Moving Along

Work and personal travel has kept me extremely busy and on the road nearly every other week which has lead to a lack of posting here but quite a few things on the horse-front have happened.

About a week ago, my TX horse adventure friend T had to put down her Icelandic pony Nickers due to colic. I was out of town on vacation with my husband in Boston at the time but was closely following T's posts for nearly 24 hours- at one point during the ordeal, it seemed like Nickers was doing better and going to pull though. When the final news broke, it was a total shock.

Goodbye, best ponybeast

Nickers was a tough, opinionated ponymare to ride but so rock-solid steady and a really fun trail parter. I got to experience my first tolt with her and discovered just how fun it was to ride a gaited horse. She will be sorely missed...

On a happier note, Quest and I have been doing well though and still enjoying lovely meanders in the arena and on the trail with the oddly suspicious lack of snow on the ground. I had brought all of my saddles home around Thanksgiving since I now have a secure and safe place to actually store things during the off-season so the only option was bareback. I've been using the pad that I DIY-ed when I first got Quest and it has been holding up just fine with no issues whatsoever. Mareface was so good despite the holiday hiatus during December and has kept on a nice weight.

There is a big change that will be happening in about a week or so but first off...I've decided to get rid of the farrier I had been using with Quest for nearly 2 years while we boarded at OF.

I work a full time 40hr/week, 9 to 5 job so a huge majority of time the farrier would show up at the barn and trim Quest while I was at the office. He text me an update, sometimes include a photo even and that system worked out really well until the past half year when I started to notice more and more that Quest's feet were still looking VERY long despite the fact she had been freshly "trimmed" and the clubfoot was impacting her general soundness.

When I contacted the farrier asking for an explanation, there were excuses why he didn't trim as much (or, one time he completely skipped trimming entirely and then failed to tell me??)....the ground was too hard, bruising could happen, there was ice, etc. The list of reasons went on until, one day I went to the barn and heartsick at the sight of my horse moving unhappily with her overgrown hooves I took out the rasp and and trimmed her myself to at least make her more comfortable.

Enough was enough. I'll be looking for another farrier  that can help us actually manage Quest's clubfoot. Fingers crossed that in a week's time, I'll have more options available and access to proficient hoofcare professionals soon.

Happy, content, sleepy mareface getting her head scratches