And then along came Maizie -- part 2

We exchanged folders – mine with cash for Maizie’s transport and theirs with Maizie’s papers, an expired coggins exam and missing the health certificate she was supposed to have gotten back in December.  There wasn’t time to look through the folder at that moment, though. I put it inside the house and grabbed the halter I’d bought for her. We got her unloaded and safely down to the pasture, deciding at the last minute to just turn her loose with Dahli. The two of them immediately approached each other and started to work out their relationship by trotting around and around the pasture. Dahli tried to sniff her tail and started off a round of bucks, followed by more trotting around. That would continue for the next couple hours.

Oh, by the way...
As they were leaving, her seller mentioned, “Oh, by the way. A couple months ago she went lame. We brought her inside for a while. Thought it was gravels, but I couldn’t find anything on her hoof. Then she got better…I think she may have just stepped in a hole. The ground was cuppy and frozen at the time, with holes all over the place."

A week later, I found Maizie down. When she got to her feet, she was 3-legged lame.  She laid down again a short time later. I used this time to clean her hoof and search for signs of bruising or abscess – nothing. No pain response, either, to tapping and pressing with a hoof pick.  No heat on the hoof wall, and no digital pulse.There was no puffiness, swelling or heat anywhere on her leg.

You've got to get them when they're down
Whatever the injury was, at this point it actually worked to my advantage.  For a week, I’d been unable to touch her other than briefly as she trotted by.  I’d had to leave them living out, as she wouldn’t stay in the barn long enough for me to close her in and wouldn’t let me get a lead shank on her. Now I had my chance.

I managed to coax, drag, bribe and scold her from the back pasture to the barn. Dahli followed and I got them both closed in the aisle. My aisle doubles as a run out shelter; I use my stalls for storage. This gives them a 12 x 50’ area to live in overnight and during storms, and enables me to seasonally protect my limited pasture while giving them plenty of room to move around.

2 days later, she was starting to put more weight on the injured leg.  I was off from work that day, so now had time to rasp the hoof – I still didn’t see anything until I put on my reading glasses. Now I could see black ooze seeping from the white line area of the inside quarter, about an inch ahead of the heel. Plus a little bit of a bubble in the sole just to the inside of the ooze. Gravels/abscess it was, so I dug through my trunks, pulled out an old container of ichthamol, a pile of pampers diapers and a half-used roll of duct tape. I cleaned the hoof as best I could, packed the abscess in ichthamol to draw out the pus, and bandaged her hoof in a diaper. Within a couple days, it was totally healed. She’s been sound ever since.

Just in time
They lived inside until she was completely healed. I was going to start letting them out again, when I checked the weather. A major blizzard was headed our way. I immediately changed my plans. If I hadn't been able to get them back in the barn ahead of the storm, my barn would have been filled with snow drifts. Instead, I just kept them for a few extra days until I was able to completely dig out the front door.

Never assume a coincidence when enemy action fits
It has dawned on me, given that the breeder had picked up two mares, not just Maizie, that the mystery shipper had seemed so “off” and then disappeared, and that the breeder had chosen to sell just one of the two mares, and not gotten the health certificate as she'd told me back in December, that I’d been set up. My guess is that when Maizie developed the mystery lameness, the seller decided to dump her quick before she put any more money into her. My guess is that the other mare that she’d bought will get some training, get started under saddle and appear for sale sometime next year. She offers a rescue or two along with her home-breds on her website. Time will tell.

And then along came Maizie -- part 1

Before she put Algiers down, my very kind vet made a point of reassuring me that she was sure Dahli would be fine by herself. Just 2 months later, during our normal spring shot visit, she said she hoped that when she returned the next year that there would be another horse here.

I was hoping so too, but as things would have it, I didn’t have a penny to spare. The new job at the hospital wasn’t going well, between my being stalked by a janitor there and unable to work night shift. Then they cut my hours, so I had to go back to my old, lower paying job at the customer service center. I hoped by the 2^nd year I would be able to get a second horse. In the meantime, I kept my eyes open, scanning the various horse classifieds and dreaming.

After some thought, I began re-thinking getting a second Arabian. I’m not getting any younger, my bones break more easily, and I wasn’t sure which bloodlines would assure me of a quieter, easier temperament than Dahli’s.

It’s important to be very clear about needs and limitations. My property is very “back-yard” in many respects. I don’t have a real riding arena or a fenced paddock for training. I don’t have power in the barn or running water. I trim their feet myself: before moving to Maine I trained with KC LaPierre.  I’m a small person, only 5’3 or so, so don’t need a large horse. I have 2 acres of good pasture.  So I started researching haflingers and old-style morgans, while saving and saving.

Since 2008, I’ve been living pretty much large bill to large bill. I save and save, and just as I think I’m getting ahead, I get hit with a planned or unplanned large expense. Losing Algiers in February left me with 6 months or so of extra hay. I kept that head-start, buying a full year’s worth for Dahli each September after. One prospect after another went on sale, and then was snapped up just as I thought I had enough to move forward.

Finally, in the fall of 2013, it stumbled on a lippitt morgan mare in a distress sale and within driving distance! I contacted her breeder and made arrangements to go meet her on my 60^th birthday. Everything seemed to be falling into place, until the night before when I called to confirm my appointment. The breeder started to hedge a bit…and sure enough, on the morning of my birthday, when I made my last confirmation call before driving 6 hours, the breeder had sold the mare out from under me. Two months later, I bottomed out my car on a large boulder that looked like a giant chunk of ice left in my driveway by the DOT. And then a large maple came down in an ice storm. There went my horse money again.

Another year passed, while I continued scanning the ads.

I’d pretty much given up, and was looking out of habit and boredom at work when I stumbled across a new rescue site with an 8 year old mare mentioned at a rock bottom price. Her elderly breeders could no longer afford her, so another breeder had picked her up to keep her from ending up at the sales, and then offered her at a slighter higher than rock bottom price to try to move her by Christmas. One photo, and I snapped her up. The breeder found a young Canadian who was bringing a horse from Ohio past her NY farm, past my Maine farm, to Nova Scotia. It looked like she would be here for Christmas! And then his paperwork got messed up, and the trip was delayed until after Christmas. And then he said there was a snowstorm in NS, and the trip was delayed again.

The breeder offered to truck her up for the same price, and so finally, in mid-January, she finally arrived. At long last, Dahli has a companion!

Dahli's Time: Part 2

She was bound and determined to get rid of me, but it was clear that just plain bucking like crazy wasn’t getting her anywhere. So somewhere around buck 6 she added a twist, and when I landed square, she wasn’t square underneath me anymore!  It was all over but the singing. I lasted 2 more bucks, each time landed more off center and hanging off her side, and then – cussing the entire way – hit the ground hard. She seemed to be smiling as she ran toward the barn and turned to take a spin around the pasture.

This was definitely NOT how I wanted to end the riding season. However, a strained muscle and bruised thigh needed a week to heal. And then we needed another week or so for the first rains to dry up a bit. Fortunately, the weather broke for a week. I gathered my courage and rode her lightly for a couple days, mostly walking with a few brief trots. The weather broke for good, and she spent the winter thinking about her new skills.

Years 2 and 3

 

Each spring, I start Dahli's training right at the beginning, as if everything is new to her. But we follow a foreshortened schedule. What initially we repeated for days, we repeat several times in one day; what we repeated daily for weeks, we do for days; what we practiced for months, we practice for a week or two. I even repeated a little ace for the first couple rides, until I felt confident that she was back in the routine. Within her first couple weeks of being under saddle, some time in May, she offered to canter. Everything was perfect except the footing – it was still a little wet and rocks were still popping out the ground, so I declined the offer.

 

One thing I learned about her that second year – and the same thing her third year – is that during her “down” times, she is still learning, making connections between all she has learned. So her understanding of and response to the aids becomes increasingly sophisticated without me having to do anything. She progressed on her own from “direct reining” that is, an inside leading rein that points her nose in the direction I want her to go, to “indirect reining” where she turns in response the combined aids of leg with a restraining outside rein against her neck. For western riders, the indirect rein is just a short step to “neck reining.” Actually, they are essentially the same, but in western riding, the effect of the rein prevails whereas in dressage the leg takes precedence. For lateral bend exercises, we added in spirals, leg yield , turns on forehand, turns on haunches, and shoulder-in at the walk and trot.

 

To increase her longitudinal flexibility, I started her on “rubber banding” where I ask for a bigger and smaller trot. And lots and lots of transitions from halt to walk to trot to walk to halt. A little rein back, although I’m cautious due to her history of wanting to rear (which she hasn’t done since the day she bent the steel roof with her eye). The footing remained iffy through year 2.

 

In year 3 I started spreading manure in earnest to build up compost for a softer footing. I asked for a canter a couple times, but she responded by becoming very nervous, hollowing out and throwing her head up. And then my work schedule got crazy while I trained at the urgent care center, and we started getting rain every single day I had off. As a result, last summer my riding season ended very early. My sincere hope is that this year, I will have enough compost added, combined with a light enough work schedule. In the meantime, Arabians never forget and Dahli seems to really miss the interaction and excitement.

Dahli's TIme

In the days immediately following Algiers’ death, Dahli continued to call for him, looking for him each morning and at night panicking when I closed her in the barn alone. And then she came to realize he wasn’t coming back, but that her routine continued the same. And her calls faded with her memories, while she began to realize there were benefits to being alone. All the hay was now hers, as was the pasture. I brushed her with Algiers’ brushes to comfort her with his aroma, and spent as much time with her as I could. This was Dahli’s time. We picked up her ground work in the spring, and added in ground driving so she would learn steering and brakes. After experimenting with reins run through surcingle rings versus through stirrups, I gave up and decided to keep it simple. Just the long lines straight from her bit to my hands, as I walked along behind and slightly to one side or the other seemed to work best.

 

July: backing

By July, she seemed reliable and ready for the next big step. I assessed the risks of starting a timid, sensitive and very reactive, quick and athletic mare. Because I am alone here, and don’t have anything like an ideal setup, I decided to err on the side of caution and start her lightly tranquilized with ace promazine. I decided to work directly behind the barn where it is fairly level and we could be close to the barn – an area of safety. I kept the barn door closed so she wouldn’t be tempted to make a run for it. I roughly allowed July for initial backing, August for riding around the property at a walk, September for trotting and October to introduce canter. Each day, I positioned her next to a hay bale and climbed onto that. From there, I could lean across the saddle and let her get accustomed to the feel of my weight. Several times, I leaned across the saddle, and then shifted my weight back to my feet. Then dropped the stirrup down and this time hoisted myself gently up with a foot in the stirrup still just leaning across the saddle. The next day, I halved the ace and repeated leaning across the saddle with a stick in my right hand. This time, lying across the saddle I tapped her with the stick and asked her to “walk.” We walked along a few steps and then I let myself slip to the ground. We repeated this exercise a few times per day, for two days running. And then I gathered my courage and slipped into the saddle, still leaning down low on her neck with my seat in the saddle and scratching and encouraging her from there. I introduced her to leg aids supported by my voice and a light tap of the stick. And then I began sitting up straight in the saddle. We practiced steering, starting with circles and progressing to figures of eight and then serpentines in the small area behind the barn. Everything interspersed with very brief halts and immediately moving off forward, before she could become impatient or anxious. I stopped the ace altogether within 3 or 4 days.

 

August and September: walking and trotting

By the first of August, I moved the training area to the arena, and we repeated everything. By the end of August, we were calmly walking around the entire arena and each subdivided pasture area, past the barn, behind the barn and would end the ride next to the shed. In September, I introduced trotting and by the end of that month, she was doing circles, figures of eight and serpentines up and down the arena, and trotting circles in the pastures as well. We had a couple spooks, which my body handled easily. Our mutual confidence and trust grew.

 

October: Cantering and WHOA NELLIE!

In early October, the time seemed right and I asked her for canter. It took several attempts of asking from a strong trot before she responded with a canter. I was blown away by the quality of her canter – a beautiful, clear 3 beats and so powerful and yet easy. After a couple strides I eased her back to a trot and then repeated the pattern I’d used to strike off and repeated the short canter. She rounded herself beautifully cantering, although a little deeper than I wanted, it held through her trot. I noted that it was a good thing that from day one she hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to buck, as her slightly deep position while cantering lent itself perfectly to serious bucking.

 

Our riding time was limited, and every day I considered could be the last before the fall rains came. Even so, I decided to quit while we were ahead and pick up the next day. A decision I have regretted ever since. The next day we repeated our usual warm up, work-in and training pattern. I use patterns to allow their repetition build confidence and routine in timid horses, introducing new exercises when they start to anticipate or get silly which indicates they are ready for the next step. So we followed our usual pattern until I reached the point of starting the new exercise: cantering. I repeated the pattern I’d used to set her up for her first canters yesterday. She’d been thinking about it overnight, and responded immediately – by breaking into a world class, rodeo-quality, bucking bronco fest! I was totally unprepared, sitting in a 2-point to keep her back free and with my reins a little longer than I now wish they’d been. For 6 bucks, she shot me straight up out of the saddle. I kept myself square above her and landed right back where I’d started, but before I could scramble to pick up the reins and do anything, I was already shooting back into the air. Meantime, her mental wheels were turning.