Day 211

My mom read somewhere earlier this week that celery was a good alternative to carrots for horses with insulin resistance. So we figured we'd try it out. Absolutely no one liked it! Brie thought it was disgusting, Nina wouldn't even look at it, and Harry ate one stalk and then spit out the rest that we tried to feed him. Oh well, guess we just have to cut back on the carrot intake!

Brie is looking kind of skinny, but her eye sockets were filling in last week, so that means her sugar was going up...I feel bad for her. Poor Brie. If she ate enough, she'd probably be happier, but we have to keep her underweight to control her sugar...The vet's supposed to come out this month for shots and teeth, so maybe we'll have her test Brie's blood and then give us some more advice about how to manage her.

We were waiting around for the farrier today. While we were waiting, I decided to longe Harry. I feel like I'm dreaming! He's absolutely wonderful longeing now! I got curious after we stopped and had my brother knock over a couple of poles and lay them on the ground for Harry to walk over them. He didn't want to at first, even though he has tons of times before, but after he saw Nina walking over them he just went for it. Then we decided to try the tarp again. Harry didn't learn by example from that! Nina just thought the tarp was the silliest thing and walked right over it, stomped on it, kicked it around, pushed it with her nose, and even picked it up in her mouth and flung it around! Harry, meanwhile, was fearing for his life (and Nina's). We eventually just settled on him being calm and observing Nina and decided it was a good time to have his break. We put him away and got out Brie, who also thought the whole ordeal was ridiculous. In the end, we laid the tarp over Brie and Nina (separately) and walked them around with it. Brie was used to it because I show costume with her and wear a dress, so she's used to something hanging over her butt, and Nina was really well behaved and unphased by it too! At least now I now that if I ever can't bring Brie to a show, I can do costume with Nina! I feel a new outfit coming on the horizon! I better fire up that sewing machine.

We didn't know whether we should ride them or not, but my brother and mom ended up tacking up Nina and Harry to ride. I only put a bareback pad and bit hanger on Brie because I figured with my luck the farrier would show up right as I started to ride. And just as I thought, I was right! I only got a couple of laps around the arena, as Brie wanted to fly, before the farrier showed up. He did Sadie first, but I dismounted anyways to help him out cleaning up and handling Sadie and the rest of the horses.

My mom switched Harry's bosal to a softer one in order to tuck his head in without using a martingale. We changed this because Pasos resist pressure rather than giving in to it, so after this change, his barbada was stronger than his bosal, which would theoretically lower his head. I got the chance to watch him in action today, rather than being on his back, and he looked pretty good! Only time will tell if this method worked.

Last night, I found this video of Harry's father on Youtube. I was so surprised about how similarly they gait, which I guess would make sense, but having never seen his father in action, it makes me realize that Harry's not actually doing anything wrong with his gait --- he only has those little spouts of nervous tapdancing. After watching this, it really made me proud that he's on the right track to follow in his father's footsteps!

Brillante - A History

I realized that I never really went fully into detail about my horses. I'll start off with Brillante since we've had her longer. Her nickname's Brie, and that's what I've been calling her throughout all of my posts.
I got Brillante when I was in 7th grade. I was not too thrilled about her. I was never the girl that asked for a horse on her Christmas list (I always asked for a cat), and I was under pressure because I was trying to get into one of the most prestigious selective enrollment schools in Chicago. How could I focus on school when I was trying to take care of a horse?!

Anyways, we found Brie by accident at a horse fair up in Northern Illinois. We were already looking into share-boarding a horse in a place I can only describe as "the middle of nowhere" because I can't recall where it was. My mom was looking for hunter/jumper horses, just to see if she could convince my dad to buy one, but as we watched the breed demonstration, my dad was immediately smitten with Brie and sought her out right after she left the arena. Just a three year-old, everyone told us not to buy her, she was too "green", she'd hurt us kids (my brother and I). But my dad was sold on the idea of his horse and his kids growing up together (and keeping us out of the malls doing absolutely nothing on Saturday afternoons).

So now we have this horse. What do we do with her? And what the heck is a Paso Fino? Why did we buy this instead of an Arabian? Completely dazed and confused, my mom attempted to implement the methods of training Arabians she learned when she was a youngster, mucking stalls in return for one 30 minute lesson. Brie wasn't loving that too much, until one day, the trainer (who we originally mistook for the owner), our beloved Andre, asked us "What the heck are you doing? And why do you have that 50 ft rope?!" He rode Brie for us, like he did in the horse fest, and we wanted him to train. To make a long story short, the real owner of the stable we were at wanted Andre exclusively for himself and we had to leave to another stable.

Without naming names, that new stable was a DUMP. But we had to stay there since it was close to Andre's house and he had to do something with Brillante and teach us what to do with her since we had no clue. What turned out to be a 3 month deal turned into a long-lasting (until recently) friendship that remained even when things went completely downhill with the stable. In retrospect, we did a lot of stupid things with Brie that could have gotten us killed. For example, I remained on her after a day of full-on rears (which is actually kind of impressive). We started looking for new places when Brie's sweet demeanor turned nasty and she became extremely head-shy. The final straw? We up and left one day after we walked in only to find huge bite marks along Brie's neck line and chest. We still don't know what they were to this day (rats? a wasp? cigarette burns?).

Off we went to our third stable where another trainer was, Juan. We didn't hire him because by then we thought we knew enough to work with Brie on our own, and we did fairly well. Time at this stable is really a blur, and all I remember is that Paco worked there (that's where we met him) and that the owners of the stable we're currently at were there as Juan's clients. Things were okay for a while, then immediately went downhill and we left back to where we started, the stable where Brie was born up in Northern Illinois.

Things were peaceful, quiet. The place was really beautiful, light and airy. It was more rustic and beautiful that I remembered. While back at her "home", Brie had an encounter with laminitis. We caught it early enough, thankfully, and Andre was living on the property so he was there to give her medication everyday. It was then that we found out that Brie is insulin resistant and can't be getting apples everytime we go out or a multitude of cookies or an excess of grain. There was no rotation and we really lucked out with that one, and now we're vigilant about her weight and what she eats.
Aside from the chill in the winter, it was paradise. But since the owner died and his wife was too depressed by running the business without him, so she sold it, and we packed up and left to the stable we're currently at.

So this ended up being a not-so-short history of Brie's moves and medical condition. I was going to post more about her attitude and things I'm trying to work with her on but I'll save that for another post, coming soon.