Catching Up
Hello out there!
This is…well, this is a half-year overdue catch-up conversation! It's been a while since I've written, and admittedly it may be inconsistent until I am more concretely at home. But despite the frequency, here are the updates.
Cutting straight to the chase of my time away, at the beginning of the summer, my long-term partner and I ended our relationship. At the end of the summer, I moved to a much more rural location, and have been immersed in my day-to-day over some of the extras that I thought would be great inspiration pieces to work on (like this blog). But with every pendulum swing, we have to find a way to settle at center again - so here I am, returning to writing so that the world of OTTBs can open up just a little bit more.
Super Pony and I are out in a little corner of Southern New Hampshire on a temporary basis where we soft landed to regroup and figure out life’s next steps - one of those steps appeared a week after we moved in, when Factor gained a sister named Cruz!
Before our move, we were able to sneak in a clinic with Silke Rembacz again, but since then our progress has largely been catalogued on my Pivo for comments later. Factor ended up going through a series of hurdles this fall physically, including some on and off soreness in his legs and feet with mud season. This, and Cruz, inspired me to take a hard step back and spend more time learning about hoof care and growing my barefoot trimming skills. Side note, Factor's hoof progress with the Humble Hoof was featured on recent promo materials at the New England Equine Affaire!
Factor and me at a Silke Rembacz clinic in August 2021, hosted by AVB Equestrian at Kinney Hill Farm
All in all though, my big guy is working his way closer and closer to 5 years old, and starting to exhibit signs of being a teenager. We've had a few different conversations about personal space and have spent some time playing with more groundwork this fall. He has learned the joys of being a strong, balanced horse, but also is finding his ability to leap and kick his heels up...
Some of the other work has been about refining our connection, and I had a bit of a learning experience taught to me by Factor himself.
It starts by saying that I've introduced him to cavaletti as well, and have found him a very enthusiastic jumper. He locks onto the cavaletti with his ears, and is happy to take me straight to it. So far, he's been superb about listening to where I want him to go, even after he's locked on. He doesn't fight or argue if the line bends away, and he doesn't surge if the line leads to the cavaletti.
Well, so much time in the jump tack - partially for cavaletti work, partially my own balance, and partially for more fun on trails (oh yes) - collecting back into dressage work for the last couple weeks has been a brain switch. Coming through a ride where our connection was lighter and I had him on a longer rein, I found him diving down into the bridle and chomping at the bit as soon as we went faster than a walk. A few times he pinned his ears and started showing real frustration when I’d ask for any adjustment through a rein.
So, rather than ask him a question about contact that wasn’t coming through, I took up more rein, and we proceeded.
Instantly his demeanor changed. As we worked more on a rein length and contact I attribute to riding over fences, Factor got round and “full” beneath me, his back and chest rising as he balanced more on his hindquarters. Stunned, I rode him through the rest of our workout and thoughtfully untacked. He was happier, looser in his body, and forward as he found the contact he was looking for, and the balance in his body with each step. My all-the-time concern about “hanging” on his face has really manifest this opposite habit of taking too little contact and making my young horse frustrated by half-hearted conversation.
More to come on the fantastic Mr. Factor, but allow me turn your attention to another plain bay wrapper:
Cruz
Cruzin Carter - a 2019 thoroughbred filly, and Factor’s new sibling
It's not so difficult to imagine, but I like my minimally flashy, but wonderfully athletic off the track horses. My two-year-old Cruz is fit to that mold.
She came to me with a face that still speaks volumes to her youth, with long dancer legs, and a mid-body sesamoid fracture. It is in fact because of her sesamoid that she ended up becoming my horse - in August, when her injury happened, I was contacted by a rescue on the track when the trainer made noise that they were not going to rehab her through the injury. Fortunately, the vet thought she was too good a baby to go that way, and the right network of people connected her to me - including the trainer who agreed to let her go on this new journey.
While there is a lot of progress to catch you up on regarding Cruz, I think the basics are best for this post. She will, undoubted, be the star of many updates in the future.
Cruz (Cruzin’ Carter) is a 2019 bay filly. Though she has a January 1 birthday like all JC registered Thoroughbreds, she is actually an April baby, so at the time of writing this she’s only just barely reaching 32 months of age (and at that age has already held a career!).
She joined my little family at the beginning of September, and received surgery at Tufts Large Animal Hospital for the fracture at the beginning of October. Cruz has been undergoing a dutiful rehab regime since she returned home from Tufts. We have been getting weekly Bemer and red light therapy on her injury site, hand walking - and learned some ground manners during that time - and are generally adapting to life after the racetrack.