Entering the next decade

Supposedly, all horses have birthdays today, which means Lena is 9, Bar is 10, and we don't yet know how old Sammy is. On day one of the new decade, Sammy was purchased for real, she and Lena got ridden, and Bar and I enjoyed a walk down the driveway and some puddle training.

Lena was very glad to get out, Steve had a pretty good ride, and it went a small way towards making her feel less neglected. It was bad enough when Bar came along and she had to share, but adding another horse has her Royal Spottiness feeling a little more bent out of shape then normal these days. Bar, on the other hand, reached through his pen bars after Katie put Sammy away as if to say, "Welcome to the herd!"

Lena will just have to get over it.

Katie paid Peter $1 and got the bill of sale for Sammy today, plus wrote her own check for board. She said she's never been so excited to give someone money before and has been picking up more work already to support her new horse habit. Luckily, we have more than enough extra tack (shocking, I know) for her to not have to worry about that part of things for now.

Sammy is loving the attention, even getting her mane and tail trimmed a little more today. The first time we took her out, she had huge tangles in her mane and her tail was dragging on the ground. We cut the tangles out of her mane, but it looked a bit like a hack job, so Katie has been cleaning it up over the last few days. Sammy has a great tail, and it just needed some TLC to get it looking even better.


Unfortunately for Bar, the indoor arena (it being rainy here today) was too full for us, even though he was in a super mellow mood, so I decided to groom him and take him for a walk down the driveway. If it had just been Steve and Katie in there, we would have gone ahead, but there are just a few folks who get nervous when we get in the arena, which then makes me nervous, which in turn makes Bar nervous. It's just not worth the headaches. Yes, one of the goals for this year is to get us past that with at least most of the people at the barn. (There are always going to be a few we will studiously avoid.)


While cleaning his feet, though, his left front (the upright) felt warm to the touch. Hm. He was putting weight on it, didn't seem sore, and wasn't limping on or favoring it at all, so we went for our walk. Nothing. No head bob at a walk or a trot, no stumbling, nada.

So we worked on going through puddles and some of our basic ground work skills, then walked back to the wash rack and rinsed his foot with cold water, just in case, and applied lots of iodine. He's probably fine, but we'll keep an eye on it over the next few days.

Then we took silly pictures of him and me while waiting for Katie and Sammy to finish their ride. This one is my favorite--my expression looks awfully guilty, like we got caught smooching. Notice he is licking my jacket, too. He is such an affectionate horse, much more than Lena. Not sure if it's a gelding thing, or if it's a racehorse thing, but while he can and usually does give me proper space, he also really likes being loved on. As you can see.



Happy 2010, may this decade bring new (but good) challenges, many rewards, and lots of fun and adventures to all!