Merry Christmas & Happy New Years Everyone

OK, I found the best song for a Brentina freestyle!! Check out "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika on iTunes. It'll have you dancing around the living room.

I am currently holed up at my parents', working on the January issue of the Canadian Arabian News and occasionally venturing out into the snow with Pirate. I managed to get him stuck in a snowbank yesterday. We were out with Tamara and Doc and decided to cross a small ravine in the field out back. We made it through the middle part OK, nothing worse than knee-deep snow, and were climbing up the far bank where it was drifted over - which would have been fine, but the bottom also dropped down about a foot underneath. Pirate got into the middle of the snow bank, dropped down the extra foot, and turned around and gave me a dirty look, like "Now what, Miss Smartypants?" So, I rolled off (it was up to my knees in the saddle) and led him the rest of the way. (To anyone who is gasping at the daring of our trail-riding exploits, I must remind you that we are in Saskatchewan - that means flat - so this "ravine" would probably barely qualify as a ditch in other parts of the world; we've been through many times but not usually with this much snow!)

In other news, the Canadian Arabian Horse News now has its own page on Facebook. If you're on Facebook, you can sign up to be a "fan" here. I hope to post the cover and some other teaser bits soon. The entire magazine will be available as a free download from the website after it's published, at www.canadianarabian.com.

Veterinary Adventures

OK, so this is one of those slightly gross things that non-horse people will probably not care to read. Yesterday I was checking out what I thought was a bite on Kasey's back that had healed over... and I pulled out some hair with a little 'plug' attached to the end of it. I got digging a little deeper and I realized it wasn't a bite at all, it's a line of little puncture wounds that had healed over the top but not underneath. Horseowners will be familiar with the fact that puncture wounds are more dangerous than other types of wound for just this reason.

These ones were fortunately not infected, but it looks like they maybe had been infected and had hardened into a little plug that prevented proper healing. I got a couple out myself (poor guy, they must have been irritating him because he put up with it pretty well!) but called Lisa, our vet, to see if she could stop by later today. She'll be out after a couple of pre-purchase exams later this afternoon.

One of the pitfalls of having part of your pasture used as a junk yard 50 years ago... you can pick stuff up every day and still have the horse find something you missed, I swear it just grows right up out of the ground. I figure he probably rolled on something; we picked up a short piece of ancient barbed wire a couple of days ago so maybe that was it.

UPDATE: We clipped the hair in the area, rinsed it out with some Betadine, and I've been putting a little Neosporin on the surface area. It's healing nicely, all is well :)

Two New Book Reviews

Just posted two new book reviews on the SPM Bookshelf. They are Selecting the Dressage Horse by Dirk Willem Rosie (with commentary by Anky van Grunsven) and Photographing and Videoing Horses Explained by Charles Mann. I also just received in the mail two new books from Trafalgar Square - yay! One is the great classic Riding Logic by Wilhelm Muesler and the other is Klaus Balkenhol: The Man and His Training Methods by Britta Schoffmann, soon to become a classic if the number of Klaus fans are any indication. I'll be sure to post them as well when the reviews are available.

Selecting the Dressage Horse by Dirk Willem Rosie
Photographing and Videoing Horses Explained by Charles Mann

It's Just Cold

Not much going on these days, it's been too cold for riding. And, when the weather went down below -20º C, the arena got really dusty as the heaters tend to dry it out. E&J uses canola oil/hulls as a sand additive but it only works well for a couple of weeks.

I did hook up the surcingle and do some ground driving last night. I'm trying to get him more comfortable with having people behind him, and also working on relaxation/slowing down, which I've found easier to do from the ground than from the saddle.

In other news, the second saddle I was bidding on came last Saturday. It was much cheaper than the other one - less than $100 for the saddle and a pair of flexi-stirrups. But, it's a good brand (Barnsby) and a real hoot to ride in - it's either a saddleseat type of saddle or an English cob show saddle. It's a monoflap with a long flat seat and nothing at all in the way of knee rolls. You get a really neat feel for the horse when you're riding, kind of like being bareback with stirrups. He didn't toss me off the first time I rode in it but let's just say it's a good thing there's a nice cushion of snow on the ground right now, ha ha!