fell on our barn. The barn didn't even lose power!