The Lameness Chronicles, part 1

So here we are, things have improved. Horse is doing much better, less rebellion. Life is good. And then suddenly one day, Sammy is noticeably off at the trot. Uh-oh. No big. Wait it out, maybe he pulled something. Nope, still off and it's a month or so later. By now, I have been married a couple of years and Dear Hubby has a truck. I talk to New Barn Owner, who, after 6 years of being at her place has now had her name changed to just Barn Owner, happens to have a small, stock-style 3 horse bumper pull trailer. I ask her who she recommends for mysterious lameness, and she tells me Anoka Equine. So we borrow her trailer, stuff Sammy into it, not without some trepidation, and head off across town.

About an hour later, we pull in. Sammy, having whinnied at every single stop along the way, causing head turning everywhere we went, has worked himself into a lather. I also notice that he is a bit tall for the trailer, his ears are smooshed as he stands with his head at normal height. Oops.

We get him off the trailer without incident and the vet techs take over. They longe him (and he actually does it, yay for me and my training!!), agree with me that there is definite off-ness, so we head into the actual clinic barn. He stands very well for heel nerve blocks and the big garage door going down. Very impressed with him. Unfortunately, he trots sound with a heel block, so we know it's a hoof issue. Dang it! Arthritis? Navicular? Founder? Worse? Is there worse? My mind races as they set up the X-ray. I go into the tech room with the vet as he looks at the radiographs. Not any of the above. Horse has a toe that's a smidge too long. Take his toe back an inch or so, slap some front shoes on him for a few months to support the heel and he should be fine. Oh and find a new farrier, this one is leaving him too long.

Sammy, while sedated, positions himself directly over the grate in the middle of the floor and lets loose a really good pee. I have a good chuckle over that and head in to the office to pay the bill. Best news yet, it's just under $200. This is great! No long term issues and a cheap vet bill, hooray!

We get him home and all is well. He pulls off the first set of shoes in a day, the second set in a couple of days. We add bell boots and things go better. I find a new farrier who is great. Sammy is finally back to normal.

The winter passes, spring comes around again. Suddenly, we are out to the barn and Sammy is uber lame, like holding one front leg in the air lame. Not Good!! We throw him in a stall overnight, which he hates and I call the vet out the next day. Vet comes out with a less than stellar bedside manner, punches Sammy in the belly for "kicking" at him and then after several goes with the hoof testers, declares it an abscess and charges me somewhere in the neighborhood of $100. I am somewhat skeptical on the abscess thing, but he tells me if I leave Sammy in for the day and overnight and it gets worse, it's an abscess. Sammy goes back in the stall.

Next morning, I go out to the barn and Sammy is in a sweat in the barn. It's pretty chilly out yet, so I throw a cooler on him and walk him around. He is no longer 3-legged lame, so it seems to me he has improved=not abscess. I figure he is smart enough to not hurt himself, so I throw him back out in the pasture. He stresses less out there anyway. A few weeks later, there is an obvious abscess blowout at the top of his hoof.

Fast forward a few months and the blowout has grown down about halfway. A crack started at the bottom and worked it's way up to the blowout. So now he has what looks like a cloven hoof. The new farrier is concerned about Sammy breaking off chunks of toe, so he throws front shoes on him again. This time, they are attached well, and they stay put for the duration. Did I mention I am VERY happy with this farrier?



We got him past this ugliness and all seemed great. Until October, 2007. See part 2 for exciting continuing saga :)

Real Training

Do you ever feel like life moves along way too fast? I can't believe I am still working on telling you this part of Sammy's story. His real training was 10 years ago! Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to update the blog. Eventually, we will get caught up to today.

Sammy was at Big Name Barn for just 2 months. While he was there, he learned how to be "civilized". He learned how to be in a barn, how to take a bit in his mouth, and how to move off leg. No more whacks on the butt with the leadrope. He was round pen trained and learned to be very light on the lead. I appreciated the training, but I didn't always appreciate Big Name Barn.

We had some negative experiences there. When I first dropped him off, I had no idea what I was getting into. I knew this was a big barn with a big reputation. I was young and ignorant. Right out of college, but with no idea about real life.

The day after I dropped Sammy off, I came back to the barn to watch his first training session. I was very excited to see how he would do. When I got there, he was already in the roundpen, looking very nervous. There were a few spectators watching the action. I wasn't sure what had happened so far, but I immediately noticed he had a cut over each eye. What the heck?

"What happened to his face?" I asked the trainer. "We were going to ask you the same thing," was the response. Uh, say what??!?

"He didn't look like that when I dropped him off yesterday." All the spectators just looked at me. Clearly, they didn't believe me. I could tell we were off to a rocky start.

Then there was the cleanliness issue. Sammy was a "training" horse, as opposed to a regular boarder. This meant he had to share a stall. My poor boy who had never seen the inside of a building in his life now had to be in a tiny stall with a sloping ceiling all day and then be outside all night. Another horse was in the stall all night. So it never dried out. Ever. It reeked in that stall. Ammonia. Oh, and I figured out what caused the cuts over his eyes. It was caused by the bail on his feed bucket. When he put his head into the bucket to eat, that wire bail rubbed the spot over his eyes raw. I could just imagine his first frantic day locked in that stall, nervously shoving his head into the feed pail again and again.

Then there were the paddocks, for Sammy his overnight place. No shelter and up to the fetlocks in mud if it rained. Sometimes there was no water in the giant stock tank. Luckily I was out almost every day, so I was able to fill his water up. And yet I stayed. This place had a great reputation, so what did I know, right?

Then there was the day I decided to play with Sammy in his paddock. I had watched a few roundpen sessions by now, so I thought I'd play with him and get him to move away and change directions like I had seen the trainer do. He was going at a nice trot around the paddock for me when a voice called out to me.

"What are you doing?"

I turned to see the trainer.

"I'm just playing with him," I said back. The trainer was on another of his horses in training. Clearly heading out for a ride out, which he told me he was going to do with Sammy.

"Well don't, you're going to confuse him." He turned the horse and rode off toward the driveway.

Properly chastised, I made sure not to do any kind of work with Sammy. I sat in his paddock and brushed him in the evenings or led him around the indoor arena at a walk in the daytime. No more playing. No more roundpenning. Until I took a lesson or 2 on him. That was the rule.

I took my first lesson on Sammy and it was great! He walked, trotted, cantered, and stopped . . . on his head. It was ok, he was learning and was still unbalanced. It's pretty common for a young horse to stop heavy on the forehand. I wasn't worried about that, I was riding my horse. Finally!!

We participated in a clinic at the Big Name Barn on the Barn Owner's suggestion. My Saddlebred, very green, was in the arena with all those quarter horses. And he is Mr. ADD. Chink, chink, chink, chink he was constantly fidgeting with the bit. Dance around, chink some more. The Barn Owner tried to give more directions to the people in the clinic. Ask your horse to lower his head and then have him walk across the arena like that. Did I mention Sammy is a Saddlebred? Did I mention he is very high headed. When standing with his head up, he measures 7' tall at the ear tips. His neck comes straight up out of his withers. He doesn't "do" head-on-the-ground. Sorry, he doesn't.

Barn Owner wasn't happy with Mr. Antsy Pants and his constant bit chinking. He asked me to get down and give my horse over. So I did. Again, young and ignorant. Barn Owner proceeded to pull on the reins and so Sammy, being sensitive (did I mention he's a Saddlebred?), put his face behind the vertical to escape the pressure. Barn Owner gets mad the he is going behind the vertical, so he proceeds to kick, kick kick while still hauling on the reins until Sammy at last sticks his nose out. Well, that was a good lesson (note sarcasm). He gives me my now completely frustrated and hyped up horse to ride back to the barn. Surprisingly enough, he held it together enough to ride back down to the barn.

The last straw was when I went out to Big Name Barn to ride. Sammy had been there about 2 months, but only had 45 days of training. He had started to be very difficult to bridle and the trainer claimed he didn't know why. I got out there that day and managed to get the bridle on him. I led him out to the arena and got on, but he seemed very dull. Not his usual sassy self. He walked at a slow plod. I asked him to trot and nothing happened. I insisted and he broke into a shuffling trot for a couplpe of steps and then quit. Something was obviously wrong. I jumped off and took a closer look at him. His eyes seemed dull and he was just listless. I noticed some funny streaks on his legs and realized they were dried snot. Sammy was sick! He had been having thick nasal discharge and wiping it on his knees. Poor baby!

I brought him back into the barn and started untacking him. Just then his trainer walked by.

"He seems like he is sick," I said.
"Yeah, I noticed he's been really sick the last couple of days," was his response.

Say what?? No one ever told me? No one ever called a vet? That was it. There were days I watched the barn crew hitting horses as they brought them in, days my horse had no water. The farrier disliked Sammy just because he was a Saddlebred. The barn princesses stuck their noses up in the air everytime I walked by them. The barn was smelly and unkempt. The paddocks were gross. So many people and horses were coming and going that I had no idea who was supposed to be there and who wasn't. There were rumors of people just showing up there and riding horses or stealing tack. I finally woke up to the fact that Big Name Barn may have a good reputation, but reality was something slightly different. It was time to move on.

Time to find a new place . . .

Just work with me here!

(Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. Yikes! )

So Sammy knew how to shake hands, we were doing good. The next step was going to have to be some real training. How does one train a young horse in a large herd of horses? Good question. Even better question, how does one train a young horse at all? Haha, I had a feeling I was about to find out.

First thing was first. I put a halter on him. Good start. Then I clipped a leadrope on. No problem. Now to walk. Hmm . . . now to walk. H'mmm . . . c'mon walk, dangit! I pulled and he leaned. Not working so well. Treat out in hand, Sammy walks right up to me. Ok, now we're getting somewhere.

I wanted to walk him to a little enclosure made of panels in the pasture. I figured it would be easier to work him in a separate area, away from the other nosy horses. The "roundpen" of sorts was a long way away. Like 100 yards. How on earth was I going to coax Sammy down there? One treat and pat at a time, that's how.

Actually, he followed me fairly willingly. I was amazed. We would stall out once in awhile, but eventually we got there. I led him through the gate and closed it behind us. Yay, captive audience!

I took the lead off of him and then swung it at him to get him to move out. Wow, he could trot! Tail up, breaking level in the front. Who knew this sweet, sleepy horse could move so pretty? He was gorgeous. And then all the other horses got excited and they started to run. They ran past the pen . . . and out of sight. Oh crap.

Sammy took one look and was like, "what? I'm alone?? I've never been alone!!!!" He moved faster and prettier, but now I was getting nervous. After all, I knew I had no clue what I was doing. I got him calmed down enough to walk him to the gate and out. Then I let him go. Whew!

It went like that for a few months. He turned 4 and I continued to work with him in between hanging out with Ms. Saddlebred Breeder and helping to do random chores. We went riding another time or two. I went home for the summer and came back, excited to see the new babies. I gave them all nicknames and we laughed over their different personalities.

One day I asked her if she thought I could sit on Sammy. Could he carry me, was he grown enough. She looked at my 110 pound frame and then looked at him.

"Sure, he could carry you."

I was excited and very nervous at the same time. I put his halter on and clipped on the leadrope. I led him over to her truck bumper, stood on it, leaned across him and then threw my leg over. He stood like a champ. Oh wow, I was sitting on my horse!

He wandered toward the other horses, and I just sat there. I let him wander, and he carried me. He was ok with it. I was thrilled. I had no idea what the next step was, but what the heck, I was riding!

We continued like that for a few months. Then I clipped a second leadrope to his halter and tried steering him. He seemed very dull to leg and very dull to the "reins" too. He didn't understand "go forward" signals with the heels. So I would wait until he started walking and then ask. He started to connect it, but slowly. I found I could walk him toward the other horses, but not very easily away from them. I put him in the "roundpen" and rode him around in there. It went better, but still, it was shaky.

One day, I got the bright idea to take him out of the fence. I threw my old western saddle on him and put a couple of leads on his halter. I got on him and he felt like a coiled spring. Uh-oh . . .

I nudged him with my heels to walk a little way down the road. Along the pasture fence, but away from the herd. He took a couple of hesitant steps, head up and very alert. He was making me nervous with his quivery tension. I coaxed him slowly down the road, just a few yards. Then I turned him around and he very eagerly headed back toward the fence. He even broke into a trot, which was scary and sort of exciting at the same time. Then I thought, "What if he bucks like his mom did?" Yikes!

We got safely back to the fence and then I led him back through. We never tried that again. But from there, I did start trying to get him to trot more often. I went to a Parelli demo and learned that applying a leadrope to the butt can get forward out of a horse. So I would whack him on the butt along with using my heels. He started getting it more, "oh, that means walk forward!"

If I wanted him to trot, I would ride him away from the herd and then turn him back around and whack him on the butt with the lead. Wow, sopisticated training methods!

And yet, despite this unorthodox training, he continued to like me. I still got those cute ears and that sweet face turned toward me when I called his name. How cute was that?

I progressed through college and then spent my last semester in Guatemala. When I got home and graduated, I got my first "real" job. Now, I had money to find a "real" trainer.

Ms. Saddlebred Breeder helped me load him into the trailer for the 25 minute ride to the Big Name Barn where I was putting him in training. I followed the trailer in my car. We took lots of back roads, but I could see he was nervous in the trailer. He had never been off that property. 6 years old, and he had been bred, born and raised right there in that herd. I was nervous for him. What would he do when he got there? How would he handle being in a stall? He had never been in a stall. What if we get him there and I can't lead him? What if he freaks out? I've done all the training on him and I don't know what I'm doing . . .

We got there safely. I went around the back of the trailer with my leadrope. I stepped up into the trailer, and there was Sammy, wide-eyed and nervous. I took a few deeps breaths, clipped on the lead, and opened the door wide. He jumped down from the trailer, took one look around and whinnied at the top of his lungs. Oh boy. More deep breaths. I started to walk and he didn't walk with me. His head was up, he was on full alert. I tugged at the leadrope, and his attention came back to me a little. I started walking and he followed me!

I led him to a paddock and walked him through the gate. He was doing it, almost like he had had real training! I shut the gate, threw him some hay. Gave him a hug. And then walked away. My baby was growing up. Time for real training!

Shake, Sammy, Shake

I looked at the bay gelding. He was mine. But now what to call him? I regarded him and he regarded me.



"Is your name Simon?" He pricked up his ears.



"No, not Simon . . . hmmm . . . Sammy?" He walked right up to me. Sammy it was.



So now I had a nearly 4 year old Saddlebred named Sammy. I had never trained a horse before, but I had read lots of books. In the book Pounding Hooves, the main character starts out to befriend the unbroke mare Storm by teaching her to shake hands. It was a bonding exercise that taught the mare to trust her. I looked at Sammy and thought, why not?



I bent over, grabbed his left front leg just below the knee and pulled forward and up. "Shake, Sammy, shake!" Up came the hoof and I gave him a treat. Again and again, I asked him. In less than 30 minutes, he was lifting his foot off the ground and offering it to me on nothing more than the command "Shake!". So far so good.

I would walk around the pasture and he would follow me. Coming over to say "hi" while I worked, and then wandering away when he found my work to be boring. Already establishing himself as what I would later call "the ADD poster child", he was always looking for things to get into and snooping. He was willing to hang out with me as long as I was walking around and active, but as soon as I was standing still, pulling burrs out of a horse's tail or bagging shavings, he was outta there.



Every now and again, I would walk away from my work and go over to where he was grazing. Always, he would look up when he saw me coming, ears pricked up with that super cute expression on his face, never taking a step toward me. He would watch me coming with a "hi there, nice to see you" look, but no mistake, I was the one doing all the work of walking over.



I would lean over and say, "Shake, Sammy, shake!" and up would pop the hoof for a treat. Then one day, not so very far into our relationship, I turned around to walk away and felt a nudge in the butt. Lightning fast, I whipped around and there he was with that cute look on his face. "I'm so innocent, I'm so cute." And then the hoof came up again and kinda pawed out. "Where's my treat, Lady?" Uh oh, I had created a monster. He pawed again, a little ruder this time. Hmm . . . he had learned the trick a little too well.



"No, Sammy," I scolded. "Cut it out." I learned how quickly Sammy could become obnoxious for a treat.



From then on, I asked him to do his trick only for a good word of praise and a pat. He learned to do it only when I asked. Telling him, "Good boy!" began to bring out a goofy side in him. I was learning that praise went a long way with Sammy, but that praise would make him so pleased with himself, that he would do something naughty, like grab the zipper on my jacket in his mouth or pick up a brush and chew on it. I could almost hear him saying, "I'm a good boy, I'm a good boy."



Time to work with him on a halter and lead and teach him some manners. . .

"Maybe you should buy him"

I looked at the little bay gelding standing there. He was so cute and just looked so sweet and innocent. Even a little sleepy.

"How old is he?"

"Well, let's see . . . he was born in 1994, so he is going to be 4 in a few months. You should buy him."

His sweet, sleepy face was just so kissable, but there was no way I could buy a horse. I was attending a Christian college on a combination of my dimes and whatever financial aid I was able to scare up each year. I was a sophomore, so looking at 2 more years of tuition payments and not a lot of good steady income. A horse was the last thing I could afford to buy. Yet I missed having horses around.

That was why I started hanging around Ms Saddlebred Breeder. She welcomed the assistance, and I welcomed the horses. They were close enough to my school that I could walk there, which was significant as I didn't have a car. I just walked over one day when she was out there and told her I just wanted to be around the horses. I would do anything, groom or pick poop or whatever. I didn't need to ride. I just wanted to breathe them in and sit and stare at them and groom. You horse nuts out there know exactly what I'm talking about.

I would walk out to the pasture and climb up on a roundbale and sit there for hours, learning their herd dynamics and just watching them play gelding games. I would go out after a hard day of finals and pick burrs out of their long gorgeous manes and tails and then groom them up to a beautiful shine. After those clubs of burrs were transformed back into Saddlebred tails, they would flag those tails and prance around, as if they knew how beautiful they were.

Sometimes, I would do a "scary walk" and turn them into fiery, snorting show horses, tails up over their backs and knees coming level with their chests as Ms Saddlebred Breeder frantically snapped photos or took video for sales.

Sometimes, I would pick up twine in the pasture, left over from roundbales and squares. Sometimes, I would shovel shavings into bags or help load horses in the trailer or sort and move horses from one group to the other. Sometimes we would clear brush or cut down those ever present and oh-so-nasty burdock plants, to be burned on a brushpile at the end of a long, hot day of work.

Once in awhile, I was a human sandbag, thrown up onto this or that 3 or 4 year old's back "just to see what he would do" with a rider, while Ms Saddlebred Breeder would lead the horse around, giving the calming influence to the young horse, and I stayed as quiet as I could. Surprisingly enough, it always went fine.

Once in a great while, when we weren't too busy, she would ask me if I wanted to saddle up and go for a ride.

And we would.

Seems like that's when all the really interesting stuff happened.

Like the time she and I went riding and I was on Breezy, Sammy's mom. She was a beautiful 3/4 Saddlebred, 1/4 Arab mare. Bay, greenbroke, snort and blow to spare. We set off out of the pasture and headed to the railroad bridge over the interstate. Her horse hesitated, but Breezy stepped out confidently and led the way across. She had never been out that way, but went along so well, I let my guard down and relaxed.

As we entered the city park, we went past bikers and joggers, and Breezy started to snort a little. Then Baron broke into a canter and Breezy did too. For 2 strides. Her head went down, her back humped up. She dodge right, I went left. She dodged left, I went right. Saddle horn to the left thigh and I was on the ground on my back before I knew what was happening. I sat up and Breezy was hightailing (literally) her beautiful self all the way back to the pasture. Ms Saddlebred Breeder turned around. Saw me on the ground, assessed the situation, and took off after her with Baron, calling over her shoulder, "I'll come back with the car."

I got up and started to walk toward the front of the park. Helpful joggers pointed me in the direction that Breezy had taken, I found myself wondering how they knew I was the one that belonged to the running horse. Shortly, Ms Saddlebred Breeder showed up with her car.

"I can't believe it," she exclaimed, "Somehow she knew enough to go back over that bridge. I thought for sure she'd have run across the 8 lane interstate. Good thing she didn't!" Man were her horses smart!

Those horses had the best upbringing, to my way of thinking. They were basically allowed to live in a natural herd setting. Stallion, mares, babies, and geldings running together. Learning things by testing them out. She would park her horse trailer in the pasture and from the time they were babies, they would just jump in the trailer. It was a safe place and they were allowed to venture in and out at will, so loading was never really a problem. Lead the horses up and walk in, and they almost always would just follow you.

So here I was, lots of horse time, but not one of my own. Which, as I said, was ok. A college student has no money and sometimes even less time. With no car, where would I have been able to take him for training? Where would I have boarded? As close as the city was all around her pasture, there was little room for riding and less for working a young horse. And what did I know about training?

So there I stood, staring at this cute 3-1/2 year old Saddlebred gelding.

"How much would you want for him?"

"You could work him off."

"How many hours would you want for him?"

"You know what? Just keep doing what you're doing. He's yours."
I was dumbfounded.

To be continued . . .