Spooktacular

We actually had a not-so-bad show this last weekend! We even managed to canter in a test! I don't know what I was thinking because these past two weeks have been the worst weeks of vet school thus far but what better way to end an absolutely awful week of no sleep than with a horse show??

We signed up for a dressage suitability class, Intro B and Intro C. I briefly toyed with entering Training 1 since the flow of the test is better, especially in terms of canter. Having less than a whole 20-meter circle to pick up the canter and get back down to the trot makes it pretty tight. But, overall I feel like it was better to enter Intro because a horse that can't canter very well at Intro is kinda cute and baby-ish, but if they can't canter well at Training then you probably need to go back to Intro. That was my thinking anyways.

He warmed up beautifully - if only he could be that way in the show ring, he'd be so nice!

I was glad we entered the dressage suitability since it gave him an opportunity to get used to the arena (again, he's been here several times but they had all sorts of Halloween decorations out) and get him used to the judges booth with it's scary flashing lights and canopy. He was really good in there though we couldn't canter past the judges booth on the right lead, but the judge liked him so he got a blue ribbon! Probably the only blue I'm ever going to get on him, and it was just because he's cute lol.

He's pretty adorable

 

Intro B did not go quite as well. We went immediately from Dressage Suitability to our test, so we stayed in the arena while his new "friends" left which made him very unhappy. Our test started out well, but we went to do our first circle at B and he went sideways and there was some rearing involved. I got him back on track and the rest of the test went well.

I was surprised to find we got a 66%! Even with rearing! I swear if this horse ever figures his stuff out, he's going to be amazing.

Intro C went much better. He was not as good in the warm-up arena and kept screaming back and forth with his buddies from the barn which was obnoxious. Luckily when we went back in the arena, we had a moment to school our circle in the middle of the arena and after a few antics he figured out that it was much easier to just do his circle.

This test went better than the last one, though there was still tension and he could not manage to pick up the right lead. Usually he's very good about getting it the second time after I bring him back down from his unsuccessful first try, but he just couldn't figure it out. Kind of a bummer that there are two marks for the canter, so that was a bummer, but he still pulled off a 62.5%

I was pretty happy with him! It was definitely an improvement over the last show, so I'll take it!

WW: Friday the 13th

Forgot about these cool pictures I took on Friday the 13th! The fog was too cool to pass up taking pictures outside. Of course, shortly after these pictures Trask spooked and bolted, resulting in a sprained ring finger on my right hand that STILL hasn't healed. Boo.

Apparently he really likes warm baths!

Roller Coaster Ride

The horses are sure keeping me on my toes! It's been a roller coaster ride over here. I'm so, so, so busy right now in school and it's been insane so I think the horses think that they're not getting enough attention!

Jetta decided to colic last week and that same day, Maisie somehow got out of the pasture and the only way she could have done that is by jumping. There are no gaps, open gates, or anything. I guess she was bred to be a jumper?

I think Jetta was just eating too many apples and not drinking enough water with the temperature swing. My parents had the vet out and she tubed Jetta and gave her some fluids. She had decreased gut sounds which is always worrying. Maisie wasn't too much worse for the wear though she scraped up her legs jumping the fence. No idea why she did it, but luckily all the scrapes were superficial.

Maisie's cut leg from a week or so ago is trying it's best to granulate to the extreme so we've resorted to pressure wraps and cortisone cream to try to keep it down. Fingers crossed! She's become a pro at bandage changes though, I don't even have to halter her!

Trying on her new rope halter!

Naughty baby

Cute baby

She's so big she has to contort her neck to reach the udder lol

  

Size comparison:

Birth (top) and just over one month old (bottom)

Almost 3 months old!

Trask has been by alternating days, amazing or awful. Some days we have fantastic rides where I can barely believe he's only 4 years old and other days I get off and am ready to give him back. I think part of it is due to the weather change - cold air is good for being spunky! But he's also just a growing baby and you have to test the boundaries every so often. Our canter is coming along for the most part (except when it isn't) and our shoulder-fore has progressed to some real shoulder-in and we even had a pretty good start to haunches-in the other day!

He's developing so nicely!

He has also been trying his hardest to destroy all the blankets. I put a cooler on him the other day after a bath - it has chest, belly and leg straps so I've left it on Jetta many times - and he SHREDDED it. Completely gone, he bit at it and tore it to pieces. I got him a turnout sheet since KP only has a medium-weight blanket for him and it's not quite cold enough for it yet and he has since bitten two holes in the chest of it. We'll see how long it lasts... little stinker.

Trask - 2, Blankets- 0

Westfalen Inspection

I meant to post this a while ago, but I still haven't received pictures so I thought I'd just post it anyways:

Miss Maisie is officially registered! The inspection went well, even though I was nervous the night before about getting baby braided and clean and trailered to the inspection.

I moved Jetta and Maisie up to where I live for the week. They currently live an hour and a half south of me at my parents' house but the house I live at has a barn and pasture and it was closer to the inspection. There was enough room with kicking one of the horses outside so that my girls could come hang out for the week. It was awesome getting to have them in my backyard!

Of course, I cleaned up both Jetta and Maisie the night before, planning to braid in the morning. I curried Maisie almost every day trying to get her to completely shed out, but it didn't work so she was nice and moth-eaten looking for the inspection. I get out to the barn at 6am and Jetta is FILTHY. She apparently peed in the middle of her stall and laid in it. So first things first, she gets a bath. Then I discover that SOMEONE who's name starts with an M and ends with an -AISIE chewed off Jetta's tail!! I almost cried. It has taken me many, many years to get that tail to grow to an acceptable length and fullness and it's all gone now :'(

The offending little nugget with her handiwork

Finally get mom cleaned up and gave Maisie a quick curry and start braiding. Only to realize that the black rubber bands that live in my trailer are actually at the barn where Trask lives. And I don't have time to drive the 20 minutes to get there and back. So I rummaged around in KP's stuff, but she only uses thread, not rubber bands. I finally found some neon-colored rubber bands that she used for her niece's pony so Maisie looked like a pumpkin all braided up in orange and lime green. I was so embarrassed showing up to the inspection like that, but at least she was braided? Maisie was very good for being braided, which I was quite surprised by.

Embarrassing pumpkin braids

Loading was not an issue which is so nice! While Maisie can be a little hellion when she wants to be, she handles some scary things with ease.

I am glad I got Jetta approved last year because I knew where the facility was, I had met a lot of the people beforehand and I knew the flow. Paperwork started at 9am and then 10 foals and 2 mares got inspected, then all the babies got branded, microchipped, and hair pulled for DNA.  RPSI merged with Westfalen last year, so it's now Westfalen NA with the same judge and secretary as RPSI had last year.

Poor Maisie was not a happy camper by the end. She thought it was quite a rude process but she made it through with minimal angst.

Mid-day nap

The actual inspection part went well. A very nice girl handled Jetta for me so I could handle the baby. Maisie wanted nothing to do with standing apart from her mom to get her conformation looked at and she insisted on burying her head in Jetta's side so that the lady doing paperwork had a hard time drawing her blaze.

She did a good job showing off her walk and trot, I thought her canter was a little too bunny-hopping, but the judge said she had a nice length of stride, her neck was a nice length (that was something he dinged on a lot of foals, that their necks were too short). He liked her walk and trot, though he said she could be more under herself in the trot. Her canter was "forward and uphill". He made me laugh when he said that her head was improved upon by the sire. That's pretty much the only thing he dislikes about Jetta - he said last year that her head was "unfeminine" which, I mean, it is pretty giant. Overall, she scored a 7.5 so she didn't make premium. The babies who did were SO FANCY. I wanted to stuff them all in my trailer and take them home.

Random photo from last year

The branding was kind of entertaining to watch - some babies didn't even notice and others freaked out. Maisie was in-between. She was still while the brand was on her and then a couple seconds after it was pulled off she leaped into the air. Luckily the judge is SUPER fast for everything and she didn't even have time to pull away for both the microchip or brand. I thought it was nice, at the end he asked me if I had rebred Jetta because he "really liked her, she's a nice mare" and we discussed a handful of stallions he think might suit her (not that I'm planning on breeding her again, once was plenty for me!)

Freshly branded

Maisie didn't get the full brand (with the crown over the W) because Mirabeau is in Stallion Book II. It's kind of a bummer, but oh well, it doesn't matter to me in the long run since I plan on keeping her, and she's still registered!

My little pumpkin

Itchy baby

Hopefully I'll get some pictures eventually and I'll share them when I do!

Baby photodump

I keep wanting to write about Maisie's inspection, but I was hoping to get some pictures back first! So far, nothing and a post without pictures is boring so here's some pictures I took of Maisie yesterday.

She has her first big wound, a nice cut to her back leg, so we had fun washing it and disinfecting it. She was actually super good for getting it bandaged so that was nice!

(Yes, I got her a daisy flower crown. Cause reasons)

Ouch

The wide angle lens on my new phone is pretty funny

Rough day

Miss Maisie Daisy