The Neck Bone's Connected to the...Oh, Whatever.

When Trainer told me the equine sports therapist was coming today, I got a little excited. I'd heard about this guy from several people, who all had rave reviews. Trainer was pretty certain Therapy Guy could get Rain in while he was at the barn, so even though we didn't have an appointment, Rain got to take her turn having her body manipulated and adjusted.

She was a little resistant to the whole process at first. Some of the horses that got done ahead of Rain where returning clients, so they knew the drill. Guy rubs you all over, guy pulls at your head, yadda yadda. No sweat. Rain was like "Oh sweet mother, why are you turning my head like that?! Why are you touching me there?! Animal cruelty!"

I was pretty fascinated by the whole process. "So what does pushing there do? So that muscle ties in to that vertebrae?" And so on.

He did sing my mare's praises though. At least about her physical appearance. Her lack of standing still left something to be desired.

"Her coat looks great," he said at one point.

"She's got good muscling," he announced at another.

"She's gorgeous. She's put together really well."

I halfway wanted to preen and titter like a mother hen. Like I planned the breeding that resulted in her. Like I haven't had a shit-ton of help to get her to where she's at.

Apparently her 5th vertebrae was out of alignment, and he popped that back in. But other than that, no major issues. He did have to do some decompression on her neck vertebrae. At one point, you could her her neck pop. I know how nice it feels when my neck pops, so it must have felt wonderful to her.

He asked me how old she was, and about her breeding. I told him, Storm Cat on top, Mr. Prospector on bottom, and she just turned 5. At hearing Mr. Prospector, he nodded his head sagely. "I've met alot of horses bred that way from working on horses at the track. They take awhile to mature."

I cringed internally. "Oh?" I queried.

"She probably won't mature mentally till she's 7 or so."

At that point, I wanted to bang my head against the wall. In my head I was thinking, 'Oh sweet baby Jesus, how am I going to live through another 2 years? I'm struggling half the time already, and I've only had her 6 months!'

"Oh, jeez," I responded. And forced out a chuckle. I wanted him to think I found that humorously exasperating, not terrifying.

"I bet her knees aren't even closed yet." He did something to her knees. "Nope! Not closed yet! She's still got some growing to do." He eyed her withers. "I bet she grows another half a hand."

It was then that I was ready to do more than bang my head on the wall. I was pretty sure I might just ram my head through it. Two more inches?! No! She doesn't need to be any taller. She's already the tallest horse I've ever ridden. I told him that I hoped to God she would not grow two more inches. He laughed at me. In my head, I'd gone fetal.

And that's pretty much how I'd left the barn today. Two more years, and two more inches. She's got more growing to do, and I've got more big-girl-panty-putting-on to do.

Say "Ahhh!"

So I've had this...thing...lump...in the back of my mouth behind my molars for the last couple of days. It almost feels like a tooth is trying to erupt. But since I'm, you know, well past the teething age, and my wisdom teeth have already been removed, I had no idea what it could be. I touched it, and messed with it with my tongue, and squeezed on it (painful), to try to see if anything (like pus) would come out. No dice.

So at the barn today, as I'm handing off a saddled horse to Trainer, I say "Dude, I need you to look in my mouth at this lump I have. And see if it's like an abscess or a...something...or what it is." It's totally normal to have a trainer who is, well, your trainer, plus your (equine) dentist, plus your boss, right? That's totally normal?

Anyway. Trainer is a certified equine dentist, and being that I currently have no health insurance, I figured she could at least peer in there and see if she saw anything. An abscess is an abscess, across species lines. So later, Trainer/Dentist/Boss snapped on some latex gloves, fired up a flashlight (her iPhone flashlight) and stuck her hands in my mouth. Well, a couple of fingers, anyway (don't be a pervert, people). She poked at it, and prodded it, and declared that it's way harder to work on small human mouth than a big horse mouth, and finally told me there was nothing she could see. "It's inflamed, but I can't see any abscess or wound or anything. If it's not better in a couple days, I'll look at it again."

I wish I could better set the stage for how this must have looked. One woman, several of her fingers in the mouth of another woman, both standing in the middle of a barn aisle. Yeah, sometimes being a horse person is kind of freaky.

Anyway, I had a lesson before the mouth shenanigans went on, and Trainer took this bit of video.

I'm happy Rain looks good. I have some questions about myself, though. For example, why do I post funny? Also, why do my arms look ram-rod straight? They feel bent when I'm riding, and they must not be completely awful, or Trainer wouldn't hesitate to call me on it. But moving on. If you compare this video to the last video of Rain from several months ago, she looks about 1000% better. Hooray for progress!

Wind

As is probably evident from the title, we've had a lot of wind lately. Tucson can't decide what weather it wants to be. Monday it was in the low 80s, Tuesday the same, Wednesday it was in the 60s. And the wind started. And it continued through today. As a result, Trainer decided she didn't want to expend a ton of effort today (because wind makes Tucson horses dumb, and we'd expended effort on the preceding windy days) so most horses just got turned out. I was OK with this, because lunging umpteen horses wasn't really high on my most-favorite-thing-to-do-on-a-Friday list.
This is Rincon being turned out in the round pen. The barn she's at requires supervision of turn out, so I'm hanging out, "supervising."

This is my toe, post-Kermit. Not broken (most likely not broken, anyway). But I did lose half the nail. Have a disgusting picture of my gnarly toe, and associated gnarly flesh. 

A Hot Forge and a Field Trip

The shoer came out a couple days ago and did a bunch of Trainer's client horses and some of her personal horses. I ended up holding horses for what felt like forever. I'd never seen a shoer hot-shoe before, and took the opportunity to take a photo of a red-hot horseshoe. According to the farrier, for a shoe to glow red-hot, it has to be at around 2000 degrees. I don't even want to think about what kind of damage 2000 degrees could do to one's skin.

Then the ponies went on a field trip. When I texted my friend and told her I wouldn't be making it to a dinner for a mutual friend that evening, I told her it was because Rain was going on a field trip, and she responded, "Your horse is going on a field trip? Will she learn anything? It this an educational field trip?"
I chuckled to myself and answered, "It is an educational field trip. It's called 'learn to have a brain when off the farm.'" Rain has to learn how to hang on to her brain when away from the farm, so she got to ride along to a barrel racing practice. She was actually surprisingly good. She was in the company of Leo, a barrel racing and traveling veteran, and Cara, who is not a veteran of anything. I'm proud to say that my mare did as well as, if not better than, Cara (who has been hauled to events a couple of times before). Rain met cows and foals and a hot walker.

She thought cows were dumb and ugly and smelly and good-for-nothing. Wait. Maybe that's just me projecting my feelings about cows onto my horse. Oops.

Leo is ready to go "turn and burn."

She didn't break anything or kill anyone, so I consider the trip a success. She stood tied to the arena, and only dug a small hole. It was more long and shallow than deep, so it was easy to fill up before we left to head back to the barn.

Rain stands next to Cara, before Trainer and I oh-so-cruelly made her stand by herself.

In solitary on the other side of the arena.