What's a girl to do? (Part 1)

(I ended up splitting the post because I'm a bit wordy and as usual, my words are scattered and jumbled so bear with me.) I think I have a unique position as a horse person. Why? I work at a breeding farm and I own an "unwanted" horse. Ok, dafuq? Don't shit talk Digby! I know. Settle down and let me explain.

I've worked in the horse industry for a long time. I started working off lessons almost as soon as I started taking them. I remember being a young kidlette, dropped off at a barn for a days work of whatever my trainer wanted to throw at me that day. I mostly did it for the extra riding. I forever am grateful and I wrote a post about my time spent in the barn as a child here. I ended up going to college for an equine degree. I worked as a barn manager for a woman who was legitimately undiagnosed bipolar. It was eventful. I ended up at a breeding farm that I had worked a few sales for when I was in college. I left for a couple of years to try the whole "office job" thing out. I came back.



One of the foals from last year

Regardless of where my life has lead me, I now have an interesting position of being a long time worker at a breeding farm. I do a little bit of everything here, from staining wood, to fixing steps with cement, to seal coating and asphalt patching, to weed whacking, to unloading hay and, oh yeah, actual work with horses. I find this interesting because of how I stand on several issues. Specifically, the issue of the "unwanted" horse. The farm I work at used to have over 200 horses when I started. We stood 3 stallions, all of whom produced several winners. One stallion still has an average earnings out of all his foals combined of over $100,000. Not bad. One of the others who we no longer have had produced several big, big winners, some of whom went on to be stood at stud themselves, and is still consistently sought out as a breeding stallion. Not too shabby either. We had quality broodmares, several making over a million dollars at the track. Several producers of foals who made over six figures or over a million at the track. This is not a shabby operation we have here. The man who owns it is getting older (he's in his late 80s) and is slowly getting out of the business. We've downsized over the years and this year, I believe, the horse count is at 39. Total. Including our tease stud, our now 2 stallions, our 2 tease mares, then the youngsters and the broodmares. Of course, it's foaling season so that number will go up some over the past few months. At least until we sell the yearlings in November. We sold one of the properties, we no longer lease the fields we used to, two of the other properties are for sale. Such is life. The employees often talk about what they'll do when it closes. No one is 100% sure and we're mostly just riding it out until the end. Many people have been let go already so it's just the 7 of us left. It sounds like a lot for 39(ish) horses but we still have about 300 acres so it's actually pretty busy during breeding season and during the summer. Not so much during the winter months but we do a lot of cleaning and do our best to stay busy until foaling starts.

I've seen many foals born. I've raised youngsters and prepped them for sales. I've followed them as racehorses, or desperately tried to find out information on them when I don't see them racing. Are they doing ok? Where are they? Who owns them? Most of the time, to be totally honest, once they leave that sale as a yearling or as a racehorse, I don't know what happens to them. I stalk some rescues of off the track horses and always see if it's anything we've bred. Not because the owner of the farm would ever help but because I'd like to help if I could. If nothing else, I could give background info on the horse that could possibly get them placed into a home. I've never found any of ours in a rescue, although I've seen a few from our stallions that we didn't breed. I do occasionally contact trainers who I know have horses I raised. Sometimes they email me back, sometimes they don't. I check sales to see if any yearlings, racehorses or mares we've sold are in the sale. Regardless, I do care about the horses we breed. I want them to be good racehorses and have good homes when they're done. Does it always work that way? No. I'm not naive. That doesn't mean I don't wish it would.

One of our yearlings, from several years ago.

The point of this is, there are a lot of horses in the world. There are horses with near perfect conformation who still flunk as a racehorse. There are horses with not so perfect conformation who excel as a racehorse. There are horses with not so perfect conformation who do not excel as a racehorse. What happens when they're done racing? They could stand as a stallion or be a broodmare. What happens to the geldings? What happens to the ones who aren't good enough to stand stud or be a broodmare? Hell, what happens when a broodmare is older and can't get pregnant any more? Or when she produces several foals and the foals flunk as racehorses? Horses get shuffled around. Big time farms sell those less than stellar broodmares. Maybe they go to farms who aren't looking to produce as high a quality racehorse and are happy with average? Maybe they go somewhere else. Hard to guess.

We have a yearling in the barn currently. She is never going to be a racehorse. We have her full sister in training as a two year old this year. The yearling has a hoof injury that kept her in her stall every day of her life (minus one!) up until yesterday. She got turned out yesterday for a few minutes, with the help of some sedatives, for the first time since she was a very small foal by her mothers side. She is not 100% sound. She never has been. Will she be broodmare sound? Yeah, probably. Will she race? Hell no. We, as a farm, spent thousand of dollars trying to make her serviceable as a performance horse. It is not going to happen. We know that by this point, given her x-rays and her being basically unsound for the whole 8 months of her life so far. I hate to see any horses put down, I really do. My inner animal lover just hates it. I've seen it, as unfortunately with 200 some horses, it's bound to happen. Colic happens. Foals with get kicked and break a limb. It happens, though thankfully not often. While I'm glad she's alive, I have given much thought to the fact that we, as a business, will likely not be around in a few years at the most. This yearling has siblings. Many siblings, actually, though most of them aren't full siblings. We still have her mother. We had her mothers mother up until a few years ago when we had to put her down due to thyroid cancer. (I know, what horse gets thyroid cancer? Weird, right?) We have had several of her mothers half or full siblings over the years, who have also produced foals for us. Her mother will hopefully produce another lovely foal this year. She is well bred, with half/full brothers and sisters and other close relatives who have done well on the track, and aside from her hoof issue, she is a nice looking filly. Does she have potential as a broodmare? Yeah, probably. So, assuming the turnout goes well and she maintains her level of soundness, is it the RIGHT thing to do? To keep this filly who will likely NEVER be sound, aside from pasture sound, alive, when we know fully that as an operation we will not be able to keep her for close to her entire life? It's a complex issue.

Another yearling, from several years ago.

The post in which I think I need to move my horse.

This title leaves nothing to the imagination, does it?

I've been meaning to write some posts but have so far failed at doing so. To be honest, nottt a whole ton of Digby stuff going on. I'm about to start working night shift again so that's usually the time of year my blog reading and posting ramps up. 

Back to the point of this post. My barn owner/manager has moved off the property a few months ago. She still runs the barn but someone else is living on the property. This doesn't upset me too much, as she promised she would be around and still checking on them. I enjoyed the care in the summer when I was helping turnout and she still lived there. It has decreased ten fold since then. Ok Becky, settle down. Not everyone is perfect and his basic needs are still being met. He has a clean stall, has water, has some hay, and gets turned out. That being said, in case you haven't ever read my blog, my horse is not subtle when he is unhappy. This is fine because I expect this from him and I'm not subtle. It is not fine in the fact that he's being an absolute *insert allllll the profanity here*. Probably because he's miserable.

I had written a post about an month ago and then deleted it because it was whiny as all hell. The basis was I went to the barn, they were bringing in. I helped bring in Digby and his turnout buddy, Ghost. Ghost has a fun trick where he slams his head to the ground to eat grass. It's pretty annoying and one of my horse pet peeves. Ghost, in true form, tried to do this. He almost succeeded. In my semi battle with Ghost, Digby had started grazing. I thought nothing of this other than, again, my pet peeve but he is well trained, and asked them to keep walking. Digby decided he didn't want to and planted his feet. I clucked and pulled on the lead rope and he pulled back. He then backed up when I didn't give in on asking him to move forward. We proceeded to back the entire length of their field until he realized it was probably easier to just do what I asked. They both walked in perfectly after that. The barn owner told me afterwards that she was glad Digby did that with me. I asked her what she meant and she told me that he does that all the time now. I apologized as I didn't know he had been being bad with her and told her to bring a crop. The next time he refuses to go forward, tap him and he'll go. My horse is quite clever and will take advantage of people if he thinks he can get something good out of the deal. She laughed at me and said she wouldn't do that because then he'd get away from her…

I'm not sure if I wrote about that incident but she had left the horses in (rightfully so) one day due to unusually cold temps and it was pouring all day. I had told her husband who helps with the horses that Digby can be bad when going out if he's been in for a while so be careful tomorrow. I stressed this heavily and made sure that he knew I was leaving Digby's rope halter out or they could use a chain if they wanted. Digby tends to hate chains and fight them harder. I like his rope halter because it adds extra brakes without making him fight you but honestly, whatever they were more comfortable with and thought they'd be safe with. They are both older, in their late 60s, and we didn't need Digby injuring either of them. They turnout around 9 AM and I'm at work, otherwise I'd help put him out. He said thanks for the heads up. Apparently the message didn't get passed along or they poo-pooed my story thinking it was an exaggeration. Digby got loose and was running around the property for about 10 minutes before they caught him. He didn't get hurt and they didn't get hurt which was good. Since then, she's been a bit afraid of him. They now use a chain daily over his nose for turnout. In case you met my horse, this reaaaally isn't necessary for daily turnout. Whatever.

Basically my horse lacks all manners. I have to install them into him almost every time I see him. Super.  So they're afraid of him, he's smart and knows he can get away with almost anything. Among other things, they will no longer change his blanket. I work nights so I sleep in the afternoon. I will not be able to do blanket changes at 4 PM when they come in. I will not be able to check on him around 8 PM to make sure he has tons of hay to last until 8-9 AM when she comes in to feed. We're in the middle of an EHV-1 crisis (read Alli's post on it here) and they allowed a new boarder to come onto the property, with zero quarantine, put him within 20 feet of my horse and then lied to me about where the horse is being turned out. I drove past the barn yesterday (I was working but luckily got to drive right past the barn!) and this new horse was OUT WITH MY HORSE. I almost crashed the farm truck. I had specifically asked where it was going out and they said alone for the first few weeks. I didn't bother to check because I believed them. Well, ok then. I guess I shouldn't have?

As one horse professional to another, it is not acceptable to say you'll do blanket changes, it's included in board, I ask for a blanket to be taken off (it was below 20 at night and 45 and sunny during the day) and then when I come to the barn, my horse is turned out wearing his blanket. More than once. It is not acceptable to turn a new horse out with my horse, after I specifically mentioned the EHV news and that 4 horses have died. It is not acceptable to regularly feed at 5 PM, leave the barn by 5:15 PM and not return until 8-9 AM. It is not acceptable to not open a stall door all the way and have another boarders horse slice open her entire side and then pretend it isn't a big deal and get sassy at me, a client who is paying you, when I asked how it happened and why you used all my betadine to clean it. It is not acceptable to not respond to my texts 95% of the time. It is not acceptable to shit talk (no other way to word that) other boarders if they leave. It's not reasonable for me to pay for full board and then still have to go make sure he has enough hay to get through the night, make sure he has enough water because a few times he didn't, give him his electrolytes in the extreme weather changes because you can't remember to, and do all blanket changes myself. All this after a board increase? Nah, I'm good.

Moral of the story, I have had zero luck finding Digby a new home and I very much did not want to move him. I believe I'm going to have to anyway. Damnit. So, wish me luck?

I rode!

Luigi!

I visited a friend in Pittsburgh (aka my favorite city) over the weekend and had the pleasure of sitting on this little nugget. Luigi is an adorable Haflinger who was possibly wider than he was tall. He has apparently schooled some pretty serious dressage movements in his younger, fitter life. Spoiler alert: none of those occurred during my ride. I have to admit I was pretty pleased to be sitting on a fun, sane, solid citizen. We only rode for a bit because I failed to bring actual riding apparel and it was COLD. The temps went from 70 on Sunday to a high of 35 with wind the next Saturday. Brrr. I had a blast though and thoroughly enjoyed having a good brain under saddle. It reinforced my decision with Digby. 

Digby is doing fine, for the record. I haven't been seeing him every day because I don't have the enthusiasm to fight with him under saddle or on the lunge, I no longer help with turnout at the barn (I haven't since they went to day turnout), and he simply tolerates grooming so I don't really want to go groom every day. I'm both pleased and saddened by the fact that my decision to find him a new home was reinforced. So many mixed emotions. As for the new home front, I haven't found anything yet but I'm still looking. I put several ads out on Facebook, both in groups and on my personal page. I also printed a few flyers to hang at my local tack shops, although I have yet to make it to them. Hopefully someone will be looking for a companion! He's a great guy to have in the barn. I think he'll be happier being a pasture puff.

I think I'll be happier without a horse for a bit. I need some fun, no pressure rides.

Whine. Whine. Wine.

I've been struggling on how to find words for this post. It's been a long time coming. I really can't find a way without sounding so terribly spoiled with first world problems. I am not looking for someone to pat me on the back and tell me I'm doing the right thing. So..... I apologize in advance for my behavior.

I think my horse and I are in an abusive relationship. I know, crazy talk and insulting to anyone in an actual abusive relationship, but hear me out, alright? In case you haven't gotten the overall feeling from my blog as of late (possibly as of forever), I'm pretty burnt out. Not from work or my life, but from my horse. I spend a significant portion of my free time worrying about paying those bills, if he'll be sound, if he is sound if he'll just fight me the entire time. For almost 6 years. I'll have owned Digby for 6 years in February and I have spent about 90% of that worrying over my not sound horse. Have I had good rides? Absolutely. Do I love him? Of course. When he's good, he's awesome and one of the coolest horses I've ever flatted. When he's bad, he is straight up dangerous. He is. This is not an exaggeration. There is no way around saying that. He knows all of tricks/evasions/kill my rider moves and while I'm pretty damn good (in my opinion) at saying "oh you wanna tell me to go eff myself? Ok, game on then." and putting my foot down. It's exhausting though. I get exhausted just thinking about it sometimes. Is he bad just to be bad? No, probably not. There's usually a reason. I usually figure out the reason after money and trial and error. He goes back to being sound/good/whatever I was aiming at for a bit.

2011 Digby. Exhausted like me. Must nap.

I read blog posts, go to local shows/events, watch live feeds on USEF, check my horse friends Facebooks and Instagrams. I still generally enjoy horses. Heck, I work at a horse farm and I like my job. There's a TB hony gelding that my friend owns who I adore and actively stalk on social media/day dream about/wish so badly I could own. The desire to actually ride, minus in my day dreams, is gone though. I don't even care. I've always wanted to ride. It should bother me that I don't. When it comes to actually putting on my breeches, I'm like "...... do I have to?" So, what about my mental health? What about my empty bank account for a reason that doesn't even make me all that happy?

This is a problem. I've been reading COTH, all your blog posts of similar nature and chatting with some friends in real life and I've pretty much decided that I need to move on. It feels like quitting on so many levels. It is technically. It makes me consume all sorts of adult beverages. I may or may not cry about it on occasion. It's a constant internal battle of "but he's your horse and he didn't do anything wrong and who else is going to take care of him if not you and you're a total asshole for even thinking about giving him away" to "seriously, this is not healthy, you've lost any and all passion, you only like the horse maybe half the time, he's usually a jerk." It's an every day thought process. I think I need the closure. I need to get out of this emotionally abusive relationship. I want to sit on a horse who I don't expect in the back of my head to be bad. I want to sit on a horse that I can have fun with more than once every few rides. I want to do things, like lesson and go on trail rides and jump all the sweet jumps and show and DO ALL THE THINGS. Make no mistake, I will cry and cry and cry if I find him another home. I will cry and wonder if I did the right thing.

The worst part about this is how many people LOVE my horse. He is adorable. I mean, look at that face! He has enough personality for the entire barn and more. He loves Pop Tarts and makes ridiculous faces for all snacks. He knows tricks, which amuses children of all ages. He's great with kids, although I never fully trust him. He's just a cool horse. I know and love all of these things. My grumpy, grumbling "my horse is a pain" always prompts a "Aww! But he's so cute!" or "he's so cool!" or "I love him!" Yeah. I love him too. But, at what cost?

One day, I'll write a post that isn't "I hate my horse." One day, folks.

My figured out has never been more confused, I'm having mixed drinks about feelings and you

"AHHHH! RUNNING!"

So all's been ok in the world of Digby. He's pretty chunky, which I love considering we're coming into winter. He was a holy terror for the farrier this week. I'm not sure what to make of that. Is he feeling better and just being a jerk? Is he in some sort of pain and trying to tell us? Hard to tell. The farrier and I discussed it a bit and he seems to think he's just being a jerk because he feet look great. They really do. Does this mean they're comfortable just because they look good? No. Regardless, he is sound and seems to be doing well. Since he has been an absolute ASSHAT (for real...) for the past few months when riding/lunging, I've been giving him some time off. I discussed his antics in my last real post. I'm still not sure if he's just being a jerk or if there's something more going on.

To be honest, I'm sure the hony doesn't care that he's not being worked. He gets to be a horse without much expectations. Who wouldn't like that? He might just been done being a riding pony. I've looked on Facebook and spoken to horse friends with no luck as to finding Digby a companion home. I've offered even to pay to ship him to his new home and would be willing to keep paying for some expenses. I got a few bites but nothing serious. He's a tricky little guy after all...

The hony and his turnout buddy, Ghost

Wordless Wednesday

I tell ya...

The hony, this evening... He's cute.

The hony has been, um, expressively bad as of late. Both under saddle and the handful of times I've lunged to see if it was me or saddle fit. Sigh. Typically this means he's uncomfortable. That could be saddle fit, in need of a chiro/massage, needs his feet tweaked with, whatever. It occasionally also means he's not getting enough turnout, the weather's been crazy, or his feed is making him hot. So let's go down the list:

• Saddle fit - Yup, could be. He's lost a lot of topline (due to losing TONS of weight last winter, ulcers, no work, lyme and some more no work) and we're building it back now. I'm using a shimmable pad so I'm doing the best I can. Can't afford a saddle fitter at this time for a more professional opinion. Also, he's been bad when I lunge without a saddle so while I think the saddle fit isn't the best, it's probably not the only problem.
• In need of a chiro/massage - Yup, could be. One of the lovely ladies at Digby's barn actually took a look at him tonight. She does some "energy work" but it was free and I figured no harm, no foul. It was fairly interesting when I convinced my science based self to be open minded. I'm going to see how he goes tomorrow.
• Needs his feet tweaked - I mean, maybe? Probably not? His feet have looked the best they've looked since I've been back in PA. Does this mean it's working for him? No, but they look awful good. I'll chat with my farrier the next time he's out.
• Turnout - Seriously doubt it. They go out for 7-8 hours a day. In the area I live, that's a lot of turnout.
• Weather - Ehhh. It's fall and I get it. It's cooler, they're feeling better. His bad isn't "whoo it's cool! I'm feeling good!" though. It's more "I don't want to so SCREW YOU LADY."
• Feed - Seriously doubt it. He gets almost unlimited grass hay plus about 6 lbs of Tribute Maturity which isn't particularly high in sugar/starches. In an ideal world, I'd keep him on TC Senior but that's not included in my horses board and again, money.

Not a whole lot else to say about that topic. I've done a lot of thinking, not a whole lot of whining, and too much adulting.

I'm trying to not think of the doom (AHH MY HORSE IS GOING TO GO LAME AND I'LL BE STUCK WITH HIM FOREVERRRR AND FOREVER BE BROKE OVER A HORSE I CAN'T RIDE AND IT'S GOING TO SUCK) and just continue on with my life. Full disclosure: I have asked around a bit lately to see if anyone wants a companion horse. It's not 100% what I want but.... Ya know. Digby and I do this shit. Every. Single. Year. Every damn year. Usually more than once a year. He tells me not so nicely that I can fluff off. I tell him not so nicely that I do everything I can to make sure he's comfortable and happy and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HORSE WILL YOU JUST BEHAVE?!? So then I fuss and worry and sometimes we come to an agreement and sometimes I get so frustrated that I give him some time off and he comes back fine at a later point. I'm not sure what to do about it now or in the future. Maybe he's made to be a pasture puff. Maybe I just need to learn how to ride. Hahahah.

Being an adult sucks.