The Move

At this point Katai and I should be REALLY good at this. Unfortunately the spring weather after being locked up all winter between her barn and her paddock, the lack of trailer loading practice since last summer, and the lack of even much ground work since last fall combined to make for a very fractious beast. That added to my stress which was also made worse by the fact that I was moving Friday evening, had afternoon plans on Saturday, and was flying out on Sunday.

I knew that it was going to be really tight to get to the barn Saturday and Sunday and still be ready to fly out. Luckily this is a short trip and I'll be back on Tuesday morning but the timing just really sucked.

Then, as if I needed more stress, Friday was one of those days where nothing went right. I'd blocked off my calendar at work to leave early which I normally have the ability to do but something came up last minute that I needed to take care of which meant I got to the barn late.

I'll spare you all the little things that went wrong but let's just say it involved nearly running out of gas, almost getting lost, lots of being stuck behind red lights while the trailer wasn't, and a stubborn pony that took almost an hour to load.

In the end Katai got in the box stall on the trailer after trying to load her in the two horse straight load at the back (before I realized there was a box stall option) and she had a nice safe trip. I also made it safely to the barn if a bit later than the trailer, and she settled into her amazingly clean stall to munch on tasty looking hay while shooting angry mare faces at her neighbors.

After getting her settled in at her stall in the upper barn I went to the lounge to do paperwork with S2. Since it was late we decided to try to find space for my tack the next day since they're still over full and don't have a locker for me yet. I checked on Katai one more time to find her still happily eating her hay, drinking her water, and making angry mare faces at her neighbors.

Saturday morning I went out early and had happy tears in my eyes when I saw her out in a huge pasture with other mares, in the warm sun. She looked so happy and ever after our disagreements the prior day she came trotting up to me and walked politely with me to the lower barn for some exposure to the new grooming space. I'll admit that ample peppermints were involved.

She was nervous and stressy standing in the cross ties but perfectly happy to walk nicely around the arena and then acted as ear perking motivation for M's gelding who was getting pictures taken. She always impresses me in situations like that even if I'm slightly dismayed that she still doesn't want to stand nicely in the crossties in a new space. I ran out of time on Saturday to ride but that wasn't a bad thing. She got to stand tied twice and got groomed as well as getting to see the arena so that was good and we were able to find a temporary solution for my saddle, bridle, helmet, and grooming stuff.

Then on Sunday I went out in the morning again and had a tight schedule since I also had to get Veggie dropped off at the sitters and get to the airport by 1:00. I not only made it to the barn and managed to get Katai standing well enough to get her tacked up, I actually rode! I was a short ride but she felt amazing and behaved really well so it made sense to keep it short and sweet. That ride really enforced for me that I made the right decision to move her. After being out in the pasture with the other horses she felt loose and forward. She didn't have the stiffness that we have been dealing with off and on and although she was still a bit tense she was very rideable. I'm really looking forward to having a better baseline of fitness on her as well as the looseness that comes with her being able to be out running around in a huge pasture. Plus hopefully happy pony will be better behaved pony.

I still need to get some more pictures and do a barn tour post but it'll have to wait since I'm in Cleveland tonight and flying back tomorrow. I'm planning to get out the barn tomorrow night after work and I can't wait to see my pony and ride!!