coulda been.

This is the horse that could have been mine instead of George.

 

His name is Pink Boots.

 

 

Apparently he is a real nice guy but has been at the ranch for two years because he has a weird foot, much like Piney had. But when kept on a regular trimming schedule Piney never really had any soundness issues...well other than the jail break fiasco...and the time he kicked the metal bar in the back of his stall, because he hated the horse next to him and ended up hurting his leg... but other than those two times he was always sound that I can think of and we kept him barefoot. He just couldn't go longer than 8 weeks for a trim.

 

 

If I had the room. I would go get this fellow.

 

 



If you are looking to adopt a Thoroughbred. Go check out: www.facebook.com/secondchancethoroughbredadoption

all the details.

 

 

 

Here is what you’ve all been waiting on the edge of your seat for…details of my first ride on George. Ok, ok, so you probably weren’t anxiously waiting but here it is anyways.

Saturday was a bitter sweet day. July 20^th marked 1 year since I said good bye to my best boy Pinecone. I tried not to think about it, and kept myself busy. I think I am still in shock that he’s no longer with me and it’s been a year. Earlier in the day I went out to the barn and adjusted some tack for George. I measured him with my handy dandy gullet measure thingy and lucky for me, the plate installed in my saddle was already the right size. I got a bridle ready for him too.

I greatly appreciate horses that stand still for tacking up...Love my OTTB's that do that!

 

My husband had been away on business and when he came home he came out to help me. He (and I) didn’t want me riding George for the first time alone. Safety first! I tacked up George and he gave me his typical grumpy “I am gonna make you think I will bite you” face when I adjusted the girth. It’s not like he is in pain when I girth him up. It’s just attitude. I calmly let him know that if he did bite me it might be the last thing he does. But for the most part, he is very, very calm for tacking up. He doesn’t fidget, or prance or get pushy. Obviously he’s been tacked up, hundreds of times before so it’s not like it’s his first time. He took the bit calmly and easily too. As I sat there and fumbled with the bridle like it was my first time adjusting a bridle on a horse, he stood there, head lowered to the perfect height. However, he did play with the bit for a while. And I did later come to the conclusion that his bridle was too small. Piney had a small peanut head, and cob sized bridles fit him…George, does not have a tiny peanut head. He has a normal horse sized head. So when I adjusted everything on his bridle George made these awful faces that made it look like I was cranking on his face even though I had the lightest of light hands.

"ummm hey lady. This bridle is WAY too small for my big monster head!"

Anyways, onward. I got him ready to go and then lead him out to the pasture. I chose to ride in the pasture, because our arena is not set up and I just wanted to wander around in something enclosed that he felt familiar with. I had Hubby hook up a lead rope to us just to walk us around for a while so I could get a feel for him before he set me free. I climbed aboard the giant beast of a horse and then…I WAS SITTING ON MY HORSE! We walked around a little bit before I said “set me free I’m ready!” I don’t’ know why it took me so long. I think it was all in my head, and I am kicking myself because I could have been riding him for months now.  He is a bit lazy when it comes to walking and he walks like a drunken idiot! But that was how Piney was when I first got him. It took a lot of work before I got him walking in a straight line and didn’t drift all over the arena. George will get there. We didn’t ride for very long. I wanted to keep that first ride light and easy.

Last night I rode again. I found a bigger bridle and put that on him. He didn’t make awful tortured faces this time. We briefly worked on him going straight. But towards the end of our ride, someone was getting fussy I think it is still his hocks, and I need to get him used to the trailer so that I can bring him in for xrays. He didn’t do anything bad, but I felt that if I kept pushing him, he was going to do something bad. So we ended on a good note and I hopped off. One thing I found about him, is that he is more lovey when he has his tack on. I’ve also noticed that he seems to prefer male humans to female humans. Don’t get me wrong he is affectionate to me, but he just kind of gravitates towards my Hubby if he is near by.

Ride #2...Wild thoroughbred coming through!!

When I was done with George I quickly tacked up Pistol and rode a bit more. Hubby had joined me by tacking up his horse and riding in the pasture with me. Which…once I got done riding George and was riding Pistol, seemed to piss George off. Hubby was taking pictures of me riding when George, out of now where lunged at Duke and there was almost a horse fight. Soooo we decided to ride out of the pasture so crabby pants would leave us alone and no one would get hurt. I wonder if Geroge used this moment to attack Duke, because for the most part Duke is awful to George. Duke being the alpha in the pasture, pushes him around, chases him, etc. So George used this as a moment to get his revenge because Duke couldn’t do a damn thing about it with a rider on his back. Horses are weird. George is a grump.

 

Love this red horse.

 

So that is the tale of my first two rides. They went better than I thought. I want to get George’s legs figured out before we do any real hard work…For right now, we will work on going straight and not being so lazy. But I can’t complain with lazy, I’d rather he be lazy, than zooming away the moment I put my leg on his side!

Look what I did today

famous.

Well that might be an over exaggeration. But it's still pretty cool to have articles written about you!
Earlier this week I was browsing the Bowman Second Chance ranch's Facebook page looking to see if they had posted any more Thoroughbreds that I couldn't live without. I had noticed that Three Chimneys Farm had left a message on their wall saying that they had a girl looking for a son out of Dynaformer. They had heard that there might be one at the ranch and if memory serves me correct, I had seen one posted. I also noticed that no one had gotten back to them yet, they are pretty slow to respond sometimes. So I sent her an email with contact information of who she should call to find out about the horses. I thought it was pretty cool that a famous farm had contacted the ranch!
Anyways, I emailed and shortly after I got a response. I thought that was awesome. The girl was so thankful and we chatted briefly and then she asked if she could feature us on the Paulick Report where she features different OTTB's weekly. uummm SURE!
So we corresponded all this week and here is the article!

OTTB Showcase: Pine Bend (a.k.a. “Pinecone”) and Independent George (a.k.a. “George”)

I love the article! And since it was posted I've had a few of George's 'fans' find me on facebook and add me! They are excited to hear about his progress but of course are excited that he found a nice home.

There are so many of you out there with awesome OTTB's that you should share with the world. Contact the author of the article and she might feature you! She is really nice and funny.

vacation, all I ever wanted...

Vacations with horses are a lot of work, but this one was totally worth it! I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun horse back riding. When the trip started I was about ready to sell 2 red horses and be done forever, but I am glad we kept them.

Thursday morning we got everything all ready to go, last thing we needed to do was load Duke and Pistol. They had other ideas. We couldn’t catch them. They knew something was up and played catch me if you can. Of course, George was right there in our faces, but the ones we actually needed were usually on the opposite side of the pasture. After a good 45 minutes of dancing with them in the field, we caught them and they loaded right up. We were off.

6 hours later we were in my favorite place in the world. The badlands of North Dakota. It is so beautiful I can’t even put it into words. Pictures do a good job showing kind of what it looks like, but being there in person is just unbelievable.

The campsite we stayed in was pretty nice. It had spots for trailers and corrals right nearby. When we go there the spot we had originally reserved had accidentally been given to someone else, so we found another spot with some shade. It happed to be next to the BEAUTIFUL trailer I posted the other day. A 52 foot custom horse trailer with living quarters. The short wall is 32 feet…that is longer than our truck and trailer combined! We talked to the owner, he is from Texas and goes all over the country doing Cowboy Mounted Shooting. Really, really nice fellow. He had two nice looking horses with him too. They live in the trailer 5 months out of the year, so I guess if you are gonna do it, you do it right! They left early Friday morning and were headed to South Dakota for an event. There was a trailer with 4 Norwegian fjord horses, and one next to it with 4 black ponies. They had carts with them, and must do competitive driving. Early on Friday morning before they also left, they were zipping around the campground in their carts. It was pretty cool to watch! And then there were just families with their kids and horses that were there camping.

Thursday was really hot, and by the time we’d given the horses some time to rest, it started to downpour. So we went to town for dinner, and then met up with my husband’s cousin who lives 15 mile away for a few beverages at an establishment. Next morning, the ground was pretty wet so we ran out to Dickenson, ND to run a few errands while the ground dried up a bit.

When we got back it had dried up enough so we saddled up. The camp ground we were staying at was on the trail head of the Maa-Da-Hey trail, which is 100 miles of trails that runs through the badlands. AH-MAZ-ING trails. So beautiful! Anyways we had to cross a river to get to the trails. My anxiety was up about that thought. Especially since the ranger was talking about how it was belly deep on most horses. He also told a sad story about a horse that had drown a year and a half ago in the river by the camp ground. The idiot riding was drunk, and was riding his horse with a tie down. The water was high and the horse drowned. The rider couldn’t swim and had to be rescued. Some people shouldn’t be around horses. Anyways we got down to the river and none of the other horses would even come close enough to the river to try and cross it, I pointed Pistol over to the river and after a little conversation about it, he walked right through it. I don’t think the water was as high as everyone said it was. But then again I was on a tall horse.

Pistol obviously has had many, many wet saddle blankets and miles and miles and miles of trail experience. He was such a rockstar. I’m sure he’d probably even been out to the badlands before too. EXCEPT we had ONE minor incident. The first ½ mile of the trail was sand. We were going along when all of a sudden, I looked back and saw my husband standing next to his horse. Duke decided he wanted to roll in the sand. I laughed, until a short while later down the trail we had stopped to talk about something and next thing I noticed one of my feet was standing on the ground. Pistol really wanted to roll in the sand…I let him know that we don’t do that, when tacked up and someone was mounted. But other than that….rockstar. We kept the ride pretty short and only did about 3 miles or so.

He looked at the water and was like "whateves! I got this!"

 

The next day we woke up with the sun and went out again. This ride ended up being about 6 miles. I really wanted to go longer, but all the horses we had with us, were pretty out of shape. Just didn’t seem fair to ride them longer. We did stop often to get off and let them rest especially after some pretty steep climbs. Pistol was pretty out of breath after the steepest of them. I let him catch his breath and waited for his heart rate to go back down.

I am so impressed with that red horse I rode. I mean seriously, he did everything I asked him. He was the fearless leader and marched along willingly. I just love that red horse.

Best way to see the badlands!

I wish we could have done a bit more riding on our trip, but we only had so many hours in the day where it wasn’t super, super hot or when it wasn’t raining. Next year we may have to plan a longer trip! We did do a bit of the touristy things...but again didn't have much time to get all the things done that I wanted. We needed like 2 more days to get everything done. We did eat, at just about every place in town. The Pitchfork fondue was amazing. They basically put a bunch of steaks on pitchforks, and cook them in oil. So good. And we went to the musical. it was ok. Not great, but ok.

And of course we drove through the park and looked at the amazing scenery. We spotted some wild life like pronghorns, bison, prairie dogs and wild horses. I have never seen as many bands of wild horses as I did this trip. I think we saw aybe 50-60 horses total. They must have had a good winter...or someone must have just added some horses ;-)

 

anyways it was a great trip. If you are ever planning at trip to North Dakota...go to Medora!!

Here are just some random pictures of the trip.

We went to the musical the last night. It was okay this year...not as good as previous years.

LOVE IT HERE!

Storm rolling in.

at the camp ground

ahhhhhhh

Camping.

We set up our trailer and made ourselves at home. 

Roughing it at its finest,

Headed west.

After a later start than we had anticipated. The red horses are loaded up and we are headed west for some adventure.

sometimes life gets in the way.

Sometimes life just gets real busy and you don't have time to do anything else. I am still around, I've just been super busy. Seems like I can't get a moment to just relax.
I don't know if I posted or not, but one of my barn cats had kittens a few weeks ago. Well of course something happened to her and she left me with 4 tiny kittens that were still needing momma's care. I had to bottle feed them and make them go potty and bathe them. Thankfully though they were right about the age to be weaned so they learned how to do those things all by their selves.

BRAND new kittens! Taken right after I discovered them in the barn.

This was taken when momma was still around.

 It's been a learning process. And it SUCKS because I was fully prepared to give them all away to friends! But now, I know them all and have grown attached. Little creeps! Some even have names...

Fonzie

Look at this FACE!!

They learned to eat soft food, by themselves.

Well all of them except Fonzie. He likes to sit in the food.

 

 

 But of course something went wrong last weekend with one  of the kittens. And we had to take it to the vet. I know, I know...they are barn cats and sometimes they just don't make it. But I have a bleeding heart and we took her in. She made a HUGE recovery and is doing great now! And the vet felt bad for us and only charged us for the visit and exam rather than an emergency after hours visit.

Sick kitten.

So this is what has been taking up all of my time. Kittens. We are going on an adventure this weekend and these kittens get to stay at my mom's sorority sister from college's house. YES I KNOW they are barn cats, but I can't just leave them with no food for 4 days! I'm not a monster after all!

 

Adventure time!! Stay tuned!!

Life has made me age quite rapidly. Gone is my youth...

 

 

So that is that. I hope to update more frequently! Also, next week will mark the 1 year anniversary of Piney leaving me. Can you believe it's been a year already?