Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo!

Today is the one year anniversary of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog!

I seriously cannot believe it's been an entire year since I started the blog. It began as nothing more than something to keep track of my own little successes and failures with my crazy mare. I was inspired by blogs like Daun's, and I wanted to do the same. From the first few followers and commenters (all of whose blogs I still read today), to now, when I have so many followers I can't even keep up with them, it's been a wild ride. So many ups and downs have happened over the past year, so many things I never thought would happen, could happen.... good and bad. So without further ado, here is the review of a year in the life of Gogo, from the very first postings to now:



November 2008:

Gogo and I prepare for the move to Connecticut from Michigan. We did lots of work in the chambon, went for fall trail rides, and bid ado to a barn with real places to trail ride, gallop, condition and jump. I got seriously into trimming her myself and am very glad I did. Ironically today of all days was the first time I let someone other than myself work on her feet in a year, but I'm glad I did and I will have more on that tomorrow. I get my first ever follower on the blog. Photo of my first trim on her hinds (went back and worked on the LH again, but the right hind looks pretty good):

December 2008:

Gogo and I arrive safe and sound in Connecticut and start our new New England life. Work is an adjustment for me but it goes pretty well for the most part. Gogo has her first tummy upset ever and I blog about how much I hate bran mash. I write a lot about letting go in dressage (meaning releasing her front end and being soft and forgiving with my hands), and make my views on the barefoot movement clear, and get a lot of interesting reponses which in turn make me rethink my ideas a little. I write a little about compromise, and a lot about goals. I spent my first Christmas away from my family and had to work all day all by myself, with no one but my pets to keep me company. I was very lonely but excited for the coming year.
Schooling trotwork during a lesson:

January 2009:

January gets freezing cold in CT. We hack like maniacs in the bitter cold and I get a chance to talk about how amazingly tireless the barefoot horse can be. I talk a little about ration balancers, long-term Gogo goals, and how much I missed my Metro. Gogo learned how to remove both her stall gate and the big metal gates in the paddocks from their hinges, and went wandering a couple of times. She also had a massive accident on the lunge, which was partly due to bad judgement on my part and partly due to her overreactions to random stimuli. I tried again a few times to work on the issue, but she continued to freak out and flipped herself right over a couple of times on the lunge, so we went back to rudimentary lunge work. I have since lunged her with sidereins but not the chambon. I meant to readdress this issue in the fall - meaning now - but obviously that can't happen for a good long time. A big training fail on my part, but not the end of the world. We'll correct it yet. We just have to wait til she's totally sound.


February 2009:

February acts totally bizarre. We have no precipitation for weeks and weeks and have temperature spikes into the 60's, which leads me to go to the beach, where there is a lot of unintentional rearing, delightful galloping, and an accidental swim in the ocean. I do a SWOT analysis for Gogo, it blizzards a lot, and Gogo alternates in her dressage work from amazing and about ready for 2nd level to insane and leaping around and trying to kill the other riders in the ring. We experiment with feed shortly thereafter and find that it is the Ultium making her absolutely bat-shit crazy. I get a whole mess of year-end awards in the mail from Area 8 and from the USEA... I've never gotten a single one before.


March 2009:

March doesn't start off too well. Gogo continues to be explosive until we totally take her off the Ultium (which we hadn't done just yet), and had another huge explosion on the lunge, resulting in some major chest edema that gets rubbed raw. I have some very, very bad rides but realize that all I need to do sometimes is just CHILL OUT. Gogo also had major chiropractic work done on her, which continues throughout the rest of the summer (about every 3 months) and I become somewhat fanatical about my awesome chiro. My 24th birthday happens (!!), we have our first show of the season, and I get to start conditioning canters for the first time (but then of course have to put them on hold or do them sporadically because it starts raining at the end of the month and doesn't stop until July). We get some great dressage work in, and participate in Gogo's first clinic, this one with Sharon Schnideman. I also got my new Prestige Eventing saddle (woooo!!) and sent in my entries for our first event of the season, King Oak. March might have started out crappy but it ended amazingly!


April 2009:

Gogo and I attend our second show of the season, another schooling jumper show at Mount Holyoke. It is a bit scarier than the last time seeing as we bumped up a table and Gogo apparently can really fly over 3'6", and sometimes I can not. The standards in that picture are about 4'6". The blog reaches its 100th post and has about 30 or 40 followers. It rains.... rains..... rains.... and rains, and I have to get a bit creative with all my schooling. I run a poll to see if I should do the event at Groton House or the Heidi White clinic, and I chose the show. (VERY glad I did.) The first bugs of the season come out (oh the humanity!), Gogo gets photogenic, I write about modern eventing for Daun and go watch mares kick some ass at Rolex Kentucky. I also prepare for the first event of the season at the start of the next month, and freak out a little when I find out there are 115 people competing at Novice.



May 2009:

I write a lot about Quincy, my first horse and best friend, and the long years that he has been gone. Gogo and I got our first XC school in in the pouring rain, and prepped for our first event of the season, and her first ever Novice. I about had a heartattack when I saw the course for the first time (not a move-up course that's for sure), and looking back at it now it's funny how I thought those jumps were soooo big and soooooo tough. They look like cake to me right now. After months of preparation, Gogo and I take on our field of 20 to win our first ever Novice (her first ever, my first in several years) on our dressage score of 31.1. I get my new truck (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), I get to clinic with Kerry Milliken and have an amazing weekend of trail riding and yoga, and we prep for our second event of the season. We attend the Mystic Valley Hunt Club H.T. and have a repeat win, this time on our dressage score of 30. I am on cloud 9 like you don't even know.


June 2009:

Gogo turns 8 years old on June 2nd. We start hacking religiously to Dunkin Donuts, and are really in the swing of a weekly conditioning schedule: three days of dressage, one 2-hour conditioning w/t hack, one gallop day, and one jump day. I start to get nervous as I get e-mails from the secretary at Groton House saying they've received my entry but they were overbooked on the first day and needed to do a draw, so we waited on pins and needles for about a week. And then.... WE GOT IN! I start to have deeper concerns about Gogo's hock changes, I get creative with my gallops when the field we were using didn't get mowed for a long time, Gogo jumps her first corners, and a pipe bursts in my room and floods the entire house. (I spend the next two months sleeping miserably on the unconfortable couch with all my stuff piled into a heap in the living room, sneezing and wheezing as the humidity sends my mold allergy into a frenzy.) I joke about gayness. And then the highlight of the season happens.... we attend and have a three-peat at Groton House Farm H.T., beating out everyone in our very competitive field of 23 to win on our dressage score of 31.5. Daun and her SO come to cheer me on, and I am on top of the world. Life could NOT get any better. (So of course from here on out it gets worse.)


July 2009:

The blog gets plugged on the Eventing Radio show, and on COTH as well, and I write an article about Gogo for the Eventing 2.0 online magazine which gets published. Gogo has been exceptionally hot and spooky lately, freaking out at simple things like Lynnie's staircase and stormdrains, but I think nothing of it at the time and continue to prepare for the Area I Novice Championships at Old Chatham. I spend the week leading up to it feeling stressed and unprepared, and end up choking on XC when Gogo has an uncharacteristic spin out at fence 4 and I get pitched. I chalk it up to a freak thing and prepare for the following weekend's event, Riga Meadow, but Gogo has another totally out of the blue spin at the upbank (wtf simple!), and I start to think something is very wrong. As it turns out, something IS wrong, and she has a Lyme titer pulled and we start her on Doxy. I also get to partake in a clinic with Eric Horgan, and she is great for those two days, but worsens and struggles with the Doxy at the end of the month.


August 2009:

I struggle to get my spirits back up, and simultaneously treat Gogo for Lyme and for potential stomach issues with the addition of aloe juice to her diet. She makes a TOTAL behavior turnaround with the combination of these two things, and I also bite the bullet and inject her hocks for the first time ever. I struggled long and hard with this decision and it was not made lightly. My good karma returns when a whole bunch of good things happen to me, including getting TWO Gold Medals at the Novice level, one for Gogo and one for myself, and we also get a Rider Achievement Award at Novice as well. Gogo's attitude and amazingness returns in full, and we almost win the Huntington Farms H.T. but end up in 5th instead after a rail in stadium (but a blog reader wins our division so that's ok!), and she has a foot-perfect XC which is all I cared about. I go into overdrive preparing for the AECs. We are back in winning form and ready.


September 2009:

The AECs are upon us and we finish preparing and packing. We put down Lynnie's horse Max and it was one of the most peaceful things I've ever seen. We travel and travel, and make it safe and sound to Lamplight. We have a pretty good dressage test and end up in 7th out of 40 people in our division with a 30.5 (imagine if she has actually BEHAVED during the test what our score would have been!), and we make the wicked sick XC look easy. But something is wrong. She is a little odd on XC but tackles everything with ease, but back at the barn those hind legs blow up. As it turns out, she has done bilateral tendons behind on XC. We pack up our stuff, withdraw, and make the long, miserable, and painful journey home. Lots of icing, wrapping and anti-inflammatory drugs occur for the remainder of the month. Gogo has a bad reaction to a vaccine and spends three days trying to die on me. I am a miserable girl.


October 2009:

We make plans to leave CT. We are both broken and need a break. The injury gets isolated mostly to a lesion in her SDFT in her LH, but both SDFTs have some tenosynovitis, which is confirmed by Tufts. We traveled there to do PRP on the lesion, but there is such marked healing the a week and a half between ultrasounds that we decide not to do it. I go up to Daun's and get to eat some amazing food and gallop the Big Perch himself, measure a year in the life, secure a new well-paying barn manager job, go foxhunting for the first time (and am officially hooked), get back to long-lining my mare, catch ride Brego in the New England Hunter Trials (and kick ASS even though the judges hate us), and move. All in all, October is by far the best month I've had for a loooooooooooooooooong time.


November 2009:

I settle in to my new job, and Gogo gets move into a beautiful barn. Gogo gets treadmilling every day, and we start tackwalking again, but after some serious explosions just the other day, we're backing off to just treadmilling until we can get back up to Tufts and confirm whether or not the tendon is still healing nicely or not. Life is very good and it really feels like we've come full circle. The blog has 111 followers, we've had stories published about us, been plugged all over the web, met some amazing people, made some fast friends, and have loved every minute of sharing all our ups and down with all of you.




Happy Anniversary, Eventing-A-Gogo! Here's to another year of more ups, more downs, more friends, more fun, and MORE GOGO!

She's a maniac, maaaaaaniac!

Remember how I was raving about how perfectly behaved my horse has been during this rehab? How angelic she's been, how perfectly sensible and sweet? How I've needed to wear spurs because she's just too darn lazy otherwise? Today, she set out to change alllllll that. And I have battle wounds to prove it.

It started out in a benign way. Gogo had her usual morning treadmill and was, as usual, a sweet little angel while I was tacking her up later that afternoon. When I went to get on her, she seemed a little up but nothing out of the ordinary, until we got to the far end of the outdoor. There, a squirrel went darting up a tree, and she about jumped out of her skin. Uh oh. I picked up contact, we settled into some real walk work on straight lines, and she settled. We had almost reached the 20 minute mark and I was about to get off and call it a day when suddenly, out of nowhere, a bunch of deer came crashing through the woods behind us. Gogo whirled around to face them with her tail flipped over her back, something she has never in her life done EVER, not even when being chased in the arena by Very Scary Things on purpose to make her have a Big Floaty Trot. Which never works because she's not interested in such things. I could feel her heart banging in her chest and went, oh dear this can only end in tears. Okay Gogo, just focus on me for a minute longer and we will just walk a big circle and then I will get off. She does a very big fancy walk around 3/4 of the big circle, and just as we are coming around to the end of it, she absolutely LOSES it and bolts. She only gets about a stride or two out, hits my contact, and rears. Hi-yo Silver rears. Apparently, my instict for getting out of her way is alive and well, because I twisted to the left and took the brunt of her head to my neck and ear versus straight in the nose. You can see in that picture, which was not of this particular incident, how she can really put her head in my lap when she wants to. Idiot. Well anyway, so now I have a throbbing head, and an aching hip that made a very ominous popping sound when I torqued it while twisting out of the way. I shifted back in my saddle when she was on the ground (and totally immobile again, of course), and it popped back into place. THAT can't be good. I was also disturbed to find a bit of blood with the ear injury... that can't be good either. I'm fine, really I am, but for real Gogo, you can't do that crap. You just... CAN'T.

I walked around for another circle, because I'll be damned if I dismount after that, and was satisfied and got off. With mare in tow, I took the pitchfork over to the pile of poop that she had left in the corner of the arena, and scooped it up with some difficulty. I went to turn around and lead her back over to the muck bucket, and she tweaked again, this time bolting forward, hitting the reins, and rearing and backing away at high speed, which sent the shit in the pitchfork sailing in all directions. Nice. She snorted and jigged all the way back to the barn - seriously, what demons posessed my horse today? - and then of course was totally quiet back at the barn. Me being in slight panic mode wasted no time immediately icing her legs and sticking her with Banamine right away. She can NOT pull that kind of crap with an injury like this. Metro reinjured himself bouncing around like an idiot, and he's in a hole in the ground now because of it. I am NOT taking any chances anymore. Her grace period is over, and if there is no abnormal swelling or heat tomorrow, she's getting Aced before I get on. This period in her rehab is extremely important and so many things can go wrong right now. I'm on pins and needles every day worry about those legs. We will see what they look like tomorrow and whether or not I will give it some more time before I get back on. I am trying to keep it all in straight lines, or reallllly big circles if I have to stay on a curve for more than a few moments, but I've been walking her on contact because she tends to sloppily weave like a drunk all over the place if she is on the buckle. I can keep her straight on contact. But I don't want to push it and do too much too soon. I don't know. Poor Gogo. And my poor head. It's quite possible that I'm just going to back off and give her two more weeks of nothing but treadmilling. There's just no sense in letting her do something stupid and being back to square one, or worse. She's far too nice of a horse for that. Maybe if I get rich quick at my new fancy job and she looks like she'll be out for longer than I had originally planned, we can have Gogo babies instead? We shall see. She's a once in a lifetime horse, so I really have no reason to be anxious about a healing timeframe.





Oh Gogo.





And by the way, tomorrow is the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the Eventing-A-Gogo blog. That, my friends, is incredible.

Lady Gogo's Bad Romance

It's true. Gogo has a new love interest. Gone are the days of being a manhating, greyhating witch. Her nextdoor neighbor James? Oh she just loves him. James is both grey and male, so I'm not sure what happened to change her mind. Anyone who knows her can attest to her former viciousness towards all things grey. Then again, she used to also hate all things chestnut, but after Sinatra, Harley, and her late love Sonny, that seems to have changed. At least she seems to be raising her standards though. James is a nice guy. Sonny wouldn't even take her out to dinner. HE only wanted one thing, you know what I'm saying? (To kick her head in.)

In other hodgepodgey news, yesterday was the glorious Equine Affaire in MA, and I don't care what you all heard, it was neither small nor lame! We ran around starry eyed shopping for like 6 hours, and that didn't include stopping for lectures and demos (none of which we really got to see). We also got to watch the Versatile Horse & Rider Competition, which I am totally going to do next year with Gogo. It looked like all kinds of ridiculous fun. Riders had to jump jumps, pick up pumpkins in a wheelbarrow and wheel them somewhere else while there horse stood there, ride through a tent of waving streamers, pick things up and put them elsewhere, and more. Totally could have done all of it with Gogo. I also got to splurge a little given the size of my first paycheck, which was GREAT! Gogo got a new Himalayan salt lick, Back on Track no-bows (buy a pair get a pair free!), Sore-No-More liniment (pretty much the only kind you can put under Back on Track wraps), a new blanket liner from Schneiders (because I don't have a medium... it's either freeze under your sheet or roast in your heavyweight), and a new neck cover for her heavyweight (because she shredded hers last year). I got a new Holsteiner decal for Patron, and also took a step towards treating myself and my body better, which is my new goal now that I can afford it, and bought myself a Back on Track back brace. I don't know what's wrong with my back but it's NEVER right, and it hurts ALL the time, which is miserable. I need a good chiropractor and am getting the name of one from my roommate, so hopefully maybe next week I can get adjusted, but until then (and after), I have this to help support me and make me feels better. And it DOES feel great, I can tell you that much. Only problem is that it came with a warning - "May cause discomfort or pain shortly after first usage." And oh my GOD, when I took that thing off last night? Crippled. It was awful. However, I feel much better this morning, so let's hope my back will adjust to its newfound bloodflow and feel better within the next week or so. I've also been drinking lots of organic tea and fresh salad, and am going grocery shopping tomorrow for the first time in almost four months. Life is good. I figure if I really want to be a farrier, then I need to treat my body right. And next week? I get to start taking regular yoga classes! Hooray!! I also got to see several people I haven't seen in a really long time that I miss very much (hi Chantel!!!!!!!!!!!!) and that totally made my day too.

Something else interesting happened at the Equine Affaire - I had a chance to really talk to KC La Pierre of the Institute of Applied Equine Podiatry. While I don't know much about the school or what they teach/preach, I've maintained a healthy interest in their Perfect Hoof Wear system. It's similar to hoof casting, but it's less rigid and had a little flex to it. I never looked further into this because the system was not appropriate for working on blacktop, nor did it really look like it could give the traction I would require and wasn't designed for the jumper. However, KC showed me the not-yet-released Pro Kit, which he had the parts for there with him. It's very interesting - it still had the same adhesive wrap, but it includes a black plastic piece fitted to the bottom of the foot that gets included with the wrap. The plastic piece is hard to describe, but it looks similar to a typical glue-on... it's just a different mechanism. Interesting... I can't find anything on the internet yet about it (they said it will be available to the public in 2 weeks), so I have nothing to show you yet, but I will keep you updated.



Gogo's under saddle work continues to go well as we enter week 2 of back of work, ish. Tomorrow we will be walking for 20 minutes, an increase of 5 minutes just as we planned. The legs continue to look good, probably as good as they ever will, and she started using the Back on Track wraps today for the first time. So far so good. She is very sound at the walk, which makes me a happy kid. What does NOT make me a happy kid is the current shavings situation in my stall. At the other barn, the rule was to have like a foot of shavings in every stall, seriously. It was a bit insane but it kept her feet high and dry (literally) and therefore worked out okay. But at the new barn, with the ComfortStall system, they use way fewer shavings, just enough to soak up the wet stuff. In theory this works, but in practice it just doesn't work at all. Gogo's stall, always bone dry when I leave at night, is SOAKING wet every morning, so much so that it bubbles and squishes underneath her feet. She is standing in her own filth and the guys don't usually get to her stall until almost 10. I can counter this by cleaning her stall myself, but it still doesn't solve the issue if I can't use as many shavings as I need to. I'm going to ask if I can pay for some extra, or just tell the guys to add more to her stall, because it's bad. Her feet are just melting and it's horrible to watch. I am fighting a losing battle with them and it's a nightmare. I can't keep them dry, so it's all I can do to at least try to keep them clean even if that means they're still wet. I must find a better solution for all this. It's driving me completely insane.


Last but not least, here's a little Perch eye candy for those of you Brego fans from when I rode him in the New England Hunter Trials:






That was one amazing ride. Even though the judges hated drafts. A-holes. We were awesome.






Who wants this browband for Christmas? Yes ma'am, I do.

Gogo's Paradise

Just a few pictures of Gogo in her newfound paradise:







Just wanted to share.





The treadmill:





And Gogo's reaction to being saddled for the first time in almost two months:



That is one happy horse. Today will be her fourth day under saddle again, and she's doing very well. She has, of course, settled right into the routine and is more than happy to do the slug walk around the arena (per vet's orders... we mosey, not march.) and had even garnered such thrilling comments from my boss as, ".... she does wake up to fences a little more, right?" Nobody can believe that a) she's been on stall rest for two months, and b) two years ago she was almost totally unrideable. If she was sound I could probably go take her on a hack through the neighborhood and she'd still be just as quiet. It's wild. She really just is a mare that doesn't waste her time and energy doing anything she doesn't want to do. Stuff she wants to do? Oh she's all over it, whatever speed you want for however long. Stuff like cars, hot air balloons, animals in the woods, galloping horses in the pasture, howling winds? Psh, not worth her time.



Also just realized... I never did November goals. HOW DID I LET THIS HAPPEN.
(I know how I let this happen. I have no goals right now other than continue with rehab as planned... she dictates the goals right now. But I'll write more about them later. And I have eye candy for Brego fans as well.)

One Giant Leap for Gogo Kind

It happened.
Today, I got on my mare for the first time in almost two months.

Ever since that day when her bandages slid, I've been agressive with the cold therapy and it has paid off. Those legs have been cooler and tigher this week than they've been since the injury. So, I decided that today was the day.

I groomed her,
pulled out her tack,
and smiled because her ears just about popped off of her head they were so forward.
I have pictures but I forgot my camera at the barn.

Stephanie asked if I was going to stick her with some tranq and I said no. I mean, logically I would have if she were any other young, fit event horse who had been cooped up in a stall for two months. But she's Gogo.

I got on, made my way to the outdoor arena, and we moseyed for 15 minutes. I was sad to see how atrophied her neck was, but was completely impressed with how my mare wandered up to the outdoor, where she had never been before, and hacked around on the buckle after being trapped inside for two months.

At the very end she suddenly realized that she really wanted to be galloping like the neighbor's horse who was tearing around his field like a maniac, so we stopped and I got off. She didn't put a foot wrong, just got reallllllllly tall and popeyed. I wasn't about to take a chance, so we finished with a solid 15 minutes under saddle. She was perfect and a delight. And she felt very good.


It's a really big little step on the road back to soundness. A tiny triumph on a beautiful, 70-degree sunny November day.

I will remember this day for a very long, long time.

Picture Spammmmmmmm!

As promised, here is some serious Halloween Gogo Picture Spam:


Gogo's 2006 Halloween:




Mmmmmm complete with edible tiny carved pumpkin filled with apples, carrots, and molasses! She ate the pumpkin too:





Much of the same for 2007:







Pumpkin eating, witch hat/angel halo wearing, maniacal trail riding, happiness.



2008:




Super nice and relaxed.... no demons. Because I didn't get on her.



2009:





No pictures of Gogo trying to kill me in any of these unfortunately. I do have many of those however, in other circumstances... that's for another day!

Happy November!

Steps forward, steps back.

Yesterday was supposed to be the first time I got back on Gogo in almost two months. Well of course, it didn't happen because of eternal circumstance. After Gogo went bouncing around on Halloween, I cut back on her exercise and went to just one 25 minute treadmilling and one 15 minute handwalk daily. Wednesday was my day off, and I ended up riding a couple greenies for my roommate at the place where she works, and didn't have time to come all the way out to this barn (*cries!*). What happened that day? The guys that work here put my horse on the treadmill, and rewrapped her when she was done.... and did a HORRIBLE botch job of it. So of course, when I arrived bright and early on Thursday, her bandages were around her ankles. The kicker is that her stall was already clean, so nobody apparently noticed when they were in there with her. Awesome. As a result, the LH was pretty hot and much bigger than normal. AWESOME. I gave her 5cc banamine right away, got to icing those legs (3x a day for 30 minutes each), and let her have one treadmilling followed with immediate ice. She had more banamine in the afternoon, and I am happy to say the legs both went down and remain normal today. I'm restricting her for a week to stall rest with one treadmilling a day, and no leaving her stall except for a groom and some grass. I'll banamine/Surpass as I need to, although hopefully I won't anymore, and will keep icing 3x daily and wrapping as I have been.

So in short - I'm giving it a week. If those legs don't continue to stay as they have been (which is slightly filled, something I don't really expect to change anytime soon, probably for the rest of forever), then we go back the vet next week for an ultrasound. If they stay fine, I'll get on her in a week. But I'm not taking any chances here.

I have lots of pictures from Halloween, and of Gogo in her palace... but I'm at work, and I guess that means I should probably, you know, get back to work.

Gogo's Yearly Demon Possession (or, Happy Belated Halloween!)

The shiny internets have still not retured to the house, but hopefully that situation will be remedied shortly. I want to talk about the Big Brego and our wild ride at the New England Hunter Trials, but that will be for another day. In the meantime, I want to report that Gogo is fine and well for the most part, except for one thing. Every Halloween, Gogo gets possessed by demons.

No, seriously. Every year without fail, something weird happens on Halloween. I actually on purpose avoided working with her last year on Halloween and just gave her a day off instead. This year, however, with working being so hectic I very nearly forgot what day it was and went ahead and long-lined her anyway. And, well, you'll see what happened shortly.

Gogo's Yearly Demon Possessions began in 2006, when I had only had her for about three months. She was just starting to really get the whole steering thing down, and jumping small fences from the canter. So you can imagine my surprise when on this particular Halloween, my instructor Bud upped the ante a huge notch. We were having a lesson in the outdoor at school, and everyone was milling near the gate end of the arena. Three jumps were set up on the centerline, but sideways, so that you had to do a three loop serpentine to take them all, changing directions after each jump. You started at the gate end of the arena, and ended up at the far end. I thought it looked challenging but okay for my green bean. Gogo thought it looked like a death trap. She, who had been perfect the day before, took the first fence and refused to turn left for the second. She wanted to go right, I wanted to go left. We compromised and smashed into the fence bordering the arena. I tried again, with the same result - a fence smashing. Alex has showed up at this point and was watching the lesson, and as we hadn't quite started dating yet I was keen to impress her. The third time around, I cranked as hard as I could on my left rein and we managed to turn left to the next fence. Succeess! We jumped it without incident, and I landed in a strong place for our turn to the right in order to head to the last fence. Gogo, on the other hand, landed left despite my efforts and BOLTED back towards the herd of milling horses. DEAD bolted. No steering, no brakes. Now, my poor roommate was nearest to us on this sweet saint of a chesnut named Sporty. Sporty was not paying attention to the situation, but Nicole was, and as Gogo came steaming towards them she realized we were on a collision course. She started thumping and wailing on Sporty, who sort of went, "did you say something?" Too late - my wildwoman who at that point has lost all steering and brakes smashed headlong into them - totally t-boned poor Sporty, who finally went scrambling. And Gogo? She just kept going - Sporty didn't stop her! I'm pretty sure neither Nicole nor Alex nor Bud nor anybody else who witnessed this event will ever let me live it down.

Fast forward to Halloween 2007. Dr. Giedt and Alex and I are going on a Halloween trail ride yay! Gogo is wearing her witch's hat and everything. She had been an angel the year before (actually, she was wearing her angel halo the day of "the Sporty incident" if I remember correctly..... so I wanted to get more appropriate headgear for the next year), but this year she had on her witch's hat, complete with hair. She had been wearing it for the better part of a week while I was riding her, only I guess that day she actually took it to heart. Off we go on our trail ride, me bareback (of course), and we make it most of the way around. The final hill back to the barn is a big, steep one, and suddenly I find myself riding a rodeo bull - we are running, leaping, plunging, twisting, galloping up this hill. I did not fall off, thankfully, but where did THAT come from?? Surely it was the demons.

Halloween 2008? I convince myself that it is demons and I refuse to work my horse. She instead eats her year Halloween pumpkin treat and we go on our merry way. No demons, because I didn't get on her and therefore saved myself from a violent fate.

And this year? Whoops, forgot about the demon incidents of years past, so I went to long line her at the end of a very long day. Now, I've been long lining Gogo for what, three years now? I started her without handler. I've long lined her all over God's creation. I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever had a problem with it - she's always been an angel. Until this Halloween. We are in the indoor, thankfully, and we are passing a door that had been rattling in the Halloween winds. We pass it once, twice, three times, five times. On maybe time number seven, suddenly it's REALLY SCARY and Gogo goes leaping sideways away from it. She hits the lines and wheels around to face me - and I am cringing watching those legs - and now has caught one of the long lines underneath her saddlepad. She continues to spin, and now has both lines wrapped around her neck, simultaneously strangling her and trapping her... and we all know how she feels about her mouth being confined. She starts to lose it, jigging around, backing rapidly, eyes rolling in her head and mouth gaping. Somehow, by the mercy of the gods of long lining I managed to soothe her with enough verbal whoas before she went smashing into the line of gymnastics set up. Mucho yikes. I have not long lined her since, just because I worry about those legs. She got Surpass the first day and has been on strict treadmill and handwalking since, but I'm not sure if I am imagining some extra fill in that leg - or it is the same amount that was there before? It's hard to say, but needless, I am not taking any chances. I'm still going to get on her and walk tomorrow for the first time, and we will see how she feels them, but still. Gogo. Seriously. Why. Demons. Why.



I have a bunch of pictures but the internet won't cooperate. So later.



Happy November... the crappiest month of ever, besides February. October, you treated me very well, thank you for that.

No internets!

Well, my silence has said it all - the internet is down at the house, and while I am at work I have had zero time this week to take a moment to write anything out about Gogo's treadmill adventures and yearly demon possession that happens on Halloween (no seriously, EVERY Halloween she goes nuts!). So hopefully I can actually write a real entry soon..... soooooooo busy but having soooooooooooooooooooooooo much fun.

Gogo.... is nuts. And awesome.

Juggling

As you can no doubtedly tell from my recent lack of posts, I am a very, VERY busy girl this week. There is SO much to do at the new barn and not enough hours in the day, and I am working my BUTT off trying to get all my projects under control AND do all my daily tasks AND stand in for a lot of things that the guys can't do when we are short-staffed. But it's impossible to do my job when I have to do someone else's job as well, so I certainly hope that we can get that situation remedied soon. As it stands, I need SO badly to go to the store and get supplies for the farm that I might just be doing that at 6am tomorrow, because I need to make sure the guys know what's on tap for tomorrow since I didn't write it down on the white board tonight (I quite honestly just forgot... didn't leave the farm until almost 8). But despite all the CRAZINESS and not knowing anything but trying to do everything all at once, I love it. Once everything settles down and I actually complete the 29,000 projects she wants me to work on, I'll be able to really settle into a rhythm and take things as they come instead of struggling to juggle them all at once. It's insane but it's great. It's also very exhausting and takes up pretty much my entire life at the moment, which I will need to figure out how to balance. My room is littered with boxed and clothes, all things that need to be unpacked and put away... but I'm just too tired at the end of the day to do it.

And the extra horrible part of it all is that Gogo is getting less than her usual amount of daily attention. I've been so busy these past few days that she didn't get groomed or longlined from Monday through Wednesday, just walked. She hadn't even gotten to handgraze at all because it's been either pouring or completely dark out by the time I can actually do it. We also have some seriously slacker staff on some counts so her stall hasn't been done until like 11am these past few days, which REALLY annoys me, so much so that I've just been doing it myself. Unfortunately for me, she's stuck in the older barn in the smallest stall, which is only about 10x10. It does have the ComfortStall system, but I'd still like to get her somewhere bigger. We are about to be totally full up though, so I dunno how that's going to work. It's a little bit crazy and there is much to get acclimated to.

She is, however, getting to know and love the treadmill, and so am I. That thing is AWESOME! It has all sort of different speeds and heights that it can go to, and you can set it for different programs with varying levels of speed and angle for a real workout. Gogo, however, is just getting the Level 1 set, a totally flat and steady walk for 25 minutes at a time. The treadmill is ideal therapy - it's in a totally straight line (no drunken sailor weaving or turns or hills), it's a hard surface (good for stimulating tendon regeneration), and it's covered so it can be used rain or shine. Gogo was, as usual, totally the proverbial cool cucumber when I put her on it, although it took her a few minutes to really get it - every time I told her good girl, she'd stop, which meant she'd go backwards and hit the butt bar! It only took a few minutes to really understand, and the next day she was totally fine.



More pictures of Gogo on the treadmill coming soon.

Today I had to run allllllll the way to Waterbury to get grain from the sole Buckeye dealer in the state of Connecticut, and I ended up back at the barn quite late. Gogo is now scheduled to go on the treadmill at 11am every day, and hopefully if I ever start to take a lunch break (still haven't taken one all week), I will be able to long line her then. She got a nice grooming and a long lining session today when I got back, which was great and made her a very happy kid. There were several sets of trot poles set up around the ring, and we walked over those a good number of times, which is very useful for losening up those tight hips and back. I never ended up putting her on the Robaxin because her back soreness went away rather quickly (I think it HAD to be related to that vaccine reaction), and she's been off Surpass for nearly 2 weeks now - I hope to NOT put her back on. I haven't iced her hinds this week because quite frankly, they've been tighter than they've been since the injury, and cooler too. They're still not normal and they're still not as cool as I'd like, but give the circumstance I'm impressed.

And the best part.... ONE WEEK til I can get back on her and walk again!!!!!!


Now hopefully tomorrow, after I get Sophie bodyclipped, Pilgrim's mane pulled, all the needed barn supplies from the store, the new hay schedule set in place with the non-English-speaking workers on board, the maintenace guy called about the broken stall front, the folders for the new horses set up, two stalls prepped for two new incoming boarders arriving tomorrow morning, the blanket room measured for new racks, the board and billing book updated, the grains premade, and the 25,000 other things I'm forgetting here all done, then I will be able to maybe unpack some of my stuff from the trailer and figure out where to send my winter blankets to for cleaning. I also made friends with our exceedingly pro-barefoot farrier... more on that later. As for now..... SLEEEEEEP.