Coming off of a long weekend is always tough. You feel a little foggy and not quite yourself. It takes a moment to settle back into your weekday routine and focus on things that need doing.

This weekend was full of activity after a lot of rain the week before. On Saturday, Deanna came by to give me a riding lesson. She noted how much Kiss’s balance had improved and we worked on setting her up for success. One of the main things we focused on was ensuring the half halt went through. A lot of the time, it’s hard for Kiss to slow her trot and get re-balanced on the downhill slopes of the arena. The half halts become sort of quarter halts, as she doesn’t slow down much, if at all. Instead of letting her run through my half halts, Deanna suggested slowing to a walk or even a full halt, and then backing up – THEN restarting the trot, to very clearly and deliberately communicate the fact that we should be slowing down, as well as help her balance herself. We did that for several circles and then maintained the trot with only the half halt, and this allowed her to anticipate slowing down, so my half halt would be heeded. In the end, we got some good moments and I was happy with where we landed.

That day, I left Kiss with her new fly sheet on, fully kitted up with her boots and mask as well (SOME people are super sensitive to flies, I guess). Her old sheet had been rubbing her withers and mane, so I found a nice, new one that was supposed to accommodate high-withered, big shouldered individuals. Later that evening, I got a text from Bevin, saying that Kiss had exploded her sheet and had been found trotting around with her fly mask all cattywampus on her face. The sheet was completely destroyed. So much for trying to be accommodating, I guess.

The next day, I pulled Kiss out to do some light work and noticed as I started to lunge her that her chest was a little extra “jiggly.” Hey, wait a minute – horses don’t have BOOBS! I took a closer look and it appeared that one side of the front of her chest was swollen and had a couple of scrapes on the front of it. I showed it to a couple of barn friends and the majority thought it looked like some kind of insect sting. However, she did have the struggle with her sheet, so it was kind of a “chicken or egg?” situation. Did the blanket come off because of a sting or was the bump a result of her trying to pull a “Kiss Kent to Supermare” transformation? Either way, I had a horse with a small injury, yet again. Good job, mare.

People who don’t have horses really don’t realize how much they hurt themselves on a regular basis. I have a ridiculously stocked first aid kit for this explicit purpose, although I do hope that I won’t ever have to use the stuff in any sort of serious way. The problem with a chest injury is that there isn’t really all that much you can do, except to hose it down with cool water and watch it to see if it goes down.

By Monday, it had gone down a tiny bit, but not enough to warrant doing any activity, so Kiss had yet another day to be a pasture puff. I ended up riding Sully, who is a big, black APHA gelding. He was handed over to Bevin from a local hunter-jumper lesson program. Initially, they had told her that he was a roarer. Roaring occurs when there is a partial paralysis in the nerves controlling the upper airways, so the horse will make a roaring sound and will often have a diminished airflow issue, particularly with higher levels of activity. It is more common in longer-necked breeds, for some reason, but often you’ll see it in racehorses.

Sully came to the barn in October, very overweight and very shut down. He was sort of indifferent toward people and not very animated. He also could barely breathe at the trot when Bevin got him out on the lunge line. Over the winter and spring, he received better feeding, regular turnout, and light lunging and riding. I have to say, today he is a completely different horse. He is VERY engaged and friendly with people – almost to the point of being annoying with his constant begging for treats. His weight has come way down, and his roaring as almost non-existent at the trot. I was trotting him yesterday and, while he coughed a few times initially each direction, his breath was barely audible.

Horses like Sully get dumped onto the auction circuit on a regular basis, and often, when they’re in the shape that he was in when he first arrived at our barn, they end up in the kill pens. All things considered, this is a VERY nice horse. He is level headed, friendly, willing, and as a 16.2-hand, black, QH type, he’s really nice to look at. And, yet, he very easily could have been thrown away, had someone not recognized his potential. He’s the kind of horse that would make a great forever family horse. He has his quirks, but nothing dangerous or overtly challenging. I know Bevin will keep him until the perfect situation would come along, but it just goes to show how easy it is for fantastic horses to end up going to slaughter.

But, back off my soapbox for now…I’ll probably ride the Sullster again this afternoon, unless Kiss’s “boob” drastically reduces its cup size. Even then, maybe we’ll go for a little spin around the arena anyway. We can both always use the extra work.