Ups and Downs...
Let me preface this entry by saying I am in the best of spirits right now... Wellington is finally almost through this whole EHV-1 outbreak, we haven't had any cases at our farm, I had a wonderful holiday season, and I am looking forward to 2007 with optimism and confidence.
That being said, I am currently nursing Fizzy through a splint, so he has been out of work for the past ten days. He actually popped the splint in quarantine I think (where he did god-knows-what in his stall), but he wasn't sensitive on it, so I didn't worry too much. After a few weeks went by though, it started to get hot, and he was ouchy when I palpated it, although still 100% sound. I called my vet at home who told me that I needed to have it x-rayed and ultrasounded (to make sure it wasn't interfering with his suspensory). At this point I called Tim Ober and basically told him, "Listen, I don't have very much money to do this... but I need to have this checked out!" Tim was fantastic and came out two days later, and much to my relief said the location of the splint was such that it would in no way interfere with his suspensory and told me to just walk him under saddle for two weeks, along with icing the splint three times a day, putting Surpass on it, and wrapping it at night.
We are now on day 10 of our walking, and I am so, so happy to say that Fizzy has remained civil throughout the whole thing. Taking an incredibly fit, incredibly high energy Grand Prix horse and telling him has has to chill for two weeks can be a very tricky task, and aside from a few lapses in good behavior in has stall (the horse must have a 5 foot vertical leap!) he has been amazing through the whole thing. His splint is now 100% not sensitive to touch, which is great, and no longer as hot as it was.
I have to say that I wasn't so disappointed in our "forced" time off. Fizzy had some time off/easy work following the Brentina Cup in June, but since then has been working pretty darn hard, and I think sometimes (most of the time) things happen for a reason. Maybe this little break was a blessing in disguise. In any event, I feel so fortunate that I have such a sound (knock on wood) horse, and if I could have asked for any "injury"- something like a sensitive-splint-with-no-lameness would be it!
Tuny, on the other hand, was not so pleased with our time off! She has been just super about fitting Fizzy and I in every day for a lesson, even with as busy as she is, she still always finds time to give 100% to Fizzy and me. He really was going well right before this all happened, and Tuny was really excited to show Klaus (who arrives mid-January) how nicely Fizzy was going. It is so nice to have people on your team, with a genuine interest in you doing well, isn't it? I couldn't be happier with the support, training and experience I am getting at Tuny's- it has been just delightful.
As far as Fizzy's temperament through all of this, he is not amused. Between his three times a day icings... getting his temperature taken twice a day (because we are still all dealing with the EHV-1 outbreaks in Wellington)... and getting his leg wrapped at night, I basically go in his stall a minimum of six times a day to annoy him. Combine that with the fact that he is only walking under saddle, and only getting 1/2 his feed? Lets just say that I am getting yelled at a lot. For example, after I feed him lunch, about 15 minutes later he starts bellowing at me because he's still hungry, and it's my fault, and I need to feed him more, #%*$$?@*@!! The comical part of all of this, though, is that he is putting his stall-boredom-breaker-roller-feed ball to good use- I hear him all the time in there, rolling it around to get out a tiny handful of Nutrena's XTN (which has made his coat AMAZING, by the way!), then rolling it some more, and beating it up when it's out of food. My little diva.
Working at Tuny's has been great, and I have gotten to ride some wonderful horses. My day usually goes something like this:
7:00am- Dump water buckets, scrub, refill, put on Wild One's magnetic blanket
7:30am- Help finish with stalls
8:00am- Help with grooming and tacking up
8:15am- Get on and walk first horse for Tuny (usually Wild One, or VV as he is known in the stable)
8:45am-10:30 Get on other horses and walk for Tuny (or work myself, depending on the day, Tuny's schedule, etc)
11:00 Ride Reno (Our resident hunter who is coming-five and has been deemed my project horse, so I have a lovely time riding around playing hunter rider for 45minutes!)
Between 11:30 and 12:00- Feed Lunch
In the afternoon's we turnout for a few hours, and then feed dinner around 4pm. We usually leave the barn by 5pm, depending on the day.
Tuny has five horses total-
Wild One, or VV ("Double V") is her main horse, and the one she took to the 2006 World Cup Finals. VV is just the sweetest horse ever, and has a great "Teddy Bear" face. He is very aware of how special he is, and basically runs my life. In turnout, when he gets bored, he goes to the fence and puts his leg up, threatening to stand on the lower wooden rail. This means if I'm not out there soon, he is going to start redecorating his field, and I better get out there. In addition, there better be hay in his stall upon his arrival, as well as full water buckets (for dunking, of course!). He does not enjoy having his belly brushed, and small towels for grooming are the devil. He must do his stretches in the morning while having his feet picked out, and this includes stretching his hind legs alllll the way out and groaning. He is such a character, I just love him. Also, candy-canes are much appreciated.
Ice Cup (also known as Cupcake as my fellow worker, Carrie, has deemed him!) is a six-year-old Danish horse by Blue Hors Future Cup (by Florestan) out of a Romancier mare. "Icy" as I call him is the horse I ride the most, and he is really something special. He has three super paces, and is very balanced for such a tall young man. He is a bit of a goof personality wise, and has recently taken to a game I like to refer to as "GET 'EM DRESSED GET 'EM OUT." This is a game in which I race against Icy's interior time clock to get all of his boots on, plus bell boots, and get him out in the field before he starts removing items himself. Yesterday, I was putting on his last bell boot, and he promptly removed the first one, holding it in his mouth and grinning at me. He has really matured riding-wise in the time that I've been here, and Tuny and I joke about seeing glimpses of his "inner Ferarri" as I call it- you know those moments where the self-carriage just happens, and you feel the Grand Prix horse. So fun. He is my favorite, but don't tell Wild One. :-)
Our resident girly girl is Mary (her show name is Sager Deern or something, not sure how to spell it) is also a six-year-old, by Sandro Hit out of an Inschallah mare. Mary is probably all 0f 16 hands, but has not problem capturing her inner Ferarri seven days a week. She is so mature, and always ready to work. She is an excellent student, and is all business under saddle. She already makes very easy flying changes both directions, lovely trot and canter half-passes, and has started half-steps. She is a blast to ride, and has a go-button that never quits. She is very confident and never spooky, and if she were a person, would be the little girl sitting in the front of the class with her hand up all the time because she knows all the answers. She is also the object of Fizzy's affection, and gets googily eyes from him all the time from across the aisle. She pretends she doesn't like it, but we all know she's secretly in love. :-)
Lareno, or Reno as we call him, is our dressage-horse-turned-hunter. He is a very laid back guy, and told Tuny soon after she got him that he'd prefer a life which includes jumping. He is a beautiful mover and very, very sweet horse, but he just would prefer to jump than do dressage. I really admire that Tuny listened to him, instead of forcing him into a career that he didn't like (listen up, parents!). So Reno and I work in the ring, or in the field and practice cutting daises... having a perfectly rhythmical canter and walking as only a good hunter can walk (which makes us dressage riders crazy!). He is learning his changes, and is, like Mary, an excellent student.
Tuny's fifth horse is Mocha, a teenaged pony for her daughter to ride. "Smokin' Mokes" as he is sometimes endearingly referred to is the strangest colored pony I've ever seen, and was very appropriately campaigned in the hunters in his younger years under the name Mocha Latte. He is adorable in every sense of the word, and Charlotte (Tuny's daughter) and I take him out for walks and rides, and just generally enjoy each other's company. Charlotte and I did write a song the other day (because singing on a trail ride is fun!) which went, (Editor's note: Mocha has foundered a few times, so is no longer allowed to eat grass) "My name is Mochie and my coat is kinda smokey. We went for a walk and we had a little talk. I said please Liz and Charlotte, give me some grass, and they said no way Mochie, that stuff's bad for your.... tummy ." Ah, the joys of rhyming with a six-year-old. After completing our song, she went into a freestyle about sugar cookies which went something like, "Sugar sugar sugar, no sugar cookies cookies for Mocha." I told Tuny she might have a little rapper on her hands. :-)
That's it for me... Hope you're all warm and enjoying 2007!
That being said, I am currently nursing Fizzy through a splint, so he has been out of work for the past ten days. He actually popped the splint in quarantine I think (where he did god-knows-what in his stall), but he wasn't sensitive on it, so I didn't worry too much. After a few weeks went by though, it started to get hot, and he was ouchy when I palpated it, although still 100% sound. I called my vet at home who told me that I needed to have it x-rayed and ultrasounded (to make sure it wasn't interfering with his suspensory). At this point I called Tim Ober and basically told him, "Listen, I don't have very much money to do this... but I need to have this checked out!" Tim was fantastic and came out two days later, and much to my relief said the location of the splint was such that it would in no way interfere with his suspensory and told me to just walk him under saddle for two weeks, along with icing the splint three times a day, putting Surpass on it, and wrapping it at night.
We are now on day 10 of our walking, and I am so, so happy to say that Fizzy has remained civil throughout the whole thing. Taking an incredibly fit, incredibly high energy Grand Prix horse and telling him has has to chill for two weeks can be a very tricky task, and aside from a few lapses in good behavior in has stall (the horse must have a 5 foot vertical leap!) he has been amazing through the whole thing. His splint is now 100% not sensitive to touch, which is great, and no longer as hot as it was.
I have to say that I wasn't so disappointed in our "forced" time off. Fizzy had some time off/easy work following the Brentina Cup in June, but since then has been working pretty darn hard, and I think sometimes (most of the time) things happen for a reason. Maybe this little break was a blessing in disguise. In any event, I feel so fortunate that I have such a sound (knock on wood) horse, and if I could have asked for any "injury"- something like a sensitive-splint-with-no-lameness would be it!
Tuny, on the other hand, was not so pleased with our time off! She has been just super about fitting Fizzy and I in every day for a lesson, even with as busy as she is, she still always finds time to give 100% to Fizzy and me. He really was going well right before this all happened, and Tuny was really excited to show Klaus (who arrives mid-January) how nicely Fizzy was going. It is so nice to have people on your team, with a genuine interest in you doing well, isn't it? I couldn't be happier with the support, training and experience I am getting at Tuny's- it has been just delightful.
As far as Fizzy's temperament through all of this, he is not amused. Between his three times a day icings... getting his temperature taken twice a day (because we are still all dealing with the EHV-1 outbreaks in Wellington)... and getting his leg wrapped at night, I basically go in his stall a minimum of six times a day to annoy him. Combine that with the fact that he is only walking under saddle, and only getting 1/2 his feed? Lets just say that I am getting yelled at a lot. For example, after I feed him lunch, about 15 minutes later he starts bellowing at me because he's still hungry, and it's my fault, and I need to feed him more, #%*$$?@*@!! The comical part of all of this, though, is that he is putting his stall-boredom-breaker-roller-feed ball to good use- I hear him all the time in there, rolling it around to get out a tiny handful of Nutrena's XTN (which has made his coat AMAZING, by the way!), then rolling it some more, and beating it up when it's out of food. My little diva.
Working at Tuny's has been great, and I have gotten to ride some wonderful horses. My day usually goes something like this:
7:00am- Dump water buckets, scrub, refill, put on Wild One's magnetic blanket
7:30am- Help finish with stalls
8:00am- Help with grooming and tacking up
8:15am- Get on and walk first horse for Tuny (usually Wild One, or VV as he is known in the stable)
8:45am-10:30 Get on other horses and walk for Tuny (or work myself, depending on the day, Tuny's schedule, etc)
11:00 Ride Reno (Our resident hunter who is coming-five and has been deemed my project horse, so I have a lovely time riding around playing hunter rider for 45minutes!)
Between 11:30 and 12:00- Feed Lunch
In the afternoon's we turnout for a few hours, and then feed dinner around 4pm. We usually leave the barn by 5pm, depending on the day.
Tuny has five horses total-
Wild One, or VV ("Double V") is her main horse, and the one she took to the 2006 World Cup Finals. VV is just the sweetest horse ever, and has a great "Teddy Bear" face. He is very aware of how special he is, and basically runs my life. In turnout, when he gets bored, he goes to the fence and puts his leg up, threatening to stand on the lower wooden rail. This means if I'm not out there soon, he is going to start redecorating his field, and I better get out there. In addition, there better be hay in his stall upon his arrival, as well as full water buckets (for dunking, of course!). He does not enjoy having his belly brushed, and small towels for grooming are the devil. He must do his stretches in the morning while having his feet picked out, and this includes stretching his hind legs alllll the way out and groaning. He is such a character, I just love him. Also, candy-canes are much appreciated.
Ice Cup (also known as Cupcake as my fellow worker, Carrie, has deemed him!) is a six-year-old Danish horse by Blue Hors Future Cup (by Florestan) out of a Romancier mare. "Icy" as I call him is the horse I ride the most, and he is really something special. He has three super paces, and is very balanced for such a tall young man. He is a bit of a goof personality wise, and has recently taken to a game I like to refer to as "GET 'EM DRESSED GET 'EM OUT." This is a game in which I race against Icy's interior time clock to get all of his boots on, plus bell boots, and get him out in the field before he starts removing items himself. Yesterday, I was putting on his last bell boot, and he promptly removed the first one, holding it in his mouth and grinning at me. He has really matured riding-wise in the time that I've been here, and Tuny and I joke about seeing glimpses of his "inner Ferarri" as I call it- you know those moments where the self-carriage just happens, and you feel the Grand Prix horse. So fun. He is my favorite, but don't tell Wild One. :-)
Our resident girly girl is Mary (her show name is Sager Deern or something, not sure how to spell it) is also a six-year-old, by Sandro Hit out of an Inschallah mare. Mary is probably all 0f 16 hands, but has not problem capturing her inner Ferarri seven days a week. She is so mature, and always ready to work. She is an excellent student, and is all business under saddle. She already makes very easy flying changes both directions, lovely trot and canter half-passes, and has started half-steps. She is a blast to ride, and has a go-button that never quits. She is very confident and never spooky, and if she were a person, would be the little girl sitting in the front of the class with her hand up all the time because she knows all the answers. She is also the object of Fizzy's affection, and gets googily eyes from him all the time from across the aisle. She pretends she doesn't like it, but we all know she's secretly in love. :-)
Lareno, or Reno as we call him, is our dressage-horse-turned-hunter. He is a very laid back guy, and told Tuny soon after she got him that he'd prefer a life which includes jumping. He is a beautiful mover and very, very sweet horse, but he just would prefer to jump than do dressage. I really admire that Tuny listened to him, instead of forcing him into a career that he didn't like (listen up, parents!). So Reno and I work in the ring, or in the field and practice cutting daises... having a perfectly rhythmical canter and walking as only a good hunter can walk (which makes us dressage riders crazy!). He is learning his changes, and is, like Mary, an excellent student.
Tuny's fifth horse is Mocha, a teenaged pony for her daughter to ride. "Smokin' Mokes" as he is sometimes endearingly referred to is the strangest colored pony I've ever seen, and was very appropriately campaigned in the hunters in his younger years under the name Mocha Latte. He is adorable in every sense of the word, and Charlotte (Tuny's daughter) and I take him out for walks and rides, and just generally enjoy each other's company. Charlotte and I did write a song the other day (because singing on a trail ride is fun!) which went, (Editor's note: Mocha has foundered a few times, so is no longer allowed to eat grass) "My name is Mochie and my coat is kinda smokey. We went for a walk and we had a little talk. I said please Liz and Charlotte, give me some grass, and they said no way Mochie, that stuff's bad for your.... tummy ." Ah, the joys of rhyming with a six-year-old. After completing our song, she went into a freestyle about sugar cookies which went something like, "Sugar sugar sugar, no sugar cookies cookies for Mocha." I told Tuny she might have a little rapper on her hands. :-)
That's it for me... Hope you're all warm and enjoying 2007!
posted by Liz @ 12:42 PM
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