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In Loving Memory...
~ Gogo Fatale ~


6/2/01 - 10/11/11
~ Forever the Marest of Them All ~
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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

All Moved!

The entire Noah's Arc of pets and myself are all moved in to our respective new homes - dogs, cats and myself in Fort Worth, and Gogo in Aledo, which is southwest of the city. Gogo's new digs are at an eventing barn, complete with modified XC course and has all the main amenities you'd expect from a competition barn, with a perk: the retired folks pasture in the back of the property. Pasture board for the riding set of horses is separate from this area, and is smaller, so I lucked out! The retired folks pasture is about 10 acres and had a small herd comprised of three geldings and two mares living out on it already. It is the wildest country Gogo has ever lived on by far.

Truthfully, had you shown me the retired folks pasture a year ago, I wouldn't have ever considered putting my horse out somewhere so wild looking. Having now seen firsthand so many of the bad things can happen to a horse out on endless immaculate grass pasture like she has been on for the past seven months (serious obesity, total loss of solar concavity, event lines.... she's a blade of grass away from a metabolic disaster), I can't wait to get her out somewhere that vaguely resembles where a feral horse in the southwest might actually roam. (Minus like, the cacti.) Rocks, hills, trees, scrub, and a herd? Sounds good to me.


Project tail revival: complete! It looked horrible but apparently it just needed a serious scrubdown... it's been a few weeks since her last bath. I thought more of it had been ripped out... thankfully not!






Gogo spent her first night at the new place turned out in an adjoining paddock that shared a fenceline so she could meet her herdmates over the fence. Yesterday afternoon, I brought her out to meet the rest of the herd. Seeing as she has a bad reputation of being a completely heinous unsocialized alpha mare, I wasn't sure how it would go.






And.... that was about it. The paint gelding and Gogo double-barreled at each other once or twice, and then Gogo relented and took off. From that moment on, the paint was obsessed with her and would NOT leave her alone. He even chased the other horses across the fenceline away from her, so keen was he to win her affections. The rest of the horses went back to their own business, and she in turn ignored them completely as well, save for one crusty old chestnut gelding who thought he'd let her know from a distance that he had no intention of being her friend:





In the span of 5 minutes, Gogo met everyone, found the shelter, found the water, and found the haypile, which she settled at, the paint gelding at her side.





Completely passably social, and completely anticlimactic. Good mare.








Looks pretty wild and awesome to me!

21 comments:

SprinklerBandit said...

Alright Gogo. Looks like it's going to work well.

Katie said...

Ah I love it when horses can be wild and happy in a huge wild paddock! I'm sure Gogo will love it! Hope you both settle in soon.

Melissa said...

Looks great! She's a lucky horse to land in so many great living situations - but then, that's more your hard work than luck, isn't it. :-)

Dressager said...

Gogo the WILD MUSTANG!

Checkmark115 said...

LMAO, I LOVE how she looks like a stallion with the neck all arched and whatnot. Shes like the fancy princess in the lonestar outback. Lol, she looks pretty happy though :) Glad you got all moved!

Boss Mare Eventing said...

I think it looks like heaven for a horse! Who wouldn't want to besties with GoGo?

Kate said...

Well, if I were a pony I think I'd enjoy the wildness of Gogo's new home. Lots to do and explore!

Terry said...

Best of luck at the new place. Gogo's tail is amazing.

AnEnglishRider said...

I'm from Crowley. It's funny, all this time I've been reading your blog I never expected you to be in the area I've grown up in. :D Not that I would recognize Gogo even if I was driving by whatever your new barn is (I'm not familiar with barns around here, oddly enough, I rode at the same one for years, and then switched, and those are really the only two I know).

Funder said...

Oh, she'll love it! So happy for yall :)

Hurricanes12 said...

that looks like an awesome place for a horse to live, way more interesting than a grassy square!

Anonymous said...

Looks like horsey paradise to me!

clairesgarden said...

glad you got moved all safely and well.
I love watching horses all meet up for the first time, they prance and dance so beautifully without us on them!!
I have been lucky enough to find a natural field for my pony too, although she is getting a bit plump as its a huge field.

Lisa said...

She looks happy. And I can see why you were worried about her tail. It is by far the best real tail I have ever seen.

Arethusa said...

Gogo looks like horsezilla compared to all of those little quarter ponies! Apparently, everything is bigger in Texas... Except for the horses.

Kate said...

She looks great!! I think she'll be very happy out there in her nice big pasture with all her admirers. That chestnut will come around soon, I'm sure.

Nic Barker said...

Lovely place and loving seeing Gogo and the new gang :-)

Kristen Eleni Shellenbarger said...

Awesome terrain. I bet it'll do her some good! I wish I could provide a pasture turnout like that, that has to be awesome for her.

Michaela said...

I highly suspect my Quarab gelding has a metabolic disorder, so my trimmer (yes, he's barefoot :-) advised to take him completely off of grain, and he is soon being moved to a dry lot rather than the grass paddock he shares with an equally obese pony. He has actually gotten to the point where he is showing sings of mild laminitis, which I never in a million years I thought could happen to him seeing as I try to give him as natural a lifestyle as possible up here in CT (I'm sure you know how difficult that can be).
If taking away the excess sugar in his diet doesn't help with his recent soundness issues, I think I will try him on a chromium/ magnesium supplement like Quiessence, which is supposed to help with cresty necked type horses who are prone to founder. Maybe this would help Gogo, too? If you try it please let me know if it works.
Glad to see she likes her new home.

Achieve1dream said...

That is so awesome! Gogo is going to absolutely love it there. :) And those pictures were great. Gorgeous neck Gogo and still love the hawk. :)

jenj said...

Heeey, don't knock the cacti! One of mine has developed a particular fondness for prickly pear. Sadly, he's only mildly talented at nibbling around the spines - I keep a pair of tweezers in my grooming kit to pick them out of his nose. Silly pony!