She BROKE My HEART

OK, not really, but my heart did absolutely stop at the end of her amazing race in the Breeder's Cup Classic yesterday. If you are living under a rock (or have not been maybe obsessively following her career since she won her 17th race in a row), Zenyatta lost her 20th race by a little more than a nose. It was an amazing effort, and she absolutely gave it her all, as per usual for this girl.

She started the race last (again, as per usual), but the difference this time is the caliber of horses she was running against, and the sheer number of horses she had to weave her way through to get to the lead. In a game of inches, she came up just a few short.

Still, the important thing is she came out of the race happy and healthy and sound-at least one horse (Rough Sail) wasn't so lucky yesterday. She finishes her career 19-1-0; that's something alright.

Great job Z! Thanks for the memories. Now go have fun making million dollar babies:)

Ridin' like a Ragdoll

So, I went out and bought His Highness a pair of Cavallo Simple Boots.

Sir was feeling ouchy on the gravel driveway and parking lot at the barn, both of which he has to navigate to get to the indoor and outdoor arenas, so Sir now has some first rate protection, WITH optional gel inserts, natch.

I had used them once before, just for 20 minutes or so in the outdoor arena, which is very deep and sandy, and they worked great. Today was spitting rain, muggy and BUGGY (have I complained about the bugs yet?), so we worked in the indoor ring, which has good footing but is considerably less deep.

So, as to be expected, Miles is lifting his front legs slightly higher with his new shoez. WOW did I feel the difference today! His trot almost felt passage-y - very bouncy/springy (in a good way), and I found myself posting slowly even though we were covering ground well. And boy, did I feel like I was alllll over the place. I pulled myself together, tried to unlock any areas (knees, hips) that felt stiff, get Miles driving more forward than up, and got us to a place that felt much better. How funny though! My thoroughbred with the flat kneed-daisy cutter trot has suspension, who knew? I think I'll be sore tomorrow, but that just shows how much more I should be riding and working out, sigh.

We had a bit of an issue with his right lead canter, which I figured would happen at some point. He's getting stronger and stronger though, so that will help, and I need to make sure he's either straight or slightly bent inside (neck AND body) before asking for the transition. His left lead continues to be a joy to ride and gets better and better. I could ride that canter all day....

Contact is coming along well, in that I'm finally asking for it rather than letting him tool around in a nice long and low frame. Time to get off that forehand. For most of the ride, until we started working on the right lead towards the end, he was great with the bit-some chewing, which is what I want, but no grinding or rooting (grabbing the bit and stretching his neck down), so I was super happy with that. I still can't wait to really work him in his english hackamore, just to see how he does with no bit at all.

The Belmont is being run in about 20 minutes-here's to a safe race! I've got no favorites this year. I have a love/hate relationship with racing anyway, which I'd love to write a post about sometime. Sure would be nice to see a Triple Crown Winner in my lifetime though:)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures of Miles, looking towards the future in his first couple of days with me at his new home.

UPDATE: race is over, everyone appears to be OK, and the beautiful chestnut Drosselmeyer wins at 13-1!

So it begins....

So, I've got this blog....

I suppose I should start from the beginning. I'm old enough to be offended when people ask my age, but I still get carded. I live with my beautiful husband in Michigan's capital city. Our household consists of 2 extremely loyal (my wording for needy) golden retriever boys, Lebowski and Samual, as well as Mojo, our older-than-time-itself lab (maybe pit-bull) mix, matriarch of the herd. Do not laugh-Mojo takes her role VERY seriously. In addition, we have 2 cats, 1 with all her legs and one with only 3. This is extremely funny to me, particularly because "Three Legs" can outrun any of our animals, maybe Miles included.

Miles. The reason for this blog (ugh, I know there's a really cool French saying for that).

I adopted Miles from an amazing organization called New Vocations. They transition racehorses to new careers and adopt them out...you can see Miles' page here, when his name was still Masarin. If you want your own OTTB, I HIGHLY recommend them~they have amazing horses and are very honest about each horse's strengths and weaknesses. I really did get a helluva deal:-) This was September of 2009.

The first 3 weeks of September after the trailer dropped him off to me and his new home were....not great. My next post will detail my previous horse experience, but I had lost my last horse a month before, and I know I was still reeling from this experience. Ebony was also a thoroughbred, a mare, and I loved her very, very much. She was fatally kicked (probably) in a freak pasture accident, and I was with her as she was euthanized. I'm so, so grateful I could be there in her last moments, but it was a horrible thing to go through. I still miss my girl.

Anyway, I hadn't planned on getting a new horse so soon, but I did. It was a combination of intuition, timing, his Internet description, talking to the folks at New Vocations, and I'm not ashamed to say I had a rather poignant dream about Miles that led me to drive down to Ohio to see him and then adopt him. I can be a fruit that way sometimes.

So, those first 3 weeks...my barn owner will laugh if she reads this. He was underweight. He was studdy as all hell. Yes, he's a gelding, but I'm pretty sure he was gelded after he was 6 years old (when he stopped racing), so he had, um, issues being next to mares, being alone, being with another gelding, being with a (very tolerant and very bitchy, we tried both) mare, everything. I was really despairing on finding a turnout situation that would work for him, and people with horses know how important it is for a horse to feel happy and secure in their living space. He was still going into a stall at night at this point. During this time, work in the arena was out of the question. Any time I tried to lead him away from the barn there was rearing, kicking, crowding, you name it. He just wasn't ready. Of course, looking back I shouldn't have been surprised. Who knows what happened at his previous home. He was also a RACEHORSE-that kind of behavior is usually worked around instead of corrected, and of course there's the whole "running at full speed on a regular basis" aspect to life that I wasn't giving him.

Finally, we found something that worked...Miles in a small pasture alone, with mares on one side, and a very sweet Haflinger stud on the other. I LITERALLY could not work with him until this balance was found. I went on a short vacation for 3 days after we put him there, and when I came back, he had become the horse I now know and love. He was relaxed, attentive, sweet, a little pushy (though we took care of that right quick), but curious and such a ham. In other words, he was the horse I had adopted 3 weeks before, finally!

Things got even better a couple weeks later, when he found his soul-mate in gelding form. The barn owner talked to me about trying the "new horse" and Miles together in a pasture, and I agreed that it might be a good match...hoo boy was it ever! His name is LaShore, owned by the lovely Judy. Miles and LaShore really are ridiculously cute together...more on them later. They make great pictures, should really have their own sitcom, and I'm so happy they have each other.

Anyway, in October of 2009, I took my first ride on my new horse, and thus began the journey. I've never been a journal keeper-believe me, I've tried! Since blogs are what all the kids are doing nowadays, I thought why not-I'm not particularly funny, witty or interesting, and I'm still trying to find my voice, but I want some kind of record of this exciting time. I've also been reading some AMAZING blogs by other riders, and they certainly inspired me to start...I hope to post their blogs here soon, once I get the hang of everything. Thanks again, everyone (anyone?), for reading!