spiritjournal15

3-3-01 God, it's been a long month. Glad February is over. I finally got out to the barn today, and wound up spending about 6 hours with my ponies :-) I was able to ride Springer and Shaman, and got a bit done with Spirit. She was pretty flighty the whole time, but really good considering how long it's been. First, I brought her into Springer's run and groomed her. She's amazingly slicked out already. Wow. She looks awesome. The right hind was kind of a chore--I might just have Tim do her fronts when he's out next week. We'll see if I can get out to the barn between now and then. After I finished grooming her, I wormed her and gave her her grain. When she was finished, I took her for a walk around the pasture. We practiced go, stop, turns both directions. When I asked her for a trot, she freaked out and hit the end of her rope in panic mode. For the FIRST time, she did NOT keep running and jerk the rope out of my hand. She was still panicked, and dancing at the end of the 10 ft rope, but she didn't go any farther than that. Yay! I got her calmed down, and longed her for a few circles, till she understood trotting was okay. (Or whatever it was that set her off) I asked her to trot in hand, she did, I gave her lots of praise and let her go. Since she hasn't been worked in forever, I wanted to keep it low key and easy. She was a good girl :-)

I've had her for over a year now. That seems so strange. I can hardly believe my original plan was to buy her, break her, and sell her as an event horse at the end of LAST summer. Ha--according to my journal, on this day last year, I was happy to have gotten the glue from her butt tag off. It seems bizarre now to remember just how afraid she was.

3-7-01 The farrier came out today. I just had him do Spirit's fronts, since I haven't worked her in just about forever. She was a pretty good girl for the whole thing. Less flightly than I'd expect, actually, considering how little she's been handled lately. She was drugged, and that always helps :-) Took some sleepy pony pictures today. They'll be up here when I get the film developed. The vet's coming out on the 14th for teeth and shots and coggins. New vet, since I'm still in Parker. We'll see how it goes.

3-12-01 Just pictures. I'd come up to the pasture and caught all three of mine sunning themsleves. By the time I came back with the camera, Springer had gotten up, but the girls were still on the ground. This is the first time Spirit's ever been relaxed (or sleepy, I guess ;-) enough to stay down in my presence. Kinda cool.

The bay horse in the third picture isn't Springer, although it looks kinda like him. The bay is Bluex, Carol's horse. Shaman likes him, and Spirit goes wherever Shaman goes.

The last pony on the right isn't mine, but kept following me around when I was trying to finish off this roll. His name is Maverick or Magnum or something like that. He's supposed to be an endurance horse, but I've never actually seen anyone ride him. He's a sweetheart, though.

3-14-01 Vet day. Spirit (and the other two) got their teeth floated, vaccines, and coggins pulled. Spirit was awesome. We tranq'd her deep first, and then did all the other injections and teeth and stuff. Her teeth were moderatly sharp, but not bad. The vet used a electric float...something I'd never seen before. She was okay with that, but got pretty buggy-eyed when she heard it start up for the first time. She had been waiting in a stall over when we did Shaman, so at least she got some time to adjust to the noise before it was her turn. The vet has to come back out to do the IN stangles (they don't carry that with them, apparently. I hadn't even thought about it) so we'll she how she does with a little tube stuck up her nose when she's awake. In all, a good day. I was really happy with how well Spirit did :-)

3-15-01 Vet came back today for the IN stangles. Spirit did fabulously. Didn't fight it at all. It was horribly windy, so I didn't stay to do anything else. But when I went to go lead her out of Springer's stall, she freaked out in the pasture (before I had let her go) and ran off, trailing her lead rope. I think it was a combination of the wind and Springer standing nearby, giving her dirty looks. I went and caught her, worked her in the round pen for about 5 minutes on leading skills, then did the same outside the round pen. Didn't have any other problems, so I let her go and got the hell out of the wind. I hate wind.

I also talked to the vet about breeding her, and got some good info. I learned it's no big deal to have to sedate for palpating and ultrasounding. He said we could palpate/ultrasound once in the March/April time frame, and then base when we do it again of the results we get there. I forgot to ask if all this can be done in the field, though. Don't think Spirit would been to happy with a trailer ride to a new place, with tons of people and activity. He wasn't appalled or anything with my mention of breeding her, and the vet and his tech liked her lots :-) It's always nice to get some confirmation that I have a nice horse that's worth getting babies out of.

4-4-01 I bought fly sheets for all my horses, and went out today to try them on. Groomed Spirit and the others...talk about shedding. Wow. Lots of hair. Spirit was good, no problems, no issues, and no time to work on anything new. I think I'm going to let her mane grow out, and then try to keep it pulled. I saw Carol, and she said the woman who inquired as to whether Spirit was for sale several months ago was still curious about her. She asked Carol if she'd ever had an english saddle on her back. What a silly question. Really. Brings to mind a whole english vs western rant. Seriously, there's just no difference in the beginning. Give a horse a good solid beginning, and then specialize once it knows the basics. Who CARES what kind of saddle the horse has on it's back?? Sigh.