Grazing Pains

tired boots
How do horses do it? Given the choice horses would graze 24/7. Yet after a session of hand-grazing Mathilda, I’m plumb tuckered out. Too tired to swear.

The optimist in us says that Mathilda is getting stronger. The pessimist points to her weight, wonders about her age, and questions the rosy-coloredness of our glasses. Either way, she is on stall rest/hand-grazing during the day while Rodney is out. At night, they swap & we let her move about at will. While Rodney has adjusted to a stall for long periods, she stiffens up. Hence the multiple grazing breaks. Having conclusively proven that she cannot be trusted to behave herself in company, I get to chaperon.

It’s easy duty. She eats. I hold the leadrope. She wanders. I follow. I read light but engaging books (Mercedes Lackey, Elmore Leonard). If he wanders too close, I give him the hairy eyeball. When she’s tired, I drag her back to the barn. The only physical effort is gentle walking and watching out for fire ant hills. And yet, I am exhausted. My two pairs of wonder boots help (Wellies & Red Wings [Thank You, Needful Extravagance]), but after a total of 4 hours grazing yesterday all I wanted to do in the evening was collapse into my chair and whine about my feet.

How long have you ever had to graze a horse?

Rodney’s Mommy?

Is a bay mare in in Tennessee. I am not. I prefer boss. As in: Yes, Boss. Right away, Boss. Is this high enough, Boss? I utterly reject and despise referring to human women as horse mommies. Not crazy about “pet parents” either.

My aversion to this usage dates back to my first leased horse as a teenager. My mother came to the barn. Another boarder referred to me as X’s mommy or to themselves as Y’s mommy. My mother went ballistic. History does not record her exact reasoning, but the intent of the lecture cometed through the atmosphere and made a permanent crater in my psyche. This is bad. Taboo. Verboten. Not to be done. Ever.

It is possible that my mother was reacting to unrelated family issues. Nevertheless, the lesson stuck. Still, one can only blame one’s parents up to a point. Eventually, you have to admit that your childhood ideas have become your own adult convictions. Without my mother’s reaction, I might not be so rabid in my dislike of this practice but I would never condone it. Imposing a mother-child bond on a human-horse relationship is not in keeping with a workable philosophy of horses. Over-sentimentality causes terrible horsemanship.

My horse took down a pole, knocked over a barrel, ran away on purpose to make me look stupid.
No, he was just being a horse. The stupid part was all you.

It’s it precious how my Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel nuzzles me for carrots and sits in my lap?.
No, it’s not. Trust me, your barn manager, vet, and blacksmith don’t think so either.

Treating a horse as a human shortchanges both horse and human. Hoofed herbivores asked to live under primate/carnivore rules function in a world that doesn’t make sense to them. They live in confusion. Since horses are not good at being primate/carnivores, people judge them as stupid. In a multi-species study, each animal was let into a room with 3 covered bins, one of which contained a treat. At first the food was always in the same bucket. Everybody aced that one. Then the food was always in the bucket to the left of the previous, or always to the right. Other species performed with varying degrees of success, as defined by the test-makers. The horses did not. They *always* went first to the bucket that the food had been the time before. This was seen as proving a lack of mental acuity. Yes, if problem-solving is important to you. OTOH, if you range over acres of grassland, it’s pretty smart to remember that the last time you were near this particular tree there was a nice patch of yummy just over there.

We would all be better off if we valued horses (dogs, cats, ferrets, goldfish) for themselves, not as ersatz people.

See Mom, I listened. Part of the time. Happy Mother’s Day.

Never Settle

The fourth & final day of the psycho-social drama that is my search for a new horse.

Buying a horse combines the mechanical uncertainties of inspecting a used car, the emotional baggage of adopting a pet, and the imponderables of hiring a co-worker. It’s a wonder any horses get bought.

My Uncle Jim knows little of horses but a lot about hiring co-workers. In the process of starting up and running a successful advertising agency, he spent many hours on personnel matters. This hard-headed businessman’s advice is to go with your gut. Once you have sorted the acceptable candidates from the unacceptable, wait for one that excites you. If you have a space to fill in your business or your barn, don’t you have to take the best of the available candidates? No. If your search hasn’t yielded the right candidates, change your search. Somewhere out there is the sort of person you want who in turn wants exactly what your company has to offer. Not just someone who has to live in your town for family reasons but someone who wants your mix of work/salary/corporate culture. Any time Uncle Jim has settled for “the best available”, he has regretted it.

I called him 6 months ago when I had finally found a decent horse after 6 months of looking. He was the best I had seen. Uncle Jim told me the above. I didn’t believe him. For various other reasons, I didn’t buy that horse. Turns out, Uncle Jim was right. Six months later I found absolutely the right horse, way higher quality than I had been looking for, who came to live here thru a concatenation of circumstances.

I wrote the above text the month Rodney arrived. Having just slogged through a year-long ordeal of horse shopping, I was attempting to capitalize on the agony by selling an article on buying horses to an editor. I wasn’t blowing smoke. Rodney was & is a higher-caliber horse than I ever expected to own.

On my Day 3 post [Eeny], I said I don’t trust other people’s opinions. I have my reasons. For the sake of libel suits, I will leave it at that. Insert your own unsuitable/unsound horse horror stories. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. You might have the advisory team of Matz, O’Connor, and Gurney with a Gates budget, but at some point you & you alone have to say, Yes, let’s do it.

I don’t trust anybody else, after Rodney I don’t trust my gut, & a third pasture ornament might just do me in. What criteria do I use when I don’t trust any of the criteria?

Related Posts
Horse Shopping day 3: Eeny, Meeny … oh you know the rest
Horse Shopping day 2: Yin or Yang?
Horse Shopping day 1: Crowdsourcing
Shopping for Rodney in Horse Illustrated
Horse shopping online: Putting Myself Out There … On Horseback.
Truck Shopping

So, Astute Reader, that is the long-winded answer to what is paralyzing me into inaction. In sum:
What should I look for?
Where should I look?
&
What should I do when I find it?

A Rodney Moment

Let us take a break from horse shopping to check in with our hero. How has Rodney been while I have been plotting his replacement and Mathilda has been taking up all my time? Fat & happy. Remarkably so.

At night, we put him up in a stall and bed down the aisle to give Mathilda room to rest or move or graze as she sees fit. We figure she won’t overexert herself as she is a) basically sensible and b) loathe to leave her boy toy. To keep Rodney out of the rafters during her rehab, we cut his food. He is now getting a third of what Mathilda gets, which is a ridiculously small amount for any horse, much less for an over-sized, high-strung Thoroughbred. He has responded by putting on weight. Plus, he is nowhere near as feral as I would have expected from past behavior. [Caution] I have several theories, but too many variables.

Stall Time
It is article of faith with me that out is better than in. [Cowboy] However, when Rodney arrived, he tried to treat the aisle/run-in area as his stall. Perhaps he finds a measure of security in what used to be a familiar routine for him.

Hay
He eats everything left in the stall with him. Even hay that has gotten mixing in with the shavings while Mathilda is in during the day. (We keep them separate, see above boy toy comment. Even when she was too tippy to urinate securely, she was still trying to pee & wink at him. A serious horse-of-negotiable-virtue.) When they are out 24/7, they have an all-they-can-eat hay buffet, which they ignore for green grass. Perhaps being locked in gives him nothing else to do but eat. Perhaps the commercially-cultivated hay is more nutritious than grass off our clay-filled dirt.

Massage
I’ve been working on tightness in his loin/flank area. Perhaps increased relaxation has led to fullness through the barrel.

Indirection Attention
No work, a bit of heat therapy/massage, and grooming when I have extra energy has been the sum of direct attention Rodney has gotten lately. OTOH he is getting huge amounts of indirect attention. He gets his carrot during carrot checks. He gets pats as I walk back and forth. He sees me in the field as the three of us graze. Perhaps all of this adds up.

Since one can’t do a double-blind, controlled study with barn care, we will keep all variables in mind moving forward to see which ones might be effective. As we slide through the second year of Life with Rodney, I can’t help but feel we ought to know him better by now.

How long does it take you to feel you really know a new horse (or cat or dog or person)?

Eeny, Meeny … oh you know the rest

Day three of horse shopping ponderment.

Yesterday, I asked what sort of horse I should be looking for, a show horse or a hand-holder. [Yin] The verdict seems to be for the good-time horse, with a few votes for Why Not Both. Finding a horse upon which to have fun sounds all sane & logical, but I can still go zero to fuss from a standing start. If I were as serious about my riding as I claim, why wouldn’t I jump at the chance to have two big-time show horses?

Angst aside, the next step is finding said beast. When I began on Monday [Crowdsourcing], I said I would not complain. I won’t. But the underlying causes of the whining do constitute obstacles to be dealt with.

The area I live in doesn’t have the density of horses that Lexington has.
More travel time per horse viewed equals less horses to be seen per unit time. Therefore, I need to prescreen. A 6yo that looks good in pictures is a non-brainer to go see if he lives 20 minutes away. What if it’s an hour? Two? The next state? How do I decide which ones are worth the drive?

Pictures and videos can rule out the unsuitable: an adorable draft-cross who made the earth tremble when he cantered, a horse going prelim and hauling like a freight train on the arms of the professional rider aboard. [Putting] That reduces the pool but still leaves the essential question.

Previously (apologies for not being able to dredge it up) a comment recommended using trainers websites to get a general idea of what they have. When I try that at Mr. BNR’s barn, I get 6 horses all of who are described in vague and glowing terms. They can’t all be perfect. Even if they were, they can’t all be suitable.

I have trouble getting people to take me seriously.
Get help you say. But I have no existing relationships with trainers, and the ones I do talk with don’t feel an overwhelming compulsion to return my calls/emails. Short of wearing my bank statement pinned to my chest, I can’t force someone to take an interest.

My past decisions didn’t always work out.
If I had advisors, I probably wouldn’t trust ’em. My worst horse-buying decisions were ones I had “help” with. So, for better or worse, Hubby & I are relying on our own judgment.

With horses all around, how do I decide what direction to head in?

BTW, As I go on & on about this horse being a backup, is anyone else thinking of For the Moment, Lisa Jacquin’s super-star horse who she started with, “as a temporary ‘project’ until something better came along.”? Horsetalk

[And another postscript. Googling for the spelling of the title led me to discover the PC-storm surrounding what I learned as a harmless rhyme. Sigh. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I debated changing. OTOH, EENY shows up frequently in the NYT crosswords. Any word that is good enough for Will Shortz is good enough for me.]

Related Posts
Horse Shopping day 2: Yin or Yang?
Horse Shopping day 1: Crowdsourcing
Shopping for Rodney in Horse Illustrated
Horse shopping online: Putting Myself Out There … On Horseback.
Truck Shopping