They always break your heart

I had to say goodbye to another original horse a couple weeks ago. Jazz and Grady were my first two horses and they will always hold that special heart horse spot for me.

I sold Jazz a couple years ago to a really nice family that had a young girl wanting to do 4-H. Jazz had been leased for a couple years before that since I was in school and riding Jetta, not having time for Jazz especially since she needed a more laid back kind of life in her old age.

I started the blog after I started undergrad, so I haven't written a ton about Jazz, but she fueled my love of Appendix QH's after Grady sparked that love. She literally did everything. We did hunters, we evented, we ran barrels and poles, we did dressage, we did western and english pleasure, we did trail, we rode on the beach and trails. She ponied all my babies, she helped me pass my Level 2 in Parelli, we rode bareback and bridleless, I ground drove her (never actually got a cart though), I taught countless beginner lessons on her. She was the horse that got me into dressage in the first place.

She was never a cuddly horse, didn't particularly enjoy being groomed and when I first got her, I really didn't like her. My trainer was the one that convinced my parents to get her for me as my show horse since Grady didn't quite have it in him to be the competitive all-around horse that I wanted. But I was so lucky to have her.

All about those carrots

Grady, Jazz and Tux all together

Her owners messaged me a couple days before I left for my trip saying that they were planning on putting her down the coming week. She'd been lame for a while and it kept getting worse and worse. The vet and chiropractor had no answers and she was on a double dose of pain meds, but still hurting. They thought maybe she had bone cancer. Luckily I was able to drive up and say goodbye. It was hard, saying goodbye is never easy, even when she hadn't been "my" horse for years. I think the worst part was knowing she was in pain and that I couldn't fix it, even after all she'd done for me.

She was still not cuddly, though she ate her 5 pounds of carrots with gusto. We spent a little over an hour with her, just giving her carrots, scritches and kisses. She still looked pretty good, though supposedly she'd been steadily losing weight. I could have spent all day just sitting in the pasture with her, so it was hard to leave her to make the 2-hour drive back home. I kissed her and held her head in my arms, even though she has always disliked that, she at least tolerated it for me. I asked her to give Grady a nuzzle from me, they always were the two horses that seemed best suited together. One of the hardest things after putting Grady down was bringing Jazz home from a lessor and turning her out in the pasture and watching her whinny and trot around looking for Grady. He was the constant in both of our lives.

Horses always break your heart. Even after 13 years of Jazz being in my life, it's still not long enough. I'm really glad she's not in pain any more, but that doesn't make saying goodbye any easier.

Noms

"Treats, not kisses, go here"

Hooves and Hoofprints

In terms of hooves, Misty finally got her poor overgrown hooves done finally almost a week after she got home. They were in dire need of having her 3 shoes pulled and those long toes cut off. It was slightly ridiculous how long they were. AC also discovered that she probably abscessed (maybe the reason for her lameness "stone bruise" a few weeks ago?). She had a two inch pointy piece of wood jammed underneath her shoe against her frog with a nasty pocket of black goop that smelled disgusting, and a little track up the outside of her heel bulb like that was where the abscess came out. Poor girl. Shoes are definitely not for us. She seemed so much more comfortable once they were off. Even with two months of shoes, AC was saying how nice and hard her hooves were. We might have some ugly chipping once her nail holes grow down,  but that girl has some nice hooves!

She got plenty of thrush buster applied and then a white lightning soak . Then an application of some Keratex and I think she'll be good to go! We'll have to keep an eye on that pocket though and make sure nothing else gets stuck in there.

In terms of hoofprints, I finally got my long awaited second tattoo in memory of Grady (if you don't remember him, see my "In Loving Memory" tab above). I had to put him down in 2013 and I still think of him almost every day. I finally decided what I wanted last year but never got around to it. I finally got it on Monday and I love it! I have my favorite horse's hoofprint on my wrist now. I'm thinking I might add his initial to it eventually, but I need to find something pretty that will be able to be made small, since my initial design was turned down by the tattoo artist as too detailed to do in the size I wanted.

And the last bit of news. Jazz, my most amazing mare of all time, is in need of a new home. Her forever home has gone through some financial issues and downsizing and can't keep her as was planned. I of course will take her to retire at my parent's if needed. But she won't have anyone to dote on her like she deserves. I know most bloggers aren't in my region, but if anyone in the Oregon area knows of a little kid who wants an extremely safe horse to ride and groom, she would make the perfect grandkids horse or companion horse. She's 24 now so she's probably not up to being competitive anymore (she was a 4-H horse for the last couple years). I'm bummed that she doesn't have her perfect retirement set up anymore, but I love the Jazzy-girl, so if she ends up coming home, I'm looking forward to seeing her again!

Next post will be about the fun derby we went to on Sunday the weekend before last!

Mostly Complete Update

Lots of little things all happening right now. School has been kicking my butt this week but I'm handling it. Unfortunately the ponies have gotten the short end of the stick through all of this. I rode Jetta on Monday. That was it.

But we had a really good ride. I think we're finally making progress!

So, the news (fair warning - no pictures and very wordy post!):

I finally found out how Misty and I did at the trail competition. At the last competition we got third in the Open division! Wow, I was surprised that we made it all the way up to Open! At the show before that one we were 4th I think in Amateur? Like I predicted though, there was no belt buckle :( Basically I had to get First in Amateur or Novice, but since I got First in Novice at the first show, that knocked me into the Amateur division so I wasn't eligible to win Novice. Bummer... I ended up with an overall score of third in Amateur. So close! The lady that won the Amateur division definitely deserved it though. She's a good friend that I've known through JF for years. An older lady with two horses who does natural horsemanship/classical dressage (albeit western) and takes her time with her horses. She did a very good job with her horse Champ, even doing some obstacles that no one else was able to complete! And she's been competing in the trail competitions for as long as they've been going on and has never won a buckle.... So I guess I can gracefully concede the victory to her, seeing as I have 5 horse belt buckles ;)

In other news, I finally got my new dressage show breeches! I've been hemming and hawing over what to get and then ultimately decided my budget ($150) wasn't large enough to allow a purchase of what I really wanted and I didn't want to spend money on something I didn't completely love. Along comes ebay... I've been searching forever for the "right pair" to come up cheap enough. I found a pair of Tropical Rider breeches with the deerskin full seat, that I really liked. Higher waisted than I would have preferred... but for $40 I was sold! And then they came and the zipper was missing... Uh, yeah. Not in the description. But a quick trip to get it altered to have a new zipper put in, voila! New-ish. The seat is slightly stained from the saddle making it look gray, which is totally fine for me since I like white breeches with gray seats.

Then, the even cooler purchase... While perusing ebay I found a pair of Dove gray FITS for sale. Oooh, gorgeous! I liked them so much better than the white. Instant love. But they were the wrong size so I decided that I'd save up and buy them for myself when I had the money. But still casually perusing ebay I found a pair. Dove gray. In my size. Brand new! And in my price range :) And I won! I got myself some brand new FITS for $90.

Can you tell I'm in love with ebay? Two pairs of awesome breeches for under my original budget for one pair of breeches. Score!

In other pony news, I've talked to both Jazz and Tux's new owners and they're both doing well! I love so much to hear about them. I miss them both so much.

Tux's owner (older lady) was retiring in the spring and with all of that preparation didn't have time to ride so he got the whole spring off and just hung out in the pasture. Which I'm totally sure was completely fine with him. I can only imagine how rotund he became ;) Then she fell and broke her wrist at the beginning of the summer. So obviously no riding. But once she was almost healed she sent him off to "school" with her sister, a dressage trainer, and he's now getting ridden 5 times a week, 3 of those being trainer rides and he's doing really well it sounds like! She was telling me all about how he's now going in a KK Sprenger snaffle (vs the Myler) and seems to like it better and it really starting to reach down and out for the bit. What a good pony. I really hope she gets him going well and maybe shows him. Or she offered to let me come stay with her in Washington for a long weekend and visit with him/take some lessons with her sister. Um, yes please!

Then with Jazz I talked to the mom of her little girl and it sounds like things are going perfectly and that they love her. I was stalking pictures and someone commented on a pic of Jazz that they wanted to come learn to ride and Jazz's owner was telling the person how amazing their daughter's horse is and that she's "trained to the nine's" and would be perfect for them to ride. Cue proud mom moment! Then the lady that won the trail competition that I commented about above? She went riding at Elijah Bristow park where Jazz lives close to and was talking to this random lady riding a black mare... And the lady was saying how her horse has done everything - trail competitions, etc. And my friend looked at the horse and said "Hm, is your horse's name Jazz??" And it was! So I have from a second source that Jazz is looking good :)

So happy. I always worry when I sell a horse.

And the most exciting of all exciting updates? ENDURANCE RIDE THIS SATURDAY. Gosh, I'm so excited! Everything just fell together absolutely perfectly. I wasn't going to do this ride even though at the beginning of the year I was definitely planning on it just because they're were other events this weekend so I decided to do those instead. But as it got closer, I decided screw it, I haven't gotten in my goal of doing an endurance ride this year and this is the second to last ride and it's PERFECT so let's do it! Of course I decided this about a week and a half ago... Queen of procrastination I tell you.

This meant that I needed to find some way to contain Jetta overnight at the ride since I don't have anything. I talked to JF whose hubby sells portable corrals to see if I could borrow a set. Score! I went and picked them up last night. Her hubby was helping me load them and asked what the event was. I told him I was going to try out endurance. He used to do endurance a long time ago. His comment "Well if I had known that these panels were for such a worthy cause!" He does just cow stuff now and I honestly can't imagine him doing endurance but it sounds like he really loved it. He still has one of his endurance Arabs, an old grumpy guy named Lone Star. He gave me a few tips and wished me luck!

Then about a week ago I was perusing the local endurance FB page and found a thread about trail conditions at the ride. The general consensus was that it was so rocky that you needed to either boot all around or shoe with pads all around. Geez. And guess what? I only have front boots. Crap. Frantic search for boots led to the discovery that no where local stocks easyboots in my size and my farrier only had boots that were too big or too small. Last minute I finally found a place that could order boots in and have them in by Friday for me to pick up. Win! I went and picked them up this afternoon. Let us pray that they fit well...

Now just to go to my last class of the day then gather up all the last minute randomness needed for this weekend! I CANNOT WAIT. I am just too excited right now!

Next Chapter

Well, I sent Jazz off to her new home on Friday. Definitely bittersweet :'(

Last bridleless ride

The weather has been awful of late with thunderstorms on Thursday and Friday (love me a good thunderstorm when I'm snuggled up in bed though!). I had been planning on going on a trail ride with Jetta when I dropped Jazz off at her new home because their barn is right across the street from my absolutely favorite horse park. But with the weather I wasn't too sure this would happen...

I texted TH (Jazz's new owner, mom of the girl who is going to ride Jazz) and she said that she thought the weather would be fine and that they had a group going trail riding if I wanted to join.

We met at the horse park and I unloaded the horses and immediately Jazz's new girl, AH, came over and started grooming her. At least she will always be perfectly clean! Hah, Jazz is the ultimate "tom boy" though and prefers being dirty. They tried on a couple saddles and had one that fit quite well with the help of a fleece pad.

While Jazz was getting all fitted out in new tack, Jetta was being a pill. Since I hadn't ridden her in a while I decided to put her front boots on her hooves just in case she was sensitive on the crushed gravel there. It's a pretty easy footing, but I didn't want her to be sore her first ride back. She was being AWFUL. She tried to lay down while I had one foot up. This was one of her favorite tricks when I first got her - besides trying to kick your face in - and it's luckily gone away until now. Bad, bad pony.

Jazz and her favorite treats. I gave her half the bag before she left and sent the rest with her.

Finally, all horses were tacked up and AH got on Jazz and rode her around the round pen there. Jazz was being good besides trying to pause next to Jetta. In fact, Jazz had the most perfect behavior the whole entire trail ride - she didn't spook at anything, she didn't look at anything, she went where she was told, rode third in line on a loose rein the whole time. Her only "bad" thing was trotting up the little hills, which the other horses did too. 

I think we rode for about an hour or hour and a half. It was nice going with this group because they know the park really, really well so I got to see a side of it I hadn't seen before and I can't wait to go back and explore the area a little more.

Jetta was awful. But I didn't expect her not to be. After all, we had to walk the whole time. It was her first ride back. I didn't know where we were going so she wasn't allowed to be first in line. The horse that was leading walked super slow, basically three strides for every one of Jetta's "normal" strides so I had to ask her to walk slower. So we worked on slowing down, giving to the bit, responding to half halts, etc.

Getting a bath before heading down to her new home.

When we got back to the parking lot I loaded up all of Jazz's things in their truck and then Jazz hopped into their trailer without a second thought. I'm going to miss her so much, she is such an amazing horse so I just hope they appreciate her as much as I do. I'm sure she'll be spoiled by AH and they said that they'd keep in touch and give me updates so I can't wait to hear how they're doing and maybe next summer I'll get to watch them at 4-H fair. 

Can't Beat It

Can't beat the feeling of being on a horse. It always makes me 10x happier when I'm on horse or around horses than when I'm not!

AR did end up flaking on me for our trail ride Monday, but I was determined to go regardless and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I went to Silver Creek Falls which is one of my favorites. It's hilly and shaded through a pretty forest. There's a water crossing and a couple bridges so it's always a good outing for exposing the ponies.

Bridge #1

I decided to ride Jazz and pony Misty and they couldn't have been more perfect. I had no issues hardly at all with managing two horses, save for a couple small bloopers. Like when we were riding along the beginning of the trail that's really narrow and winding. Misty went, "Ok Jazz, you go this way around the tree and I'll go that way and we'll meet up on the other side!" Ahaha, no. I had to stop the horses and ask Misty to back up before we really got in trouble.

Being such a good pony

I'm so lucky to have such well behaved horses. At one point I dropped my phone (almost didn't notice that I dropped it - that would have been bad!) so instead of turning both horses around to go back to it, getting it, then turning both horses around again, I asked them to ground tie then ran and grabbed it. No one moved a muscle.

Hills!

We rode a good two hours and it was just glorious. It started out overcast and I was worried it was going to rain. The forest is rather creepy when it's overcast. Plus, despite the 5 other trailers in the parking lot I ran into absolutely no one. Weird. But then the sun came out and the temperature was awesome and there were no bugs.

Sunshine

I was also slightly worried about the barefoot hooves. The first section of the trail before you reach the hills is really rocky. There's a lot of those huge chunks of rocks mixed in with the regular gravel - the kind that is hard to walk on whether or not the horses have shoes - they're pointy and giant. My horses have no issue with regular sized gravel, but those big rocks are killer. But I needn't have worried. Both horses' hooves were in their rock-crunching element and even yesterday/today there's been no hoof soreness. Success!

Overall, it was a wonderful day. So lucky to have horses in my life because I don't know how I'd keep my sanity otherwise!

Long Update

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a crazy weekend and I just haven't had the time or patience to sit down and write out a post! But I have lots of pics to make up for it.

So let's see...

Thursday

I went and looked at the barn of the people who want to buy Jazz. It wasn't anything fancy but the fencing was sound, all the stalls were matted (albeit a little wonkily) and had runs attached. Footing in the arena looked adequate and there was some turnout. They live right across the street from my favorite horse trails to ride on and have a creek running through the property that they can swim the horses on. Fun! So it's almost official. Jazz will probably go to her new home sometime next week.

I also lunged Jetta and she looked perfectly sound and definitely ready to go back undersaddle. She got her toes trimmed while I was out and was quite fresh. I meant to bring tack home to ride her in, but completely forgot. I briefly considered riding sans tack in a halter but luckily decided against it. If it had been Jazz or Grady I would have hopped on and gone on a trail ride but Jetta? After almost a month off? I think not...

Showing off her fancy trot in the rain

SO FANCY

Jetta says hi and wants to say that this is still her blog, she doesn't understand why she hasn't been on here recently!

Being a crazypants.

Friday

Went on a trail ride with my friend AR. Her horse just had his teeth floated so she ended up riding Jazz and we just went down the street to her grandparent's house. It was nice to get out of the arena since I haven't trail ridden in quite a while! Jazz was just amazing as usual - the turkeys flying out of the brush at us unexpectedly and AR's decidedly non-horse sense dog running between her legs didn't even cause a flick of her ear. Misty was not quite as nonchalant but wasn't spooky. It was a gorgeous day since it finally decided to stop raining and let the sun come out!

B-e-a-u-tiful day for a trail ride!

AR on Jazz and Sammy the dog ahead of us on the trail

Saturday

No pony time unfortunately.

Sunday

Finally made it out to the barn. Saturday was a little crazy so I definitely needed my time with the girls. I had fantastic rides on both of them, both in dressage tack. Can I just say that Jazz has an amazing lengthened trot? For a QH especially. Jetta needs to take some notes. And speaking of Jetta, I am SO EXCITED to start riding her again. Funny how much I've missed her despite her being such a tough horse to ride.  Misty is doing good, she too has such a nice trot once she gets in the "groove". I feel like we've reached the point where her jog has become well established enough that we can play with transitions within the gaits and it's going well. Canter... not so much. But progress is progress and I'll take it!

Why do I even bother making her clean?!

Needed my saddle/barn time

It was a matchy-matchy kind of day.

So that's life! I have my fingers crossed that tomorrow is going to be another trail ride, either with AR or maybe if she flakes on me I'll take both girls for a ride and pony one. Life with horses is good :)