Halter Training Wynnie

 From the first day Wynnie got to go outside with Arwen, I taught her walk quietly with me just using a soft lead looped around the bottom of neck. As small foals I feel that their tiny necks are just too soft and the growth plates just too fragile to take the pressure if they were to leap back and pull on a halter (and let's be real, baby horses do these things), so we use the rope around the neck instead; if they pull then they pull with their shoulders or withers against the rope, so it's just safer.

Anyway, so this was what Wynnie grew used to, and quite a wrestling match it became too once she got a bit bigger and more fiery - she dragged my poor grooms around in the last couple of weeks. What's more, we have her first ever show next weekend, in the youngstock classes at Horse of the Year Show. So it was time for a major step in any baby's life - halter training.

By this point Wynnie is actually pretty used to almost everything. It was very cold right after she was born, so she spent her first few days bundled up in a dog jacket because I couldn't find anything else that would fit her tiny little self. She's groomed every day, has her temperature taken twice a day (something that is definitely easier to teach them when they're still small enough to restrain, lol) and I spend a few minutes each day on picking up her feet. I also bought her a fly mask, which is comically too big for her but did stop her from getting runny eyes from the flies. So I didn't expect the halter to be a big step.

It wasn't. I bought her a cute little purple foal slip and hung it on the stable door thinking I'd put it on for the first time that evening. When I was teaching that afternoon, I was somewhat surprised to see the grooms bringing Arwen and Wynnie into the stable with Wynnie obediently plodding along in the halter. Apparently they had thought that me leaving the halter on the door was a cryptic sign that Wynnie was now halter trained, and she didn't give them any reason to believe any different.

Of course there is a difference between walking into the stable next to mama and actually being halter trained, so last week we cracked on with real halter training.

I thought we would need someone to lead Arwen at first, but when I went over to do a little session with her after lessons last week, she had let herself out of the stable and was gambolling around in the yard. So I put a halter on the little monstrosity and started walking her in a little circle in the yard. She was so relaxed and happy with that, seeming to enjoy the stimulation, that I led her over to the dressage arena (still within sight of mom) and we started working on a circle there.

She was amazing! She didn't call out to mommy at all (if she had, I would have taken her back - she's much too young to be forced to cope with something like this). Instead, she seemed excited to be doing something, showing the first glimmers of a work ethic very much like Arwen's. She got a bit overexcited walking back towards the stable a few times, to the tune of the odd leap and buck, but after five minutes or so we even had a little trot in hand. It was so adorable.

Later that week, her newfound halter skills were really put to the test when a pelting hailstorm came blowing up out of nowhere while my grooms were on lunch. The fields do have shelters in them so I left the grownup horses out, but I couldn't stand the thought of my poor Wynnie being rained on, so I went racing down to the field to grab her and Arwen. To their credit, they both actually came to me (Arwen has sometimes taken a storm as an opportunity to run wild laps around the field), even though the rest of the herd was bolting for the shelters. I wrangled Wynnie into her foal slip - she wasn't standing very still and those foal slips have the worst, fiddliest little buckles - and set off with Arwen dragoning in one hand and Wynnie dragoning in the other. This meant that I didn't have hands to spare to put a hand on her bum to move her forward, and we had to negotiate two gates.

Wynnie didn't put a foot wrong. In fact, once the gates were behind us, we jogged the rest of the way into the stable, and Wynnie didn't even pull me around or jump at all.

their matching expressions though

As for Arwen herself, she is doing just fine. She has attacked motherhood with the same aplomb as she does everything. Of course, she'll accompany Wynnie to HOY, and to tell you the truth I think she might be more of a handful than Wynnie herself. She's going to be very excited to be out at a show for the first time since late 2020.

She is a little on the lighter side still, but holding steady. I did switch her onto a nicer hay now that fresh-cut hay is finally available but I'm not pushing her hard feed. She's not going back to the stallion this year and tends to be overweight besides. I did think about making her nice and fat and then showing her in hand again at HOY, but to tell you the truth she doesn't look her best - a year off from riding has stripped much of her topline, and she's won the in-hand too many times to go and do badly now. So she'll just look after Wynnie this time and return in full splendour at HOY 2023.

Wynnie continues to find halter training to be wildly exciting. She stands quite nicely, although I need to do a little more work on her reining-back skills, but I'm not particularly worried about getting her to stand herself up square yet - she is only a baby and it doesn't matter if she doesn't go perfectly. Of course I do hope that we'll get a ribbon at HOY since she is the product of some careful breeding and hard planning, but truth be told, it's a foal class and anything can happen. The main goal is just to give Wynnie a nice first show experience and to get some pretty pictures.

Her trotting up needs a little more work, too. She trots beautifully until life gets far too exciting, and then she starts to plunge around madly. The little dragon somehow contorted herself in such a manner that she managed to kick me squarely in the left buttock while keeping her head nicely level with my shoulder. I have no idea how. It was just high spirits, she wasn't aiming for me, although she did get a little telling-off because it won't be cute once she's bigger.

I was delighted when Saturday dawned chilly with a thin, drizzly rain, a perfect opportunity for Wynnie to finally wear her tiny, purple waterproof blanket. It was a gift from one of my liveries when Wynnie was born in the cold, but it didn't fit her at all back then. Now she's somewhat grown into it. She was super adorable about standing patiently for me to put it on and seemed ready to tackle the day all bundled up.

The grooms are also very grateful that Wynnie now leads like a grown-up horse - BabyDragon was starting to be quite a handful. There's no question about it that she's a sassy lady with plenty of fire, a very different kettle of fish from my two sweet geldings. But I loved it in Arwen and so far I love it in her, too. There's just something about a good mare... even if it's a very smol mare right now.

God is so good.

Thunder Update

 While Lancey saw a lot of action over the December holidays, my main man has still been going strong - stronger than ever before, in some ways.

Our early-morning rides continue to work very well with my schedule. Absolutely no one else is making demands on me yet at 5:45 in the morning when I tack him up, and I can fit in a grooming and a decent ride before a quick coffee with my parents and then dashing off to work. I dread to think of how I'm going to make this happen in the winter. Either I'll have to squeeze some writing into that time and then ride him when I get home from work in the middle of the day, or it's gonna be floodlights and freezing my butt off. Either way, this works great for now. We're sticking easily with a consistent five-day-a-week schedule (one lunge, three schooling rides, and one ride that's just stretching or poles or maybe jumping) and he is thriving in it.

Unfortunately, though, while his brain feels absolutely brilliant right now, his skin has been just disgusting. It was doing well for the start of summer and he was hardly using any of his anti-itch cream with no rubbing and no hives - until the beginning of January, when he suddenly had the worst flare-up I have ever seen on him. He exploded in enormous itchy hives that then burst open and oozed blood and goo. It was horrific. I have actually never seen anything like it. The poor guy didn't seem that itchy, but his skin was sore and he was just generally depressed.

Of course the vet put him straight onto injectable steroids which no one likes but it was time for drastic measures. He had those for five days and then injectable antihistamines for five days. The worst of the flare-up did subside, but the odd raw spot still remained, and he became progressively more and more itchy.

I never really liked using fly sheets on him because of course they leave rubs because my farm donkey is apparently the most high-maintenance, sensitive mutt that has ever lived. But it was bad enough that I didn't even care about the rubs anymore. He got himself a nice fly sheet with a hood, and fly boots and a fly mask that covers his ears and nose to boot. Literally only his hindlegs and his knees stick out, and I drench these in fly spray before he goes out to the field. It's only been a week but I do see a fairly dramatic difference already.

The other product that has been working well for the itchiness is a hemp oil cream for people I picked up out of desperation because it said "actively soothing" on the bottle. He used to use Equi-Soothe, which is for horses and did help quite a bit, but it's very oily and clumped on his hair and left him super gross and sticky. The hemp oil cream works great, absorbs nicely and is a LOT cheaper.

Throughout the itchiness and the awfulness, however, he continued to feel really great to ride. I felt bad about putting a saddle over that mess and would have stopped at once if he'd shown any signs of discomfort, but each ride was just better and better, so we carried on. That wasn't the end of his health dramas for January-February 2022, however.

I was taking a picture of his glorious tail in late January when I realized that his butt looked very strange. He has always had quite a round bum, and it had lost some of its shape, but I'd thought this was just because he did lose some weight with the itching saga and the new workload (not necessarily a bad thing, bro was t h i c c). But as soon as I inspected the butt from the side, I could see that something was definitely amiss.

I panicked. I texted Coach J, I googled. The internet said it was a hunter's bump and then proceeded to be very mysterious about what a hunter's bump actually was. I thought my horse's sacroiliac was going to drop off. So when the Friesians needed a chiro appointment, I immediately piggybacked off of it.

The chiro felt over him and said, "Mm, actually I'm not feeling anything very much. How is he to ride?" I said he was fine but I did add that Thunder would not, in fact, say anything if he was not fine at all. I have known this horse to be grazing happily with a fever of 41.5C (106F). He's just one of those people. The chiro set to work on the few things he'd found - nothing major, a tight rib here, a slightly restricted neck - and then went back to the hind end and said, "Are you sure he feels good? How are his changes?" I said that his changes were forward, through and balanced like never before. The chiro didn't think it possible. Thunder's right fetlock was horribly restricted - it made a deafening sound when he put it back - and the pelvis was accordingly tilted and generally messed up. As soon as the adjustment was done, I could literally see the bump sinking away back into its place. Thunder had a huge reaction, too, yawning, licking and chewing, and sighing deeply. For a stoic horse like him, that's a big reaction.

His bum looks normal again now, although I can't say I've felt a huge difference in him under saddle. His canter seems different - not exactly better, although I'm sure it must feel better to him, but certainly different. He's not quite finding his collected canter as easily, but when he does find it, it has more jump and throughness than before. His changes feel the same as ever - and they're getting quite nice now. They're balanced, straight and through as long as I ride them properly and he's even been giving me some really confident and easy four-tempis.

We had a lesson two weeks ago during which I asked Coach about his canter half-passes to counter canter to flying change. He had been a little awkward in the change and the half-passes were there but they just didn't feel easy - everything felt stiff and he felt slow off my leg. Coach identified that for once it actually wasn't his response to my leg that was the problem. In fact I had been so obsessed about riding the back end of the horse that I had forgotten he does, in fact, have a front half, and was letting him plough along hollow, leaning on his shoulder, and twisting his neck. We did some work on bending and counter bending to soften him in the contact a little (and to get me to stop pulling the reins) and then suddenly we had beautiful canter half-passes with a soft bend and easy sideways steps. Incredible how horses have more than one body part and the job of the rider is to make sure they all, you know, cooperate. Dressage is hard, y'all.

One more show at EM and then we can debut at Medium. I seriously can't wait - I have no illusions of brilliant scores, but I'm so ready to ride a new level. I would love to show him at EM 3, 4, 5, or 6 for his last EM show, so that his first flying changes in the ring aren't in his first Medium test as well. But honestly he finds the Medium 1 changes easier than the EM 4-6 changes. We taught him the changes using a leg yield aid (not the one-step-of-walk method) and so he is sort of anticipating a change at the end of a half-pass anyway. In EM 4-6, one does a bunch of counter canter and then changes on the long side, which he can do but it's harder for him. Medium 1 is D-R half-pass, R-M counter canter, M flying change. It seems to fit into his head much better (and mine).

So that's what we've been mostly focusing on of late - the canter lateral work and flying changes, with all their complementary exercises, like counter canter in renvers, true canter in travers and shoulder-fore on a circle, canter to halt, pirouette canter(ish) to medium canter. It's been a loooot of canter work. In trot, I'm working on this weirdness he has going into the right rein, especially in shoulder-in. We do a lot of shoulder-in to renvers and back (also renvers is TOO HARD and I hate that it is so useful as well). We also played with the half-pass zig-zag in trot, which went surprisingly well. He is feeling fantastic.

I do think his trot could be much more powerful, though. I cannot even imagine getting a passage out of our current trot. This will definitely come up in our next lesson, though, because the moment I ask for more trot he starts running and that is not productive.

His lungeing is going really well, too. He seems to hold himself so well in the lungeing - I mean, look at that lovely open throat and the six-pack he's showing off here. 

He does need some weight, though. I pushed his Stud Time up a little but I think it might take some tinkering before we strike the balance between energy for work and energy for condition. It may be time for a bit of canola oil. His working energy is so much better - I haven't felt him get flat on me in a long, long time, even when our sessions run a little longer than planned.

He might trot like a donkey but he sure walks well 💜

Just look at that soft eye. He's so beautiful and precious and I'm unbelievably blessed to have him 💜

God is good.

January Photos

 How is it February already? Honestly, this is one of my favourite times of the year. Summer is in full swing, all heat and thunderstorms and green pastures. Once the frustration of trying to get the kids back to lessons before school opens - usually in mid-January - is past, the riding school starts to hit its stride again. Fresh new goals, shows on the horizon... January brims with possibility. (And paying memberships, ugh. But let's not go into that).

We started off the New Year like we always do - staying home and looking after the farm - but on Sunday the 2nd we went on a road trip to this fairytale castle of a stableyard in Douglas, Northern Cape. Douglas is seriously the middle of nowhere, a tiny town deep in the heart of South African diamond country. Kimberly is an hour away - home to the Big Hole, the largest handmade excavation in history, which was a diamond mine. Most of this area is surrounded by game farms, pock-marked by gigantic mine heaps remembering the time when South Africa was by far the largest diamond producer in the world. The world's largest diamond was found here, too, of course, although that was in Cullinan, north of us.

Anyway, we drove down to Douglas to visit Pela Graca Friesians owned by friends of my employers. They own Dries 421, a world champion Friesian stallion, who is the sire of Madam President and also one of the other mares I ride. One of our Friesians had gone down there on trial and was being returned, so we had a nice little breakaway to go and fetch her. It's a seven-hour drive but arriving at Pela Graca was super refreshing. We had this huge guest house to ourselves with a ton of luxuries and everything was just beautiful.

I forgot to take pictures of the horses but we took about 20 of their enormous fluffy dog.

Everything was so pretty. It really felt like sleeping in a castle.

We picked up our Friesian the next morning and took the eight-hour drive home. She was a little restless for the first half-hour, but settled down and traveled like an absolute champ the rest of the way.

Our route took us through the back end of the Free State, where we passed through the tiny village where the beloved was born. We also ended up having a mini-adventure to an even tinier village, Verkeerdevlei (literally "wrong marsh"), to get fuel.

We had expressly stayed home over the Christmas season so that I would be here to catch the two foals due in late December - Wynnie, due the 24th, and a Friesian, due on the 29th. Of course, the Friesian patiently waited until I was hundreds of kilometres away and then produced a gigantic healthy filly on the night of Sunday the 2nd. My poor boss had to handle the whole thing, including the placenta that the mare promptly retained. Nonetheless, mare and foal were happy and healthy. This is a first foal out of a mare that they bred themselves, so she's a very special baby.

Wynnie continued to grow at a rather alarming rate. So did her sass levels.

The first time I met the little filly. She is unbelievably sweet and friendly without the pushiness that some of the very well imprinted foals tend to have. An absolute gem.

Erin and her sister came to visit Ladybug and also saw Lassie and Rose. They're growing at an amazing speed and both super friendly, too. I don't halter train before 3 months or so, but they're used to leading with a soft strap around the neck, and also have their feet cleaned, temperatures taken and fly spray put on.

The Friesian filly came out all wrinkles. It's too cute.

Wynnie's size, sass and cuteness continued to grow. Over Christmas I spent a lot of time with her. I was super sick on Christmas Eve with some kind of respiratory bug and spent some time that morning stretched out on the grass in her paddock with her fast asleep on her side next to me. It was pretty special. My grooms thought I had lost my mind, the crazy boss in her pink pyjamas, sick as a dog and cuddling her baby horse.

She unfolded so nicely into a really chunky lil lady. And extra sassy. Definitely her mother's daughter.

The dragon ears 💜💜 In early January she had a mild, warm puffiness on her right hock that had me very worried. The vet put her on ten days of antibiotics mixed with probiotics, which she took like a champ with a pinch of sugar. It went away nicely once I moved her from the big barn into one of the foaling boxes, which has a dirt floor - I think she was sleeping on the small concrete section by the water buckets when it was hot, and gave herself a pressure sore more than real joint ill. Silly Wynnie.

Rose growing into a magnificent youngster. I think she will be very big if she carries on like this, judging by the length of her legs next to Rene, who is almost 15.3hh.

Wynnie and her Uncle Lancey. She doesn't baby-mouth for him, just pins her ears and snaps at his nose. Absolute little brat.

My new livery, Red. He was a bit sad-looking when he arrived and truth be told he still hasn't put on weight like I want him to, but we'll get there. He belongs to a very sweet kiddo.

The two old fogies looking wonderful. Legacy (left) is 21, Conspicuous (right) is 25. Old Spics had his teeth done in January, not that there are a whole lot of teeth left.

The old girl continues to thrive on the summer grass. She does seem to have a gap in her teeth on the right side of her mouth, so I occasionally need to pull a few clumps of grass out of there. It doesn't bother her. Nothing much bothers her anymore.

I got to have a few rides on the star of the show at the Friesian stud. This magnificent animal is a Dutch import standing 17.1 and just about ready to go Prix St Georges, trained by Coach J. He is the kindest stallion I've ever met. We'll call him Big Boy for blog purposes. He has another rider now, also a Grand Prix rider, but I enjoy our weekly lunge dates. Madam President is also under the new rider but they are a much better fit and I still get to ride two of the EM horses (including Shy Boy) and a youngster, which suits me so much better. I can give them all lots of attention now.

Wynnie's nose started changing colour.

Erin made time for a visit, fitting in plenty of Wynnie cuddles. Wynnie was quite on board with this. She also saw the farrier for the first time; he didn't actually trim her feet, just lifted them and touched them lightly with the rasp, and she was pretty good about it. She did jump a bit when he lifted the first foot but settled immediately after that. 

Thunder came into full work and his body began to change dramatically. I'll do a full post on him after this one.

Our second colt of the season driving his mother insane.

My late afternoon jumping lesson, all SANESA kiddos. The ponies, from left to right: Jamaica, Spirit, Dawn, Flashy and Midas.

My noble old warrior queen 💜 

Lassie, Rose and their moms moved out into the big herd and sleep outside now. The foals handled it great - I doubt most other Nooitie foals ever see a stable, to be honest - and the moms are putting on a lot more weight now that they're on pasture 24/7. Of course, these two are best friends. Wynnie will join them a little later when she's a bit bigger.

Thunder's skin 😕😕 It's the worst it's ever been this year. I tried a bunch of different fly sprays but nothing really cleared it up. The only thing that helped the torturous itching and inflammation to an extent was actually Ingrams' hemp oil cream (for people because horse stuff is just so expensive). Now I'm not one to jump onto the CBD train, but it definitely had a soothing effect, more so than the calamine lotion I was using.

Shy Boy and I working up a storm in the blazing heat. 

Magic is just doing unbelievably well. It's the time of year now where I throw him in the field and forget about him while he grows fat and feral and chases his friends around and has the time of his life. In a few months we'll be back on seven tiny feeds a day and I am not looking forward to it. Anything for this gentle face, though.

Just look at that happy dude 💜 He is dirty and gross right now but I don't think he cares. He's just living his best life with zero expectations.

We got the garden going in December and as always this little flowerbed brings me so much joy. These are all indigenous Namaqualand flowers - gazanias and vygies. Except for the burst of pink at the far end, that's phlox. Also the random tree in the back is the crazy spinach that's trying to take over the world. And behold the tomato that reseeded itself in the middle of the lawn for some reason.

Lassie and Rose are always super playful in the mornings when I check on them.

It is insane how fast my Wynnie is growing. Arwen is slightly on the skinnier side at the moment, but I'm letting her be. She's not going back into foal this year and she has been frighteningly obese in the past, so I'm sure her feet and joints are appreciating her trimmer weight.

My youngster at the Friesians! I love her to bits. She is the cutest thing on four legs. For some reason K, who is normally fearless, doesn't get along with her at all. Instead I, the scaredy-cat, feel totally comfortable up there. We'll call her Miss Sassy.

Dakota is back! He's covering Rene and Faith again this season, both once again on breeding lease to others. Faith will be having another foal for Dakota's owner and Rene's foal is going to a new breeder in the Western Cape. Those two ladies are looking great and I'm enjoying the whole thing. Rene loves being a broodmare and it's settled Faith down a lot, too.

Summer rides with the kiddos. We struggled to beat the rain in January, especially in the late afternoons.

Dragon love 💜

The same flowerbed by late January. I bought some more vygies and put them in the gaps to fill them up with a mad mess of flowers. My gardening skills are about a 2 out of 10 but I sure enjoy it.

Shy Boy and I closed off the month with the first show of the year, in the pouring rain. I'll post the professional photos sometime as well.

God is good.