The Uncatchable Number 257

Hmmm, that's an interesting title, says everyone who is currently reading this post. Who, the collective masses ask, is The Uncatchable Number 257?

She's a mare with a number instead of a name. She is a surrogate mare from an embryo transfer program, pregnant with a deceased mare's foal. She is half-wild, uncatchable, and unhandled. She kicks when you pick up her feet, she can't be haltered (and instead must live in one with a catch rope), and she flinches away from human touch. She is also absolutely drop dead gorgeous and a lovely mover... which you often get a good glimpse of while she is running away from you in the opposite direction.

And she's my current project. She is under my care and handling as of this past Wednesday.

Say WHAT?



Number 257 is not owned by me, obviously. She is property of an embryo transfer program somewhere in the area (more details coming when I get them). We know absolutely nothing about her except that she is pregnant with the foal of a mare who died a few months ago due to some sort of freak abdominal bleed out. She arrived at our facility shortly before I did, and is here until the foal is weaned. (Maybe by then they will want to find a new home for her... she would make an amazing eventer!). She only came with the name Number 257.... we've been calling her "Bay Girl." I've been granted permission to give her a new name... thank god! I don't know how old she is, what breed she is, or what her history is (although I am guessing some sort of Araby-TBy-something). One thing is clear however.... someone was very, very mean to her. When all you are to the world is a uterus, no one cares enough to handle you with any sort of care.

She lives outside in a halter with a catch rope. We took her halter off one time while she was in a stall... it took me quite a long time to get it back on again. Anything from her cheeks forward is off limits for human hands in her mind. I managed to somehow get my hand over her nose (which resulted in a lot of head tossing), and after she had backed up twice around the stall with me at her nose, she finally stopped and I somehow got the halter on. I think if I hadn't been the one feeding her for three months prior to this event, I would have never been able to even lay a hand on her, even in a stall.

And yet, there is so much promise and potential in there. She does crosstie, and she does tie (or well, she hasn't set back yet...). She stands (mostly) for grooming. She is jumpy when you move too fast, but there is never that rolling white of panic in her eye. In fact, I have yet to see her truthfully get panicky... I have yet to see white in her eye at all save for when I somewhat unceremoniously tossed the crownpiece of her rope halter over her neck when I was trying to halter her in the stall (she had stretched to the height of a small giraffe at this point). I can't really blame her for that... and even then, with a soothing word from me she stopped moving and didn't flail or panic even though she was squished into the corner of a stall with no escape. Behind the jumpiness is a sensible mind... even standing completely alone in the very scary pool barn (with filters running and everything), she never bothered to look at a thing, cry out for anyone, or squiggle unnecessarily. She deserves so much more than the life that she has been dealt.

She is very pregnant at this point in time (and we have no idea when she is due), so she isn't going to be doing anything strenuous anytime in the near future. But I intend on at least making her easy to catch and easy to handle... and get some basic groundwork in too. After the foal is here and after it is weaned.... well, we'll see! She has a VERY long way to go before she would EVER be ready for actual work, so I will have plenty to keep myself busy!


I don't know how long she will be under my care, but I think she at least deserves her own blog, don't you think? I think I'm going to call her Portia. She is such a feminine, pretty mare... she deserves a sexy name!


Just a few bad pictures of the sweetheart....





Such a pretty girl. The picture of her butt is of her brand (and her namesake)... simply the number 257. And the picture of her nosey is one I snapped when she actually walked up to me!!


More about what little I've done with her and what my plans are with her later.... as for right now, here is some Sophie eye-candy! (Or not... these are pictures of her taken this past week. She is very saggy and out of shape due to the fact that she has literally not even been handled for a few months!)









It is uncanny how much she looks like Metro. I mean look!




Although she is a definite improvement on his conformation. Not that she is anywhere near perfect, obviously, but she is far better put together than he was, bless his sweet heart.


Suggestions for the new Portia (or other name!) blog are welcome!

A Year of Glamor Shots

SHE'S GOT THE GLAM.







The fall shot is not of great quality as I was both handling her and taking pictures by myself, and the lighting was kind of exciting but not particularly flattering. It wasn't exactly gleamingly highlighting her sexiest features... and the angle gives her a big lumpy head (but check out that happy SMILE!). Seeing as it's getting colder and colder, and our leaves are at full color peak right now, AND that she already rolled a million times in the stone dust paddock, it's probably not too likely that I'll get another good chance at a fall set of shots. Oh well, she still a hot mama!!

Ain't Nothin' Gonna Break My Stride

I am very happy to report that Gogo, by some miracle, checked out totally fine at the vet yesterday. I was up at the horrible hour of 4am in order to clean the barn at home, pick up my roommate's horse, pick up Gogo, and collectively shuttle everyone up to see Dr. C by 8:30am. After they looked at Hootie, we pulled Gogo off the trailer and watched her go.

She, as usual, looked totally awesome.

And, of course, the legs looked great.

We went over the scenario about why the legs were big and what on earth there was to be done about it. She probably had some fill from getting banged up, and probably had some from standing in a much smaller stall, but Dr. C said that as long as it goes away when she moves, and stays down and normal even if just for a little while, then she wouldn't be worried about it. If she's not lame, and they are doing the same thing they've always done (fill together, go down together, go away with movment, NOT go away with bute/wrapping/icing/etc) then it's all right. By the end of the evaluation, some of the fill had come back, and we talked about her body temperature and the fill, two things that seem to go hand in hand. Her great hairy self runs very hot, and the warmer she seems to be, the bigger the legs seem to be. (I also have a front leg that has one spot that fills too for whatever reason, so if that bit is filled as well, it is more temperature related than anything.)

One thorough evaluation later, and the prognosis, diagnosis and prescription was as thus: "Stop worrying. She's fine."

Thank god for that.... I was considering trying a tube of Ulcergard for myself.



I also made the comment in my last post that I was going to do some sort of outrageous clip on her if she passed muster at the vet, because I needed to do SOMETHING to cool her down. Even naked, she was still too hot and hairy, and the legs are just too ugly to ignore when she's roasting like that. So, out came the clippers, and the creative side in me just got rolling.

Voila!:






I'm going to tell you it was easy and you can do it too, but actually it was mildly complicated and took about two hours. WORTH IT, however. I apologize about the awkward pictures.... trying to take comformation pictures by yourself on the grass with a hungry horse is kind of hard.


Gogo looks shocked...



"Mom. WHY YOU DO DIS."

Bettina Drummond Clinic 8/21/10

I had the opportunity last weekend to participate in a clinic at our farm with Bettina Drummond, a classical dressage rider and trainer who follows the French method of training, the primary goal of which is to obtain ultimate lightness, balance and harmony between horse and rider. She studied under Nuno Oliveira for 17 years, and is considered internationally as an expert on in-hand work. Through some miracle of workings, she is based very close to our farm, and is there quite often during the week, bringing horses to us on and off for work in the indoor during the winter (and the occasional sale horse she wants my boss to jump during the summer!). Since the entire time I've been at the farm, Gogo has not been able to participate in a lesson with her (which I so desperately wanted to do), but she had been at the farm quite a lot recently working with Coco, one of my boss' horses who came to us with serious mystery tightness and lameness. The work in hand she has done with him in just a few weeks has had a totally transforming effect on him, so when Gogo got the go-ahead from Dr. C to gently proceed into full work again, I jumped at the chance to do an in-hand session too.

I'll be honest - when I first met Bettina, she scared me to death. Around here, Bettina's word is law. Those of you in the area will all agree with me when I say she has more knowledge and understanding of the horse in her pinky finger than probably all of us reading this right now combined, and that knowledge is palpable when she walks into a room. She commands respect, and she reads people like she reads horses. I felt like a child when I first met her and I was starting my big new scary job - she could see right through me! And she wasn't about to take anybody's crap either. She has a way with stallions like I've never seen, and let me tell you her studs don't even put an ear towards a squatting, peeing mare when she is working with them. Over time, I seem to have somehow earned her respect and friendship, even though I still don't understand quite how it happened. I guess with all her intuition she can see that I'm still just a kid learning the ropes of life, genuine in my efforts to do the very best job that I can, and I think that's a respectable thing.

The work we've been doing with Coco over the past few weeks started with a bopper. That's right, a crop with a round plastic-covered foam ball on the end of it, about the size of a ping-poing ball. A bopper! We bopped him all over his body, tapping all his major groups of muscles with the rhythm of a metronome, searching for weaknesses. The point of this, Bettina explained to me, was that horses with serious physical or mental damage (and people, for that matter) stop linking their right and left brains when severely traumatized. Even just by tapping the forehead on either side back and forth, the neurons will start to correctly fire back and forth, cross-linking back to their original function. Apparently dissections have also been done with horses who have had serious hind-end or back trauma, and you can inject joints, rest them, or do whatever else you want, but those horses will go lame again if they go back to work because their muscles atrophy and fail - they're not getting the proper signals from the brain. This method is similar to Endo-tapping I believe, but I don't think they're quite the same thing. When bopping Coco, we discovered how seriously fidgety he was on certain spots of his body, and that when he'd relax, one ear would start swinging in time to the bopping, the ear on the same side of the body. Over time, he stopped being so reactive to those spots as he started to reconnect and heal, and both ears would start swinging together - both sides were firing together again. Bop your mare, Bettina told me. See what you find.

Bop, bop, bop. Gogo's immediate reaction in her stall without a halter was to look at me curiously, then literally swing her butt at me when I bopped her in front of her withers, which was simultaneously not surprising but also not acceptable and not something she's ever really done before (save for one outstanding time). On went the halter, on went the bopping. She showed definite sensitivity where her neck connects to her withers on both sides, which is exactly where she holds all her tension. The second time I bopped her, she was much better about that area, but she showed more sensitivity over her back. Interesting! I plan on continuing to bop her in more of the Endo-tapping way, to encourage relaxation. You never know what it might continue to show, and it might be a first warning method for something brewing.

For the clinic, no bopping was done. Instead, we outfitted Gogo in her bridle, polos and bells, and did a series of small bits of lateral work. Bettina was quick to point out the fact that her right shoulder (specifically how she moves her elbow) is a point of weakness, and she would rather back away from whip tapping than move the elbow sideways. Using the whip and one hand on the reins right below the bit, I moved Gogo down the rail laterally in both directions, trying to achieve an even crossover and a quiet lateral response to the whip.





We also played around a little bit with holding both reins, one in each hand, and doing shoulder-in and haunches-in down the rail, switching back around to bend the horse left and right while going forward. It was impossibly hard to understand and extremely difficult to handle two reins and a whip and a slightly confused mare while walking backwards, but every time we were both confused, Bettina had me stretch her and walk her forward to diffuse the potential brewing bomb.




It was hard! I know I will need lots of practice at it. But the entire point of it is to achieve balance on both sides of her body while simultaneously strengthening her hind end while ALSO simultaneously working her kinks out for future under saddle work, so it's worth it to learn and understand. Amazingly, after our session, Bettina offered it to me for nothing, thanking me for all I had done for her. I couldn't believe it! The clients all spent the day remarking on how beautiful the facility looked, all our guests raved about what a nice establishment I had running, my boss thanked me for all my hard work, and Bettina's gracious offer on top of all of that was the icing on the cake. It was such a good day!



And of course, since it was high time for it, even though it was a cloudy day we took the opportunity to get our Seasonal Conformation Shots since she was so clean. She looks GREAT!





I like how she is standing like a total goof in the last shot. Compare to June. Even her expression is better. She doesn't look as amazingly sexy as she did last October, when she was still racing fit, but you know. She'll get there, someday!

Busy Bees!

I apologize for my lack of posts - have been helping Chris move so I've not been home much! - but I have plenty to write about Bettina's clinic, hacks, and of course, SEASONAL GLAMOR SHOTS:



Even though early November appears to have come early this year and it's been cloudy, rainy and freezing cold for days, which does not make for a good picture. Does she not look SEXY?

More later!

Glamor Shots

Seasonal conformation pics are in, and they're gorgeous, as usual! Just ignore the fact that instead of April, it's, well.... June. About the time that I usually start thinking about summer glam shots.

Honestly, she isn't as grossly obese as I keep thinking she is. She's plump, but in an okay kind of way. Clearly she's lost a lot of topline, but other than that, she looks great. Shiny, healthy.... dapple-y! For the second year in a row, she decided to dapple out for some random reason! (All other previous springs bad things were happening to her, like the barn owner in Ohio hardly feeding her for 3 weeks when I was in Costa Rica, and the Crazy Trainer starving and beating her the year before.)


And the outtakes....

((LOL SHE FLASHED THE CAMERA!))

((Hmmmmm flattering))

((My photographer was mystefied by her tail))

((DAPPLES OF JOY!))


Lovely!

In other news, work under saddle is going really, really well... so long as drugs are involved. Which is AWFUL to say and I'm the last person on earth that I EVER thought would say that, but honestly, a 1/4cc of Ace right now keeps her mind in the right place (a very happy place!), and her feet on the ground. I did try it without it for two days earlier in the week, and while the first day went well, the second day did NOT. There was apparently a doe bedded down in the woods next to the arena, and while I did not see it at first, Gogo did. Of course, on that day, right? That's the problem though... that's not something I can plan for. There were some very acrobatic spins and leaps, and one very lovely, straight, balanced, and perfectly executed levade that half did me proud and half made me want to rap her over the top of the head with an egg, had I been carrying one. I have absolutely no problem sitting out whatever she can dish out... but I can't risk her doing any damage to her legs. It's not worth it, so out came the drugs the next day. And she was perfect. Atta girl.


We're doing a lot of this.....





... but hot damn, does it ever feel good to be back in the saddle!!

Wahe Guru

Gogo and I out for our "hack" on Wednesday.


Do you ever swear that horses know when things are up? I think sometimes they pick up on our emotional disturbances and make an extra effort to let us know we're appreciated. I know that's totally anthropomorphizing, but... sometimes I really feel like it's true. Regardless, Gogo was in a stunningly good and sweet mood today, the best I can remember her being in since the injury. I walked in the barn and first went to a client in the grooming stall who was worried about her horse because he hadn't finished his grain (he's fine). I heard a very demanding nicker behind me and turned around to see Gogo standing with her head out, staring intently at me. Normally she always pokes her head out whenever she hears my voice, but this was different, very insistent. I went over to see her, and scratched her neck over the stall door. She started grooming me very, very insistently, very thoroughly, just with her lip. She hardly EVER does this, even when I try and get her to reciprocate a scratch. When I stopped scratching her and tried to walk away, she wrapped her head around me and pulled me back in! She even ignored her hay for a good 10 or so minutes while watching me walk back and forth in the barn, just staring at me the entire time. She was in a ridiculously good mood all morning, watching everything around her while in her turnout, nibbling her hay, ears pricked the entire time.

This past Thursday, she graduated to the next size paddock (yay!!) AND to 15 minutes of trotwork. Very exciting! The paddock size (this was the first day out):




And today:





Ooops I've been spotted.




Yesterday, I opted for spa day instead of riding, because it was warm enough to do so. She was just hairy and gross, and as I'm accustomed to having a nice clipped horse in the winter, I just couldn't stand her nastiness anymore. Not to mention a more concerning factor: she is FAT and I have a half-hearted hope that maybe now she'll use calories trying to keep warm. In a heated barn with a haircoat on light work.... it's not easy to stay trim. Once I got to clipping, what I thought was a big nasty haircoat ended up being hardly any hair at all, so it was a quick job. The lighting wasn't the best, so I realized today that I REALLY missed some spots! It wasn't quite the freakishly good clip job that I did last year, but it's not so bad. We stood her up today for pictures:





Holy CRAP is she ever fat. I'm practically starving her and I still can't get her to shed those pounds. I guess they probably won't go away until we get into real gallop-type work... but that's a couple months away yet.

But isn't she pretty. Look at the bionic tail!


Under saddle today, Gogo continued her freakishly bright, cheerful, happy streak, and was nothing less than amazing. She was light, responsive, connected, and best of all, NOT spooky at the scary end of the ring! She's finally stopped leaping around whenever the door moves at the scary end of the ring, but even up until a few days ago she was still putting her head up and scooting past the door quickly every time we passed. Not today! Today she was just feeling GOOD. I let her pick a trot rhythm that was comfortable for her, and off she went, power trotting around the ring like Superwoman, still connected and using her entire body with every step. It felt great, and she felt so sound and strong. I didn't let her go at the bigger pace for very long, but instead experimented to see how much she'd stretch - she practically put her nose on the ground, still in the big trot, still swinging and connected. I haven't been able to try and stretch her at the trot for a LONG time for fear that if she went bolting off I wouldn't be able to stop her in a timely manner. Not only did I get to ride her long and low her today, but she gave me that extraordinary stretch. I think all this walk work is really quite helpful. It gets us both to slow things down and take them piece by piece, ironing out the kinks and figuring out exactly where out bodies need to be. She just felt AWESOME today.


Not to mention the weather was a balmy 45 degrees today, and the scenery around the barn has just been amazingly gorgeous:






I dunno why Gogo was in such a fantastic mood all day, but it made me feel great. I can't not be thankful for Metro's sacrifice today, and remember what he gave to me when he died: the barefoot cause, an undying drive to help the injured around me, and a chance to let a little Gogomare into my life. Thank you Cookieman. I really appreciated today.

Seasons of Love

How do you measure a year in the life?







Measure in love.
Hard to believe the Eventing-A-Gogo blog is approaching a year old. I started it last year in November... that is wild.

In the winter, she was freshly clipped and a little too hot for her own good with the addition of Ultium to her diet. Springtime rolled around, and she was FAT! Mid-summer came, and you can see by her dull expression in the third photo that this was when she was lyme-y and miserable. And the fall picture was taken today, even though she wasn't in the mood to cooperate much. That picture isn't great, but you can at least see that her topline hasn't totally melted off yet. But it already looks worse than it did. I worked SO HARD for that topline!

And wow. A lot can change in a year.






The seasons are turning right now as we speak. Gogo is suddenly turning dark bay again, quite a change from her recent summer bleach. She's starting to get a little peach fuzz, just enough to give her a little fluff against the autumn chill. Fall is my favorite season. Ethel Walkers was today... it was supposed to be her first Training. She was ready.


This is my favorite picture of the day:




She was not a cooperative picture poser today. But at the same time, I'm glad she's still being a snot, because it means that even though she's bored and unhappy with life in general, she's still got her fighting spirit.


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On an unrelated note, I now have way more followers with blogs than I can possilby even begin to keep up with! I periodically ask my readers to leave a comment with a link to their blogs, just so I can go and check them all out, and I'm doing it again now. So if you have something you'd like me to read, click on add a comment and fire away!