Archie had a visit with the farrier last week.  New farrier is a funny guy:

Me:  ...Yeah, and his racing name was Bold Archer.
Him:  I can see why you dropped the bold.

I'm pretty effing happy with the work he's done and want to show a six-months fugly foot difference:

August on left, February on right. Stress crack is officially gone!

In other Archer news, we're back under saddle.  His skin still looks like shit and he still has giant bald patches, so I'm probably a horrible human being for putting my not-so-delicate weight on his tender tender fleshies, but he has yet to tell me to fuck myself and seems to have enjoyed himself.  Knock on wood.

Wednesday of last week, I put my Collegiate on him and hopped on in my work pants and mustard yellow mules.  I very gently tossed my weight across his back before I put a foot in the stirrup, just to make sure he was okay.  We walked two laps around the outside of the ring and called it a night.
Saturday, I changed his bit out (more to come on that after more trial) and immediately took him out to the river.  He balked in one spot, which was at another path in the trail and I almost feel like was a request to go exploring and later had the tiniest shuffle of feet, not to be confused with a spook.  I took him to the ring afterwards and walked a couple laps before cuing him to trot.


And my ouchy, arthritic gelding took off in the most comfortable, rhythmic rolling canter.  For two laps.  Reverse and, by god, the old guy did it again.

Sunday, the other boarder and I met up again for a little trail ride.  My horse is amazing.  He had nearly four weeks off and gave no fucks about anything.

Fair warning, this is all text.  Enjoy?

A couple of months ago, my magical vet hit up social media to ask about whether people would be interested in some client education and, if so, what topics.  I immediately responded with about forty-seven of my greatest equine fears.  Because Murphy's Law.

He scheduled a few sessions over the past couple of weeks and the one I attended Monday night was at TE's barn, about an hour away.  There were a dozen of us sitting on chairs in her aisle - western riders, one or two hunter/jumpers, a majority of eventers, and your very own senior babysitter.  And pizza, provided by the magical vet.

It was set up as sort of a Q&A opportunity, rather than a presentation.  The questions started with one of the younger eventers asking very specific questions about wind sucking, which turned into more questions about ulcers.  We discussed UlcerGard and GastroGard and generic medications.  He went in depth about Omeprazole and Sucralfate, and how the generic of either isn't bad so long as the dosage is sufficient, which seems to be the general problem.  He said that UlcerGard and GastroGard were essentially the same medication, because marketing a new medication is easier than relabeling a medication for a separate use (prevention versus treatment).  Also, money.  He also said that Merial's lost their patent on the medication, so we ought to expect generics to start hitting the market.

Someone asked wtf "Coggins" is.  So he explained a little more about EIA.  I guess I never realized that the main problem with the disease isn't just that it's going to kill your horse, but rather that it's going to slowly kill your horse, thus enabling your horse to infect even more horses before succumbing.

After coggins (or before, who remembers?), someone asked about Cushings dz.  Somewhere around here I realized that this whole blogging community is brilliant, because of y'all, I at least know that it's now officially PPID.  Vet talked about the tumor in the pituitary gland and the symptoms he looks for.  Loss of top line in an older horse is actually the first thing.  Statistically 1/7 horses over seventeen will have it.  Then the presence of guard hairs on the hind cannons.  Polyuria and polydipsia (increased urination and thirst).  He said that by the time you've gotten the shaggy coat, you're at an advanced stage.  He brought up the five various blood tests on the market and how the greatest issue is the false negative.  I asked about the effect of grass cycles on the bloodwork, which he said has recently been debunked.  Gold stars to me for even knowing about it.  (Educational link here.)

This opened the floor for me to ask even more questions about various diseases that will kill your horse, like Lyme (not a concern down here) and Strangles (we'll talk about this more another day) and the recent prevalence of EHV-1.  (You wanna talk about the herp?)  I wanted to also ask about biosecurity in relation to infectious equine diseases, because I feel like people without medical backgrounds don't know shit about slowing the spread of contagions.  (Sorry, not sorry.)  I didn't get a chance because EPM was also on my list (macabre, much?) before someone kindly interjected and asked if we could talk more about general maintenance.

So we talked about worming cycles and the importance of fecals and the issues more concerning to our location, where worms rarely die.  As a boarder, I've thought very little about how often, when, and with what Archie is being dewormed.  I'm now educated just enough to be a nuisance to my BM and ask these questions.  Like when was the last time Archie had ivermectin?  Has our vet reviewed her deworming schedule?  I know the results of his last fecal, which was over six months ago.

TE and I monopolized the Q&A session, which I don't think was necessarily a bad thing.  She manages a barn, I used to work at a barn, and we both have backgrounds in veterinary medicine.  We asked generalities, rather than "My horse does XYZ, why?", so hopefully it was advantageous to the rest of the group.

Archie has one spot of rain rot that's still a little tender, so I haven't ridden him yet.  I didn't want him to miss out on his weekly trail ride for the third week in a row, though, so I asked the other boarder if it would be okay with her if we just hand-walked with them.

Okay, not really.  It was really for his "spring" vaccines (which are not "shots", do not call them "shots", no one is "shooting" your animal /rant).  But it's been about three months since he had his pastern injected and I'd felt some weird shit over the last few weeks, so I asked my vet to prepare himself for an additional injection.  But let's back up.

The week of February 1st was utter shit for riding.  It just didn't happen and then Friday, the 5th, I went out to the barn to, you know, actually ride.  Archie was covered in small hives, but I figured a little walk in the cool air would do him some good.  I should say that my first thought was a giant nope.  Fuck my instincts, right?  He had four days off!  Horse must be ridden!

I tacked him up and mounted from the right side, as I alternate.  He had a few lurching steps and just felt like shit, so I immediately hopped off and checked him over.  No weirdness.  So I take him back to the mounting block and start to mount from the left side and the Kid buckles beneath me.  Like, now I've got half a foot stuck in the stirrup and I'm stumbling around on the other leg on the ground and Archie has suddenly developed the swayback of all swaybacks.  I pull his tack as I'm walking him into the barn and poke and prod him under the lights before dragging him off for the BM to poke and prod.  And the Kid is super sore.

When I realized that I was going to have President's Day off, I immediately started nagging the hubs to take it off, too, so we could go on an adventure.  And then the BM scheduled (smartly) vaccines for that day, since half the world was going to be off work, too.  Poor vet.  So I immediately started nagging the hubs to take off Friday instead and he finally acquiesced.

(old photos)
(can you tell it's lunch time?)

• Archie lost both silicones.  NBD.  We're gonna try with mesh next time (2/29?), so be waiting with bated breath for me to share about that.
• The old man got a new sheet.  The $20 (?) piece of shit that I bought a few years ago left him soaked a couple weeks ago, so I sprung for the SmartPak Ultimate high-neck.  If it lasts ten years, I'll have paid $14.30 per year.  His cheap blanket is still magical, so we're not upgrading that yet.

• I found this online for those of y'all who lack access to wood-working devices:  Large Wood Toolbox.  $20, some assembly required.  Not sold in stores.
• Big G's owner had a little accident and I've been riding him on the weekends.  He's still wicked smart and sensitive.  I sing a little chant and it's something of a deep "Easy, Sassy Britches Dragon Breath." It actually does seem to work.  Or maybe it just works on me?  Either way, we calm down.

• My Pentosan instructions originally were the initial seven loading doses and then chaser doses every 2-3 weeks.  We tried three and that did not work.  We're scaled back to two, but I'm feeling that a chemical fusion might be sooner rather than later.
• The budget and I have been talking about how to balance my needs and my wants.  So, I'm casually in search of Back on Track quick wraps and hock wraps, as well as SMB boots.  I'm thinking I might go ahead and get these:Classic Equine Legacy boots.  In the teal/white, obviously, even though they're going to get disgusting.

A day back in December, a barnmate and I found ourselves tacking up almost at the same time.  I looked to her, she looked at me, and we both suggested a trail ride.  We'd found out earlier that our ponies were quite compatible on the trails, in that Archie gets to lead and her horse is encouraged to walk slightly faster than his normal gait.  Since then, we've met every Sunday at roughly the same time, though it's technically completely unplanned.

The first few trips, we walked until the dirt road across the street dead-ended, then turned around and came back.  In the beginning, Archie was prone to spook randomly and needed a little contact on the return, so as not to lose his head.  Nowadays, we can go an entire walk without spooking and we do the whole thing on the buckle.  He takes his leading job very seriously.

Freaking loves this.

After a few times of going straight back and doing a u-turn, I asked if we could do any of the deviations.  I know that the barnmate knows these trails soooo much better than me.  She's spent a lot of time back there.  The weekend before last, we took a few turns and I was just amazed at Archie.  He's never been the best or boldest trail horse and suddenly he's marching off onto places unknown with just a little squeeze from me.  We even went through a little marsh water, which was higher than had been expected due to recent rains.