Travel Restrictions Have Ended!!!!!!

Which means three very important things.

1. I can stop wearing separate clothing, boots, jacket, gloves etc. to each barn and washing them right away when I get home.

2. I can go to the MN Horse Expo on Friday and not have to worry, feel guilty that I may expose my pony to something.

3. I get to move Katai!!!!!

Our plan is proceeding as is at this point to move Katai early on Saturday morning. I feel like I've been waiting soooo long and it has been almost exactly a month since I planned on moving her. We've made good progress during that time and it makes me feel even more ready to get started with lessons on my little horse. Finally :)

Outbreak Part II: Delayed Again

Let me start by saying that I’m so sorry for anyone who lost a horse recently due to EHV-1 and all of you who have either had a horse pass away or who are currently caring for a sick horse are in my thoughts. It would be an extremely horrible thing to go through.

 Now, with that being said, my move has been delayed again. I’m certainly not interested in risking any horses, either my own or those at the new barn, but I’m so anxious to move to the new place! Last night I had my weekly riding lesson and it went extremely well. I also have been able to continue to observe barn things and this is why I love this barn.

The farm from above. Mares to the right, geldings to the left. You can see the outdoor and indoor and the pond is surrounded by an eventing course.

1. No mud!!!!! Seriously, the place that Katai is living right now looks like one big mud pit which is quite normal with all of the snow we’ve melted and especially with how quick it’s been melting this year but sometimes I feel like my pony is living in a cesspool. The current barn owner hasn’t turned on the water to the barn yet either so there is no way to wash off mucky feet. The new place has well drained pens and gravel walkways. I was able to get my horse in my paddock boots and not get them mucky at all vs. needing to wear my waders.

2. The people. Sure there are the one or two competitive types but I like those people and respect them. I let them do their thing and just concentrate on myself. I haven’t heard any back biting or negative comments and mostly the barn is made up of eventers who seem to be a more practical lot and are the type of people I grew up around.

3. There are always people there. This may get old eventually but I ride by myself about 90% of the time right now and it gets REALLY old. A huge part of why I wanted to board, vs. keeping my horse on my own property, is so that I can be around other horse people and I will finally have that opportunity.

End of March Analysis

                March Goals - Review

1. Move to new facility (me and Katai) – I am so ready to move and get going with our new life of lessons and progress!

Nada. It was completely out of our control thanks to the horrible EHV-1 outbreak. Hopefully there will be no more cases.

2. Continue to take lessons  (me) – I will be taking weekly lessons on the lessons horses available until I move Katai.

No, but pretty close and again out of my control. I missed one lesson last week due to a freak blizzard/loaner car that evening and this week I'm not able to because of this vacation. 

3. Work on consistency (Katai) – This is a huge one! I have the rest of the month to work with Katai and based on this move I have changed some of my goals. 

Yes!! So far any way. I haven't been able to test it at the new barn yet but I've been riding consistently and Katai had been improving in leaps and bounds. Her groundwork and patience have gotten that much better as well.

4. Strength (me and Katai)– 

Yes! I've been riding more consistently and Katai feels stronger and wants to GO. I've also made it out running a few times with the nicer weather and have done a better job at doing core strengthening exercises in the evening. Riding is mostly (pony trots require A LOT of posting) feeling better and less tiring.

5. Desensitization (or whatever you’d like to call it) (Katai)– Katai is going to have fairly different things expected of her at the new place. 

Pretty much. I haven't been able to test it out at the new place yet but we did a few days of trailer refresher classes as well as lots of clipper work. I was planning on not actually clipping her body this spring but now with the extra week and temps getting warmer by the day I think I am going to try to get her at least hunt clipped.

Now, after rehashing how the last month went, I think that I'm going to start doing what Tracy at Fly On Over does and set yearly goals with quarterly (or possibly even monthly) reviews. I tend to think more big picture and enjoy striving for more, big, long term goals over a longer period of time rather than breaking them down. With that being said I'm not going to go ahead and set them up now, instead, I'm going to wait until after my first lesson with J. I won't change long term goals based on one lesson but I will change and adjust goals based on what she says about the two of us based on what that is.

I am really nervous about how that first lesson will go. I am EXTREMELY proud of how much I have accomplished with training Katai. She is now a confident, strong, fun to ride, easygoing, forward, bold horse which was nowhere near the case when I got her and that's not even mentioning specific behaviors. However, I have never had a lesson on a horse that I trained completely on my own and it's been a REALLY long time since I had a lesson on one of my horses. Katai is my long term, forever horse that I've been looking for for so long so I WILL butt heads with J if she doesn't think she has any talent or if she tries to get me to sell her. I have seen nothing that would suggest that from the horses and riders that take lessons from her so far but I'm really a great worrier and with all this extra time to think about it I've had too much time to think of bad scenarios.

I have talked with J briefly about saddles and saddle fit and she is very opinionated (a good thing) and wants to talk to me and see Katai before I do any shopping. I know for certain that Katai's saddle is slightly too long for her back as well as too wide but without going custom I'm not sure how to find a better fit. I would be so extremely happy to hand that worry and stress off to an expert and just buy and ride in what I'm told. That could be said for a lot of things. I am really ready to hand over the reins (figuratively, not literally in this case) to someone who is an expert and not keep myself up at night researching things because I don't have an expert to ask.

I'm ready to stop being the trainer and just be the rider and yes, I realize there is still training involved ;)  

Outbreak

Recently, first reported case occurred on 3/7/14, there has been an outbreak in my general area of EHV-1. This seems to have started in the barrel racing circuit and so far has been confined to four horses with three euthanized and one in recovery. I am extremely sad for those who lost their horses and very, very thankful for my current, and future, barn owners’ careful management of their facilities. Vets in the area are starting to be optimistic that the worst of the outbreak is over but are still cautioning against traveling with horses.

For a little while it looked like this might delay plans to move Katai to the new barn as the new barn owner/manager and I were concerned about me moving in during this outbreak. Since the worst of it is now over the barn owner has said that she is ok with it as long as we haven’t had any horses recently move to my current barn, which we haven’t for almost a month now, and as long as I take Katai’s temperature the day that I’m moving her and it is within the normal range. We’ve been monitoring everything for the past week and I’ve continued to keep an eye on Katai’s herd and everything seems to be fine.

Here’s to hoping that no more EHV-1 cases occur.