10 years of Chestnut Mare under my belt… award please?

This week marks our 10^th year together.

A cold but sunny day in January, 2016.

I still remember the day Deli stepped off the trailer like it was yesterday. It was my first-ever emergency vet bill! We struggled for the first year and a half together as I worked with her on the ground, teaching her all the things a polite horse should know. I had trained baby horses before, but it was quite the challenge teaching an ADULT horse who’d had little handling how to do the basic things many horse owners take for granted. We also dealt with injury and illness during that time that put the STRESS in stressful.

Recent road riding around our barn.

But each year things have gotten better. We may be older and creakier with past injuries, but we are partners now. She turns 17 in May the day after I turn 32.

Road riding in February.

This horse is a huge challenge. But she also holds a piece of my heart that belongs to nobody else. Even knowing all the pain and hardship we would face in the past ten years I’d do it all again. I think she came into my life for a reason and vice versa.

I'm looking forward to the next ten years with this beautiful individual.

My husband made her a "mash cake."

Last time: PNER Convention Notes – "10 Things You Can Do Better" by Susan Garlinghouse, DVM, MS
Next time: Sharing my experience of the GHOST saddle prototype I tried out in February.

Grizzly Mountain Endurance Race – Part 1 – Ride Camp

Otherwise titled: the Red Mare’s first camping and endurance ride experience! OR: Finally put down in writing, nearly a month later. And yes, since I am verbose I am splitting this post.

We decided to try a couple new things at once! And it actually went really well, for a change. I’m not going to say perfect, because perfection is just too high of a bar for the perpetually-broken pair Deli and I make.

Our plan was always just to do the 10 mile “trail ride” on Saturday (otherwise titled the “welcome to endurance, PUNY NEWBS” ride) given Deli’s unfitness and the fact that she is still coming back from an injury of fairly epic proportions. Also: first time! I really wanted the ride itself to not be the most stressful part for her, and I am very interested in the “dipping toes” approach to trying a new sport. I have been waiting FIVE YEARS to do try sport with Deli. I am both hurried and unhurried.

Fresh off the trailer on Friday.

I had my vet out a week before the ride to do a general check by a professional who judges several endurance races a year, and try some acupuncture on the sensitive lady for the first time. The resulting advice: she looks good, go out, don’t push her, have fun.

Okay, we can do that, right? Turns out we absolutely can.

I bought a stack full of anti-anxiety meds for Deli (which was probably more for me than her, especially evidenced by the fact I didn't use them at all except for trailering) and organized everything I could so that I wouldn’t be hectic on Friday morning, when an experienced endurance rider I have met and become friends with was due to pick us up with her rig and two horses. Melinda was a great travel companion and it was wonderful to have someone experienced and knowledgeable with the sport and horse camping in charge of hauling and just knowing the ins and outs of ride-day planning.

I’d say the trailer ride there and back was easily the most stressful part of the long weekend trip for Deli – but she got right both directions in despite having anxious brain fits. Unfortunately not having my own trailer means her hauling experience is limited mostly to when I move her to a new barn.

We arrived at Grizzly Mountain, which is in central Oregon – the DRY side of the state, for those curious. After setting up camp, I installed Deli in her little corral living quarters (thanks to Melinda, for lending us the use of some of her corral panels) and started the process of feeding her to death. One of my goals for the weekend was for Deli NOT to lose weight, when this horse drops weight very easily when stressed. She was certainly stressed by the trailer ride, but happily I think I was able to meet this goal for the weekend by stuffing her face at every opportunity. She is a very food motivated horse, so I was also hoping that she would associate camping, at least in part, with being fed very well. Food = positive experience!

Ride camp in the evening after it had filled up. See that mountain in the background? We went up that sucker.

  

Overall I was VERY happy with Deli’s camping attitude, especially considering her “anxious” personality. At her worst (when all the horses around her had left on their rides on Sunday) she screamed and did some pacing in between taking mouthfuls of hay. During that time I choose to ignore her completely and wandered off to help pulse and vet-in (leaving my husband in camp doing chainmail, so there was still someone with an eye on her). I could see her from the vet-in area and I can recognize her voice, and I know she calmed down at some point. In fact, she ended up napping (she didn’t lie down, but there was lip-droop) in the sun while camp was quiet.

In fact, her appetite was superb all weekend. I had brought her normal diet less-rich orchard hay, a compacted bale of “candy” orchard hay (which she loves more than any other forage besides fresh grass), and some alfalfa which I planned to feed before exercise or trailering and in handfuls throughout the weekend to help buffer her stressed stomach against ulcers. Other than the hay, I brought a substantial bucket of both haystack special blend and equine senior to make into delicious mashes for her. 

Yeah, it was a lot of food. Deli went through what I calculated to be around 90-100lbs of hay products that weekend (this is counting the Haystack, which is a high-fat forage feed). I pretty much kept hay in front of her any time she was in her corral and she made good use of it. Good pony!

She drank very well all weekend too (though less well on the actual ride – more on that later), and I think her propensity to play in water when it’s warm or she’s bored, which was a given in the small corral, helped her keep drinking. She would splash a bit, take a sip, put some hay in her water and eat it, and repeat. All good things – so I’m told – for an endurance horse. I really like the soft-sided buckets for horse camping as they seemed much safer in the confined space for Deli and the smaller ones made carrying water much more comfortable. I plan to get a full set before our next trip.

Strange YET delicious, according to Deli's discerning palate.

We spent a good amount of time hand-walking her over the weekend. She was in LOVE with the eastern Oregon clump grass and was always happy to get out away from ride camp to graze in-hand. Once, out with just the two of us I saw three different horny toads! We also walked around camp and she was very polite and curious about all the activity and strange horses. There were a couple stallions in camp but we stayed away and she didn’t seem like she could be bothered. It was another story with her camp and trailer-ride buddy, Melinda's gelding Pepper. She really formed a fast friendship with him over the weekend, and was always sad to see him go!

Melinda's horses, Dazzle on the left and Pepper on the right.

The weather was highly variable and not very enjoyable for me. I am definitely a “wet-sider” when it comes to the kind of weather patterns I enjoy – give me rain over blistering heat and scouring wind ANY day! It was very hot at some points, but the weather in the Oregon arid lands changes quickly. Enough to make old scars ache something fierce, that’s for sure. It was very cold in the evenings and even froze one night. In fact, that first night I was miserable and unable to get warm in my tent. I got little to no sleep and just spent the night shivering and occasionally poking my head out of the tent to check on Deli and the other horses in our camp. All this made me very glad I brought Deli’s medium weight blanket; she was very happy to have it on once the temperature started dropping.

I also brought several different weight coolers, so I was able to put a thick wool one on her after our ride – when she was soaking wet with sweat and water from me sponging her off – just as the terrible Eastern Oregon wind picked up on Saturday. It was miserable for all involved, I think, though luckily Deli’s Corral was set up where trailers blocked a good bit of the wind on three sides. I felt fine energy-wise after our ride on Saturday (other than being a little dehydrated), but the wind on both Saturday and Sunday sucked everything out of me and scoured a layer off my skin. That is something nobody enjoys.

My husband keeping us company!

Despite the weather woes, the whole Grizzly Mountain area was stunningly beautiful with dramatic skies, interesting rock formations, sage land, and juniper forests. I wish I got more photos on the ride itself – particularly of the aforementioned rocky outcroppings (which included some caves) and meadows full of wildflowers. However, after a certain point on the trail ride, photos were NOT possible. Or at the very least they were not something on my mind. I had my hands full dealing with a VERY EXCITED Deli.  But more on that later!

 

Why struggle at all?

The past year has been among the most difficult times Deli and I have ever had together. I won’t say the most difficult, because at least we have a fully-formed trust relationship at this point. Though in some respects having that closer relationship with her has made the past year more difficult, because for every bad situation we have gotten into, I felt crushed by guilt and anxiety for not having made the better choice. Deli deserves the best of everything, and sometimes it’s not within my power to give that. Deli, like most of our domesticated animals, is at the whim of the people around her. I make choices, and if they don’t work out, she’s the one that suffers most.

Last week I moved her again. That makes six moves in one year. Horses are beings that thrive on routine. Deli does well with routine more than most, since she tends towards having an anxious personality all things equal.

Throughout this year, (non-equestrian) friends and family have asked me “why do it? Why put yourself through this?” when they saw how crippled I was by anxiety, unable to sleep as I feverishly searched for that elusive “better barn.” My old injuries re-surfaced from spending too much time in the car – time I did not have – driving back and forth to tend to and comfort my horse. My health has certainly suffered this year. I haven’t been able to focus on school and work like I should have.

It does irritate me that I know that people wouldn’t ask why I “put myself through” the stress if Deli was a human family member. I have to ignore this issue, because my relationship with Deli is far deeper and more important to me than my relationships with many others. I prefer not to anthropomorphize her because she’s actually much more real to me, and more deserving of my love, as just a horse. But she’s also not just a horse. I’ve worked with and ridden lots of horses. They are all individuals, with distinct personalities. I don’t tend to “click” easily with horse personalities in general (of all domesticated animals, my personality seems to mesh with a greater number of cats). Even though I’d say I enjoy horses as a species, it’s the individual bond that interests me and keeps me coming back for more.

It’s the click of everything being in the right place at the right time.

 Many people do not get this concept. I can only tell these people you don’t understand.

I get that “click” with Deli. The connection I have with her, even though it’s not constant, is occasionally the strongest connection I have to any other individual living being.

Attempting to put the feeling into words is difficult. 

It happens sometimes when I have been schooling dressage and everything fits together. My body is in the perfect place in conjunction with her body, and suddenly we are one being. I can feel every fiber of her muscle, tendon, and bone, and I can feel every part of my own body, joined in symphony. You could describe it as an out of body sensation, but the reality is that it feels like, through the connection with her, I become more real, more than I could ever be by myself.

It’s like when you look into the starry Milky Way in the middle of the wilderness and feel the vastness of the universe. But instead of feeling small, you feel like you are part of it all. It’s a kind of joy that I almost never feel – with so much of my life being dedicated to fighting the things I hate, and the things I hate always surrounding me.

And then there are those times where I’m not even riding her. Quiet moments when I feel Deli focus on me with an intensity that seems unique to her. With her intellect being so alien to me, that connection frees me from the burden of my own thoughts. It unburdens me from my humanity, which I so often despise. 

Again –  click.

I remember the first time I galloped with her. She had been under saddle for about six months and we had been going out back in the farm roads to ride around the fields to get her used to life outside the arena. It was a cool spring day, and she was happy and willing to trot out, ears pricked, body firm with calm energy. A long stretch of farm road invited us to canter, and even though her canter cue was still somewhat unrefined, I only had to think it and she stretched forward. The dull thud of her feet on the ground quickened at the same pace as my heartbeat.

I felt the click, our bodies becoming one being, knitting together in a flash of pure feeling. When I thought faster our combined beings responded at the same time. Three beats became four. The ground blurred. Everything but us blurred. Nothing else mattered.

My first ride on Deli - ever.

I was aware I was still a separate being such that I knew I was shifting more weight into the stirrups and off her back. Her mane lashed and stung against my cheeks. My eyes watered in the cool spring air. I could feel the powerful surge of her neck under my hands as she took up the loose reins.

But at the same time I was hyper aware of how she-and-I fit. Mind and body; raw unrestricted feeling. 

Click. 

And even though it’s not every day I feel that kind of connection. When we are stressed or anxious that feeling draws further away. But with Deli, I can always feel the gravitational pull in the background, tugging us back to pure feeling. Pure existence. Pure connection. I’m not even sure you can call it joy. It’s greater than that. It’s being right. It’s being unburdened. It’s being more powerful than I could imagine being on my own.

And that’s why I would never give up on her, no matter how hard things are. She is the reason for what I am today. She’s my best friend. She’s the person I trust above all others, and she gives me a reason to try and learn to love and trust myself.

Click.

Deli's "other person."

I’d like to give a shout out to my boyfriend, Brian, and how he fits into the adventures I have with Deli.

He has a way with animals even though I am the “animal person”. It’s probably because he oozes calm in many stressful situations. Random dogs on the street will come up to him and sit to be petted. My 20 year old cat has since claimed him as “hers” despite only living with him now for a year and a half. Deli, being one of those Anxious Arabian Over-Thinkers ™, is definitely drawn towards his energy. When she was still getting clay poultices every other day on her injured leg and I had to go out of town for school, he was amazing and went out to the barn daily to not only to remove her poultice or put one on – and it’s no easy task to bandage the upper hind leg of a fidgety mare even for an experienced person – but he gave her medicine, took her temperature, cold hosed her leg,  and gave me frequent updates. Did he enjoy it? No way. I don’t enjoy wrestling with goo and bandages and cold hosing a bored horse either. What’s more amazing is that she let him.

This is interesting because Deli is not (no way, probably not ever) a beginners horse. She is too sensitive even if there isn’t a mean bone in her body (well, very few mean bones at least!). But she has always had the utmost care for him. Where she runs away, resists, fusses or otherwise makes it known that she is not happy to even experienced horse people, she will usually behave with more patience for Brian. And Brian alone. She won’t let him do everything, of course — truly scary things still need my more experienced touch (try clipping this horse, I dare you) — but she clearly thinks of him as her “other person”. When she was being anxious and pawing in the cross ties the other day, he grabbed her lead and lowered her head. He had apparently been paying attention to her “calm down” cue. I got some compliments on how great he was with her, especially in that it was good that he was aware of Deli’s space needs as he strategically moved to one side so she didn’t remove his kneecaps (she is a very talented pawer).  When things get stressful I can hand him her lead and ask him to take her out to graze and I can feel confident they aren’t going to hurt each other.

One thing Deli absolutely loves is to have her mane and tail bushed out. She loves it when you take the hard bristled brush and scratch her neck and shoulders with it. She even loves having her face curried carefully around her eyes. Grooming is Brian’s favorite part of horse care. If he’s with me, Deli gets the royal treatment of having her hair brushed till it shines, and her neck scratched until her eyes roll back in her head. Come shedding season I’ll beg for him to come out and groom her all over because he likes to try and strip her departing winter coat off in one go.

Right now Brian get s more actively involved in our adventures by joining us on our trail rides on foot. Now that Deli is boarded next to some amazing wilderness trails he is more than entertained by the gorgeous scenery. He also provides good company for us by adding another person to our circular conversations. And Deli gets a friend to roll her eyes with when I burst randomly into off-pitch songs (it's to scare off the cougars, I swear).

Not surprisingly, his favorite horse breeds include those that are known for having quite a lot of hair. He has promised that if I ever get him a horse with extravagant fetlock feathering he will keep them groomed and looking nice. You better believe I will hold him to that promise because fussing over poofy feet is not what I want to be doing when at the barn.

Sometimes I feel a little annoyed that he is one of those natural riders. His posture is better in the saddle than it is walking down the street, and he can sit the trot (still working on posting) like a dream after only a handful of rides.

Then again, it’s pretty neat.

I sincerely hope he sticks around and continues to be part of Deli’s family and staff. Who knows? Maybe in a couple years Brian will get his own horse and we will hit the trails together. At the very least I’m buttering him up to crew for Deli and I if we ever do achieve our endurance-riding goal.

New opportunity, new trails to explore...

A handful of days ago Deli and I moved to a new barn. It was a tough decision for me because I wasn’t unhappy at my last barn. Deli was fine there as well — she had made cohorts out of a pair of goats, for example. But there was one essential flaw from both our perspectives: no trails. Sure, we could ride around the perimeter of a neighboring Christmas tree farm, but it was impossible to move any faster than an uncomfortable stumbling walk because of the abundance of gopher holes. The new barn sits alongside 3000 acres of BLM land — mostly forested — that is riddled with trails and narrow logging roads. It’s trail-riding (and endurance riding) heaven.

Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

Plus, the barn is also filled with sensible dressage riders. Deli and I can look forward to finally taking occasional lessons, which I’m sure Deli will mostly appreciate for the benefit it will afford to me. There will also be clinics with well known dressage clinicians that I can audit (while reading my law books, of course).

See, Deli and I do ride dressage. We enjoy it to a certain extent and I feel that correct dressage is the ideal foundation for any type of horse. But trail riding fulfills us, completes our partnership, and keeps us looking forward instead of back.

Both of us have problems with this forward-looking rather than forward-worrying or past-clinging outlook on life. When hitting the trails it becomes easy. Like putting one foot in front of the other.

Deli isn’t one of those one-in-a-million bombproof horses. She is wary of strangers. But much of her anxiety stems from being enclosed and shut away without sky and air. She can’t be stalled unless it’s absolutely necessary. And I feel that stalling a horse is rarely necessary. My experiences with Deli have supported this maxim: for instance, her serious groin tear improved by leaps and bounds when she went from being kept in a smaller paddock to being turned out in a larger area. Movement is good for a horse’s legs — it gets the blood where it’s needed! Deli could also use more confidence. I suspect this issue will challenge us most when exploring our new trails. But to teach her to be more confident I have to find it in myself, and in dredging it up from the depths of me, I become a stronger person.

It's one of many sappy examples of how my mare improves who I am.

Anyway, I do understand her need for open space. I’m the same way. I feel jittery in the city and unnerved when I’m surrounded by people. Give me waves crashing, or a wet green canopy, or a wild meadow and I feel secure.

Deli has been at this new barn for three days. We have been out on the trails each day: twice hand-walking and today I walked while my leaser rode Deli on a fabulous 2-mile loop. I’m amazed by the change in her demeanor. She goes from sucked in and inverted to long and swinging. She is excited, buzzing with electricity and curiosity. The anxiety that always seems present in some measure when we are working in the arena disappears. Though she did get annoyed when I would stop to examine mushrooms or a salamander traversing the path and there was no grass for her to occupy herself with. What, she had to wait for me?

She was forward-thinking. And a forward-thinking Deli is a happy mare.

If I could bottle that feeling I would never have a sad day — a happy chestnut mare gives you everything she has to give. From Deli? That’s a lot of laughter, curiosity and love.