National Lampoon's Day at the Barn

Yesterday was quite a day. Let me start by mentioning that Bailey and I are still galavanting. This time not in Texas. Yep, we have jumped ship again to visit the husband. So, while we are visiting, Bailey and I are....eh...enjoying our first experience with boarding. The place I found, by sheer miracle, is great and I drove by another option I had and am so glad to have diligently kept searching! The owners and manager are awesome; it is super clean, neat, and modern. They have two arenas, one indoor and one outside. Bailey has a lovely stall that opens to a large run. She has found a new friend in the mare next door to her and they are turned out together for a good part of the day. She seems pretty content. I am going out to visit her at least once or twice a day. Hearing semi-horror stories about boarding (strangles epidemic, cribbing, weaving, and the list goes on), I want to make sure Bailey was staying active and healthy. I can't exactly trailer her back across the country if she is sick and I will be the unhappiest girl you ever met if she starts any nasty habits.

Things were going quite well the first few days. I gave her a couple days to settle in before I started asking much of her. Monday was great. She was a little distracted by her new best friend whinnying to her from across the farm, but we easily worked through it on the ground and ended up having a nice ride. Then came Tuesday.

Not only did Bailey come into heat...joy!, but she was even more attached to her mare friend AND the geldings in the "geriatric" pasture. One is a little, older, gray pony who just loves Bailey...he is kinda cute. Kinda. I finally got her to stand still for saddling (I don't tie her at this point because I want her to learn to stand still, wherever we are, ground tie and be saddled). This only took about 10 minutes of going back and forth between saddling and ground work. Things seemed to be coming together; I swung my leg over and sat in the saddle and began to slide my hand down the left rein when I heard it. A loud buzzing sound moving closer to me. I looked up and saw a massive swarm of bees coming straight for us. I had nowhere to go, no time to get back to the arena gate and get outta dodge. So, I hopped off and ducked down still holding the reins and managed to find a corner in the arena that allowed us to move around to the side and then behind the bees as they passed. All I could think of was...great!, I am here by myself, no epi-pen in sight, and I hope they aren't "killer" bees. Well, they weren't and we made it through just fine. Bailey didn't even mind them in the slightest.

I re-mounted and the first ten minutes went well. Then the other mare started in with the whinnying again and Bailey quit thinking about me. I finally decided to get off. She was calm, but just completely distracted. We did some more ground work until she came back to me mentally. I elected to call it a day and give her a break. After all, she is only 3 and I know she will have days when she acts like it. This was one of those days.

I then got the brilliant idea to bathe her. I hadn't had the opportunity to really give her a proper bath and "pretty her up" since last summer. The barn has a nice enough wash rack, but it has cross-ties that have the horse facing out to the barn aisle. I knew Bailey had never been cross-tied and I would have to introduce it and check her out before I went ahead with the bath. I truly feel that Bailey is so calm and well-behaved, in great part to how I have worked to prepare her for everything ahead of time. "Prior and proper preparation"...and all that.

She was a-ok with the cross ties and the wash room until her mare pal started in again. Then she stopped paying attention to where she was, swung her butt around and into the side wall of the room knocking off a pitchfork and a shovel, which only moderately spooked her. Note to self: when I build a barn I will remember to never store barn tools inside the wash rack. I am usually much more attentive to her surroundings than that, but then again, I am not perfect. Still not feeling 100% comfortable with the cross-tying thing, since this was her first experience, I just held the lead rope and bathed her. She eventually quit worrying about the mare and tool rack so much and stood ground tied while I finished up her bath. Whew! I groomed her up, spritzed her with fly spray and let her stand tied outside while she dried a bit.

I am excited to say that after this week, the other mare should be gone and barring any other distractions aside from her 3 year old mare antics, Bailey and I should begin having a few more positive sessions. I am loving this opportunity to spend quality time with her every day and expose her to new places and things. I firmly believe that such experiences are invaluable to a young horse, creating a confident, less fractious equine partner. With that said, even though our day was a bit out of the norm, I still count it as successful because we experienced new things, learned from them, and came out on the other side a little better.

Bailey and her new pal

Post-bath

Enjoying her afternoon hay

This is the spot she chose for doing her "business"...I could not quit laughing!

Then after business was done, she decided to show everyone how she could cross the bridge solo. I think we might have a trail class winner on our hands.

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