Bad News about Ebony

Ebony was coming along fine as a Westerniars horse.  Her big problems was that she was a bit herd sour so taking her off the trailer was tough.  She was hard to lead because she kept trying to turn around and go back.  Riding her was better but once she stopped, she would start dancing and calling and be a general pain.  Once in the arena, she was perfect, best trained horse we have (Thanks to Carly Davis).

Westernaires Interclub 2012

Here is Kira, ready for Interclub!

Westernaires is big on shows. And they should be. The kids work hard to learn to control their horses and learn the drills. Tenderfeet, the first year kids, do not have any drills. So how does an organization that specializes in mounted drills get their first year riders into a show? Interclub.

Been a while

It has been a while. It always seems like this time of year, between New Years and spring, is a kind of slow time of year. There is not a lot going on. Not much for holidays, the weather is cold and the days are short so there is not a lot going on outside. We get up, got to work or school, come home, make dinner and work on home work and watch TV. Repeat ad nauseum. I'm not complaining, it has just always been a slow time of year. But, there is always a little something going on.

Ebony goes to Class

Kira and Ebony at their first ride together in Westernaires.

As you know, Ebony has been is school, ground manners school. We have been working with her on walking calmly and not trying to get ahead or around whomever is leading her. We have had great results around the house but we still have some work to do around Westernaires. She still gets a bit nervous. But we decided to try her out in a class and see how she did.

Happy New Year

My, how time flies. Is it really January 11th. I keep promising myself to post at least weekly and I never quite seem to. Ah, well. Maybe I'll add that to my list of New Years resolutions. So, where to start...

A Girl and Her Horse
Kira has been working with Ebony. We took Ebony for a long walk by herself and she was just as calm as you could ask for. When we took her to Westernaires she was less calm but better. We walked her all the way to the arenas and she didn't start to get nervous until we asked her to stand calmly. Kumi rode Ebony in a ride last week and she did okay. A bit stubborn and a bit dancy but she didn't kick or bite the other horses. Looks like Kira will start riding Ebony in Westernaires this weekend! She's excited. I think it will be good for both of them.

Ebony continues on in her classes

Wow! Two weeks have flown past. Where does the time go? In this case it went into a BIG project at work and the Christmas season. Just lots and lots of things to do. I am not complaining. It is nice to know I have a job to come to tomorrow and I love the Christmas season, so no complaints at all.

Ebony Goes Back to School

It takes a long time to figure horses out. Once you think you've got them figured out you learn that you really have no clue. Ebony came to us from Carly. Carly had Ebony trained very very well. Then we get her. Now we were used to Beamer and Mariah. They have very different personalities than Ebony. Beamer and Mariah consent to being pets. They stand patiently while people hug their necks, scratch their backs and generally love on them. Ebony, not so much. Unless there is food involved.

Vandalized!!

That's right, our barn was vandalized. By our horses.

Apparently, when I went out to feed the other morning (about 5:30am) I got a bit distracted and left on of the stall doors open a bit. About 4:00pm I got a text that said, "Naughty, naughty horses." Since it had been raining I figured that they had been rolling in the mud again. I was wrong. They had discovered the open stall door. It wasn't open very far but they had a fix for that. Simply push against the door until the bottom board holding the guiding wheel comes offthe post and presto, they're in.

Once in, they are staring at about 90 bales of hay. Yum Yum. I imagine the conversation between the horses went something like this:

Horse 1: WOW! Look at all that hay.

Horse 2: Cool.

Horse 3: Which one should we eat?

Horses 1 and 2: One?!

Horse 1: Lets try them ALL!

And so they proceeded to start pulling bales off the pile and sample each one looking for just the right bale.

Horse 1: This one is to small!

Horse 2: This one is to dry!

Horse 3: This one is not sweet enough!

After about 4 bales the grooming isle was so full of hay that they couldn't really get any more down. But they did manage to spread those four bales around pretty well. And then they pooped on it. At some point, the Arabian Bandit (as Beamer will hence forth be known) decided that that tantalizing smell of grain needed to be investigated and figured out how to open the grain barrel.

About 4:00 Kira went to check on them because it was raining and she couldn't see them. Ebony is usually forced to stand in the rain so if its raining hard we will throw a rain sheet on her to help her stay a bit more comfortable. (In Colorado the rain is cold and their summer coat will not keep them warm during a long, cold, rainy night.) She found Mariah in the grooming isle munching on hay. Ebony in the door of the stall with a bale of hay wedged in the door munching away and the Arabian Bandit with his head in the grain barrel contentedly munching away.

Oh-oh. To much grain is BAD for horses. Colic bad. Dead in 24 hours colic bad. I normally give each of them 1 quart in the morning mostly just to supplement the hay. I looked in the barrel and it looked like the Arabian Bandit only ate a few pounds but we had to be careful. Of all the horses to get into the grain, B was probably then best one. He does not take huge mouth fulls, he just nibbles his way through his grain. Takes him twice as long as the other two to eat his grain but that's okay.

The vet suggested that we exercise them a bit so we took them for a walk. We would have liked to ride but it had just stopped raining and the footing was a bit too slippery for comfort. So Kira and I put halters on them and spent the next hour an a half walking the horses around the neighborhood. It was kind of a nice walk actually. Kira and I chatted and I need the exercise as well.

When we got back we checked stomach sounds, all good. Though Ebony got in trouble. Ebony was brood mare and does NOT like an ear pressed into her side. She tried to cow kick me a couple of times. Tried. Enough said.

We put them back in the pasture and then one of the differences between kids and horses became apparent. If the kids had vandalized the barn, they would have cleaned it up. Instead, I was cleaning up the barn while the girls worked on school projects as this is the last week of school. I am bagging up the fouled hay, sorting out the clean hay and cleaning things up. All the while there were three horses following my every move. Ears up, eyes bright, looking very innocent and expectant, wondering when I was going to give them some more hay. The ran away briefly when I turned on a horse eating drill to drive some screws into the stall door guide to fix that.

Just before I went back in to start dinner, I spread out a small bit of hay so that I wouldn't have to deal with the said eyes and mournful faces of three horses who didn't get fed at feeding time. (It was just a small bit of hay and the vet said that would be okay.)

I am happy to report that all three horses were fine the next morning and the pasture was full of poop. No colic.

Horse people must seem really strange to the rest of the civilized world. Not many people find poop an acceptable topic for conversation.

Horses are Strange Critters

Saturday was, as always, a Westernaires weekend. The day was rather interesting from the beginning. We loaded Beamer and Ebony into the trailer and left Mariah home alone. For nearly eight hours. She did fine, better than the other two at any rate.

Kira is doing lessons with Carly on Ebony to help them come together. Kira has been riding a horse for just a couple of months and she is loping bare back. Comfortably and confidently. Kids are fearless. Ebony still tests her but Kira is patient and Carly coaches her until Ebony does what Kira asks. Its fun to watch because Kira's brow creased in frustration suddenly blossoms into a big bright smile. In one lesson Ebony would not pick up her right lead. She wouldn't even step up to a lope from a trot no matter how hard Kira kicker her. I got Kira a dressage whip from the trailer. Kira gave Ebony one pop with the whip and Ebony went right into the lope on the correct lead. Ebony's attitude changed from, "I'm not gona do it and you can't make me!" to. "Oh! You meant it. Why didn't you say so!!"

When we got to Carly's place for the lesson we unloaded Beamer without incident. Ebony is a bit trailer shy right now. She loads okay but she is very nervous while in the trailer. On Saturday when was backing out of the trailer and something spooked her. I did not have a good hold on the lead rope as I had just untied it from the hitching point. She spooked and shot out of the trailer backwards, stumbled and fell over backwards. It was a bit scary as I watched her rump hit the ground and she started to go over backwards and came down on her left side. Her shoulder hit and I watched as her head at the end of that long horse neck headed for the ground. Fortunately, her neck muscles are strong enough that her head did not hit the ground. She looked a bit surprised at finding her self on the ground and hopped right back up. I put her into the trailer a couple of times right away and she backed out of the trailer for slowly. I think she scared herself a bit because she was very careful and slow when backing out of the trailer.

After the lesson we loaded up and headed for Westernaires. Unloading at Westernaires went without incident, Ebony backed out slowly and calmly. And then things got interesting. First, you need to know that Beamer does not like Ebony. He chases her around the pasture and pushes her off her hay. Which is no problem since there are enough hay piles around at feeding time that she just finds another pile. Since it was our first time taking Ebony to Westernaires, we decided to walk her around the grounds to get her used to all the other horses and the activity all around. She was nervous and we worked a lot an getting her walk with her head even with whoever was leading her. She needs more lessons. The surprising part was Beamer. When Ebony walked away from the trailer he started winning and pacing. He did not want her walking away! What!? He doesn't like Ebony and now he can't stand to be separated from her!? I don't get it.

Later that day it was time for Kumi and Beamer to head to dressage class. I walked up with her to watch the class. About 5 minutes into the class my phone rings and its Kira. Now Ebony is having separation anxiety from her bully! She is pacing and pawing and just will not calm down and Kira is a bit nervous and not sure what to do. So I go down and do some more leading lessons with Ebony. She was better but there is still more work to be done. If I tied her at the trailer and stepped out of sight she immediately started pawing and whinnying for Beamer.

When Kumi got back we loaded up the horses and headed for home. The horses were unloaded without incident so we are hoping Ebony has learned a little lesson and trailering will be a bit easier for both her and us. (Besides, we absolutely do not want her shooting out of the trailer and falling over backwards again. No fun at all!) We were also hoping that Ebony and Beamer had discovered that they can actually get along. Nope. As soon as the halters came off and the hay came out, Beamer started pushing Ebony off the hay pile she had selected. Strange animals. But we love 'em anyway.

Ebony, the Jinxed Horse

Getting Ebony home turned into a far grander adventure than I had ever planned. When last we left you, Ebony was loaded in the trailer and we were headed for home. The street that we were driving down has a few hills in it resulting in limited sight lines and it was late in the day so the sun was low on the horizon.

As I cam over a hill there was a car in front of me. My brain said something is not right with this picture but it wasn't sure what so it took my foot of the gas. The sun was shinning brightly on the back of the car and the tail lights were totally washed out. And then it rolled forward and I saw it - a left turn signal and the car was starting its turn. And I was too close.

Your mind speeds way way up in situations like this. It will take far far longer to describe what happened than the actual events.

• The car is starting to turn left.
• Hand jams on the horn
  
• Foot goes to the break and stomps on it (Thank God for trailer breaks!)
• Eyes scan the scene in front of me: Horses on narrow shoulder to the right - no going there, Left lane (on-coming traffic) lanes are open
• Gently turn wheel to left and move into south-bound lanes (No sudden movements on the steering wheel)
  
• Still stepping hard on the breaks with the horn blasting head for the opposite shoulder
  
• Truck clears the car
• Trailer hits the car (Actually it was the fender)
• Plastic flies
• Everything stops.

The good news, absolutely nobody was hurt. The lady, her son and dog in the car I hit were fine, not a scratch or a bump. Kumi and I were fine and Ebony was fine as well. I thank God for that blessing. The left front of the car from the drivers door forward was fairly torn up but drivable. The only damage to the trailer was the right fender. In the end, I got a ticket for following to closely. My first ticket in some 32 years. Sigh. The cop actually did me a favor (at least according to him) as he claimed he could have written me for any number of things. I wasn't going to argue with him but he did argue with me over one point.

He walked up to me after the accident and said, "I don't normally argue with people but I don't see how you can be traveling north with the sun in the west and claim the sun got in your eyes." I have no idea where he got that idea from. I told him that I never said the sun was in me eyes, that the sun had been shining on the other cars taillights and washed them out. He looked at the cars taillights lights and said, "Well, I suppose the sun shining in the side of the light could have reflected back into your eyes." I chose not to argue the point any further. It wouldn't have changed anything anyhow and sometimes arguing the finer points of something with a police officer ends badly. Leave well enough alone and go home.

The whole traffic thing took about an hour and poor Ebony got bored and started pawing at the floor. Kumi tried to keep her calm by giving her a few treats and once the driver information and reports were done we headed for home.


When we pulled up and parked Kira was home and she was not expecting to see her horse in the trailer but there she was. Boy was Kira excited! She went and pulled Ebony out of the trailer (Ebony came out very calmly) and lead her towards the back yard. I needed to change out halters so we stopped at the gate and I stepped up next to Ebony. Ebony promptly stepped on my foot. Did I mention Ebony had shoes on? I have had Beamer step on my foot once or twice and than hurts. Those steel shoes hurt worse. It took a few seconds before I could convince Ebony that moving her foot was in her best interest. I limped through the gate and we introduced Ebony to Beamer and Mariah.

The first introduction went much better than expected. Kumi and Kira were watching the horses to make sure they didn't start any major fights. I told them to go get three flakes of hay and spread them around the pasture while I set up some panels in front of one of the stalls. Our plan was to but Ebony into that pen while the horses got used to each other. I finished setting up the panels and looked at the horses. They were each munching quietly at a flake of hay. Hmm.

As the fates would have it, Carly called at about that time to see how things were going. Since my toes were hurting and I was still ticked about the accident, I told her that Ebony was jinxed and that we wern't keeping her. Man did I catch Carly off-guard with that one! When I told her what happened she laughed a little. I then told her about the horses all eating quietly together and asked her if she thought we should put Ebony in a pen. She recommended watching them a bit to see how they reacted. The long and short of it, Ebony never spent any time in the pen. The horses figured out their pecking order very quickly and I only ever saw a couple of kicks. Ebony had one bad bite the drew blood and then she had a few hair-bites. That is what I call it when one horse bites another and only hair is pulled out. It was kind of interesting. The hair-bites on Ebony's flank reveal white skin while the hair-bite on her shoulder reveals black skin. She IS a paint. Pretty cool.

Ebony Comes Home

As you may have noticed from the title, we went from having two horses in the backyard to having three. It took one week. Actually, it took less than a week. You might recall that the conversation that started us thinking about another horse or two occurred on February 13. Ebony came home on February 19^th. Scary how fast things can move sometimes.

After we decided (rather abruptly) that we were in the market for a third horse we talked to Carly. She and her brother each had a horse for sale. Mojito is a paint and he was the first horse we were considering. We had watched Carly’s brother training the horse several times while were there for lessons and we were impressed. So we went and rode the horse and it just wasn’t right. Tira-Toes just did not click with the horse. You could see in her eyes that she was a little frustrated since the horse did not respond well to her. I rode the horse and it turns out he is still learning to neck rein and hasn’t worked out all the cues yet. He tends to turn his head to far to one side or the other. He would be a great horse for a more experienced rider who is comfortable with training a horse, but not such a good horse for a novice rider.

The horse that Carly had for sale is a 13 year old registered paint though it does not have the typical paint markings. Ebony is nearly jet black but has brown highlights all through her coat. A very pretty little horse. Tira-Toes had a much better connection to this mare. Ebony responded much better to Tira-Toes’s cues and you could see the joy in Tira-Toes’s eyes as she rode the horse around the arena. Carly and I talked a bit and we both felt the Ebony was a much better horse for Tira-Toes. Ebony has been trained with flags (VERY important for a Westernaires horse) has done a fair amount of trail riding and has been known to go through a drive through or two to get some refreshments. She neck reins well and still moves off of leg cues. She is forgiving so when Tira-Toes stands up in the saddle while trotting, Ebony holds her pace. We are doing a little work to get Ebony to improve her stops as she tends to take a few more steps than she should. Just the kind of horse I was looking for a novice rider.

Next step, vet check. It’s not that I don’t trust Carly, it’s just that Carly is not a vet. It is never bad idea to have a vet check over the horse you are thinking of buying. A friend from Westernaires was looking at a horse they found on Craig’s List and they liked what they saw. They did a vet check and the horse did not pass. It had a lot of issues and they would not have been able to ride it. A couple of days later the add on Craig’s List had changed to discourage potential buyers from doing a vet check. Anyway, we went off to the vet and Ebony did really well right up until we started to lunge her. She was limping a bit on her left front. Carly (who came to the vet check with us) and I just looked at each other. I had ridden Ebony in a lesson once and Carly had ridden her quite a bit over the last year and she had never shown any sign of lameness. But the vet gave her a lameness score of 1. The vet also said that it looked like the front shoes were not on properly, that the shoes were causing Ebony’s feet to twist ever so slightly to the outside. The vet, as part of her fee, told us to bring the horse back in two weeks and she would recheck Ebony for lameness again. That sounded fair to me and, frankly, I wasn’t too worried about it because I trust Carly and I was familiar with the horse. Carly and I decided that I should take the horse home and have my farrier come take off the shoes and re-trim her feet. So we load her into the trailer and set off for home. The voyage home deserves a post of its own.

In the mean time, Tira-Toes has a few words to say about her horse. Without further ado, I give you Tira-Toes.

Hi, it’s Tira Toes again and I have just got my own horse. Her name is Ebony and she is jet black all over except for a white star on her forehead and two white socks on her back legs. She is thirteen and we bought her from our trainer, Carly. She is very sweet. In her first few days she did not bite or kick the other two horses until she became fed up with Beamer bullying her around and kicked him. She rides easy and has a smooth lope and a trot better then Beamers. By better I mean it doesn’t feel like you’re sitting through an earthquake. I have decided to join Westernaires with my friend Tessa Toes in August. I think my dad was about to shoot me when I looked at him and said I want her. A new horse means new tack, a new trailer, and all that commotion of two daughters at Westernaires at different times. But I wrapped him around my little finger and I got my horse. My goal for Westernaires is to be the most obnoxious Tenderfoot there. I have neon rainbow colored reigns, a purple saddle blanket, a multi colored saddle pad, a lime green breast collar, and a purple helmet. I love my horse.

What I love about Carly is the way she helps you learn. She builds you up step by step until you reach your goal. Carly is a fun and nice teacher. She has worked with many different horses and students and she knows the perfect way to help you learn. My goal when I first went to Carly was to be able to ride Mariah. She started me on a easy going horse like Beamer then she put me on a more, shall we say, exciting horse and I barley felt the difference.