Moving

I was hoping to have more photos but alas, I’m bad at remembering to take them.
 Instead we’ll do a photo tour of previous barns starting with J's Barn

These have stopped being exciting adventures at this point and are more like slightly annoying necessities lol. With that being said, I have been trying have the mindset of using this move to continue to prep for trailering to shows or as traveling practice in general. I actually talked about it with my therapist and she gave me some homework as far as keeping my anxiety low. She also reminded me that something that’s super scary for both of us like trailering is not the place to focus on others and instead to ask for what we need and focus on our relationship. While my therapist isn’t a horse person it was EXACTLY what I needed to hear and continues right along with the theme of really focusing on the relationship and trust that Katai and I have built.

Temporary "escape from J's barn" barn

A lot of the anxiety with moving Katai comes from knowing that she’s not always a great loader and then feeling embarrassed and guilty that she isn’t better. In all honesty I work hard on it and try to utilize resources (such as others offering to let me practice loading her) whenever I can. This summer alone I practiced in two different trailers, one a few different days, and we made some progress. I also really hate feeling judged. As I told my therapist horse people can be extra judgy and part of why I moved was that the people at my previous barn were super extra special judgy which definitely increase my anxiety about everything including getting her loaded.

Crazy people barn

That morning I actually was managing to keep my anxiety low on the drive to the barn. I was working through some of the homework I had from my therapist specifically for pony moving. When I got to the barn though I saw that two of the judgiest people (and most forceful handlers) were there and got scared. One of the two (miss nosy) was the person who was bullying me when I first moved in. We have an understanding but I still don’t trust her to help or handle my pony at all and knew that she’d try to insert herself in getting Katai loaded. She had also seen me doing trailer practice with Katai on a day when I’d neglected to use a lunge line and, because of that, Katai got free and spooked her horse. I felt super bad about it but horses will be horses and humans will be humans and it was extra unfortunate since that literally hasn’t happened since I first got my pony and of course that was the horse that she spooked *headdesk*. I apologized to her that day but she didn’t handle it very well.

Lovely barn, I only moved because it got too expensive for my living situation at the time

Anyway, on Sunday I was at the barn early so I picked up the last few things. After a while the new barn owner, who we’ll call M, showed up with the trailer and I was relieved to see that it was fully open in the back and had a ramp since I knew that both things would help Katai load quickly. I ignored miss nosy inserting herself into the conversation and walked up to M and let her know how she could help which was basically to stand off to the side, wait for me to walk Katai in, and then hold the doors shut so that I could fasten her up. M looked doubtful and my stomach churned but she heard me. I went and got Katai and led her back to the trailer and could tell that as I walked up miss nosy had been telling M what an awful loader Katai was. I marched right up into the trailer, Katai followed, pulled back once, and then walked right on and turned around. She proceeded to stand fairly quietly next to me while M pushed the doors shut. I tied her up, fastened the slant, and then walked out of the trailer. The whole thing took less than 3 minutes and miss nosy was nowhere to be seen when I walked out of the trailer.

Jane's barn <3

M locked up the trailer, I hopped in my car and we had an uneventful trip to the barn. Very nicely M asked me if I needed anything when I went to unload her. We basically reversed the process, Katai unloaded nicely, and then we walked her to the pasture and let her go to start introducing herself. The whole thing including drive time took no more than 35 minutes and was another good experience to include in the growing list of positive travel experiences.

Weird barn, rough trainer, extra long commute

I like M so far. She hung out watching the herd go through the initial integration for about 15 minutes even though it was raining. We chatted but also she was keeping a careful eye on everything and was ready to break up any fights that occurred if needed. There were definitely a few scuffles which I was surprised to see. Katai has definitely matured and seems to have decided that she needs to be top mare which is so weird since I’m used to her being bottom of the pack. We eventually decided that they were quiet enough and she gave me a tour and I got to know M and the rules a little more. I like her combination of no nonsense but also no superfluous rules and can tell that it’s all about trust which I like since I know my stuff and hate being micromanaged (looking at you previous barn). I got my stuff unloaded into a beautiful and luxurious feeling open sort of tack locker/compartment in the room for the pasture boarders. I really like the setup! I’m looking forward to eventually moving Katai into a stall but I’m certainly going to be spoiled even with pasture board. The barn is set up really nice and feels cozy and like home again which is so super nice.

I’m planning to go out tonight and do my first lunge or ride with Katai even though it’s a Monday. Worst case scenario we’ll just do ground work and get her used to the new facility, best case scenario we’ll do a nice ride in the indoor. I’d like to do groundwork outside but it’s supposed to be raining out and it’s only in the 50s-60s this week so I’d rather not get that cold and wet. I can’t believe it’s almost blanket season again!

Current barn, defending herself from the other frisky mares :)

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!!

Timeline

2012

Boarding Katai where I was renting in Northern WI.

 

 

Baby's first ride

2013

Moved Katai to her first boarding facility which was a pasture share with one other aged gelding.

Driving the trailer all by myself for the second time!

 

 

Fall 2013

Moved Katai to a facility with a covered arena so that I could ride during the winter. This is where she really became broke to ride. Any previous rides I had done lasted about 5 minutes at the longest and only consisted of walk.

 

 

Spring 2014

I moved Katai to a barn with a dressage instructor and a nicer indoor with MUCH better footing. Plus I was worried because Katai had lost a lot of weight at the previous barn which you can see from one of the photos. If it hadn't been for J I would have continued to board here and still really miss most of the people.

 

 

 

 

The above video is not indicative of how Katai had been going in lessons. This was after 1.5 months off lessons where all I did was ride her long and low. She was doing well unless I put any pressure on her and then she would go into full on panic/fight/flight mode.

 

Winter 2014

I moved Katai to a temporary barn because I had started to realize how brutal J's training techniques were and wasn't having fun anymore. Plus, Katai had started rearing and was moving worse and worse.

 

 

Spring 2015

I moved Katai to an amazing facility with at least three good dressage instructors and found L who has been the best for both Katai and I. Starting here I feel like we actually started to make progress!

 

Fall 2015

Unfortunately the owners turned out to be crazy so when I found that L's regular barn had an opening I jumped a it and moved for our final time.

 

Blair Witch Project pony doesn't like to have her fugly clip photographed. More photos soon!