Guinny Got an Owie

But no worries -- he's back to normal now.  Or as "normal" as our handsome weirdo can be!

We had a great week of lessons last week (before the closing of our new house and the subsequent slavery it has required) and then Big G managed yet another booboo.  He's the king of owies, our boy!  And we can't figure out how it happens.  There are no sharp edges in his stall or paddock and there isn't anyone close enough to kick him.  Silly horse!

So after a few days of bandaging and cold hosing he was back to full health and the cut on his leg is nearly imperceptible.  And our horse nursing skills are getting the rust knocked off!

Before his owie we had 3 great rides in a row, all culminating in a trip up to the top of the logging road to partake of the beautiful view of the mountains and valley below.  He really seems to take a moment and appreciate his surroundings.....

This week is mostly being used to get the house in move-in condition (and soon we'll put up horse/dog fencing and a new "barn" for Guinness) so Rachel's putting in some training time. Erin will squeeze in a ride today before the movers come so she'll pass along kisses from all.

Rachel sent us this picture of Guinny in his paddock yesterday with his new little Quail Buddy. He looks really happy, doesn't he?

Guinny Gets Amped Over Fences

We had a jumping lesson today since it's been about a month since the last one.  Our boy definitely loves to jump, and for that we are exceedingly thankful.  But Guinness also tends to get himself worked up when he jumps, and today he was lit up!  Shanna started out the lesson getting him soft and supple, paying attention to what was being asked. She's working on sitting his gorgeous trot and he responds by making it as smooth and light as possible.

After they were going nicely as a pair Erin got on for some small jumping efforts. Guinny can hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of jumping, and it really is a blast to be on his back in those moments.  Unfortunately, he also sometimes gets a little strong and demanding, trying to be the one calling the shots about pace and direction.  He likes to run around like a maniac after he's bounded through the air, and when we try to slow him down he gets pissed off.  The more he jumped the more keyed up he got, the more Erin had to get after him with "I'm the rider and therefore the boss" maneuvers. Which further pissed him off. But it wasn't long before he came to the conclusion that the better behaved he was the more he could actually jump (because when he was having a naughty moment all he got to do was circle and flex his head and neck). We ended on good note with a great 2.5-foot jump, and everyone was pleased.

What Guinny sees in his mind's eye during our jumping lessons!

After our rides we've been heading up the logging road to the top of the mountain, and yesterday despite the pouring rain, Guinness decided he wanted to canter almost the entire way up.  Our biggest concern up there is that we'll come upon deer and our handsome fella will lose his mind.  But he proved us wrong when he and Erin rode upon FIVE of the four-legged creatures, and Guinny was a rock star! We'd just come to the flat spot on the trail about half-way up when Erin asked him to walk. It's not like he gets winded and needs to catch his breath, but it's nice to have a break for a minute. As we rounded the bend there stood 3 female deer, and surprisingly Guinny was the last to know! Once he spotted them he stood gaping, eyes wide open and head straight up like a giraffe, but he didn't move. They eventually sauntered off and despite being a little keyed up Guinness walked forward on the trail like a champ (and Erin had her hand wrapped around his mane just in case!).  We picked up a nice canter again (his gait and path while out on the logging trail are all his choice, so it cracks us up when he chooses to canter anyway), and bounded up the hill like a rocking horse.  As it opened out into the meadow he had settled into a really nice rhythm and it felt like he could go on forever. And then we spotted the next 2 deer, both juvenile males with fuzzy antlers. Again Big G. didn't see them until everyone else had become aware, but Erin brought him to a walk and kept a secure leg on him while he calmly passed the curious creatures, never losing eye contact.

We are looking forward to our first cross-country schooling trip, though the next one on the books in 2 weeks for the farm isn't going to happen for us because Erin will be working. Our goal is to compete in a horse trial by season's end, but since we have yet to see how Big G. will enjoy or behave running cross-country, it's all still a big question mark. (Although everyone suspects he'll eat it up once he's out there -- and maybe it'll cure him of his plastic flower phobia, learning what a bad-ass-future-eventer he can be flying over previously unknown obstacles!). There definitely will be, however, lots of dressage and hunter/jumper shows in our future.  Our biggest hurdle here is a set of wheels for Guinny, but we think we've got that one handled.  Soon!

Erin's got another lesson today so stay tuned for an update again shortly.

Guinny's Diggin' his New Digs!

It's been just over 2 weeks since our Handsome Fella moved to his new barn at Rachel's place. And like his 5 other stablemates, he seems delighted with the situation.  He's got the penthouse suite and is livin' large.  The field that adjoins his spacious paddock is giant and filled with knee-high grass, and one can feel the bliss radiating off him when he's out there.

Both Guinny's mommas have been improving with each ride, and Big G. himself has been learning, building muscle and expanding his trust of and love for us. We generally keep our arena rides and lessons short and to the point, and we always end on a good note.

When we pull up to the farm he's always outside in his private paddock, sometimes snoozing, sometimes deep in thought. And without fail he comes to the fence, greeting us with a friendly sniff and once in awhile a horse hug!

Life at Rachel's barn has settled into a nice routine and all 6 horses seem very content with their new situation.  Other than the two of us, the rest of the boarders are preteen girls who shower all the equines with carrots, cookies and pink & purple equipment. Since they're in school all day we are guaranteed quiet time almost every day before 3pm, which helps all of us concentrate in our lessons. But when the girls arrive the horses clearly soak up all the affection and chatter!

One of the best things about the barn is the long logging road that starts on the property and goes high atop the hill. It's a steep incline and about 15 minutes later it empties out of the forest into a beautiful sweeping boggy meadow. We're hopeful to find more trails and roads that branch off of that one, but for now it's been fun to take Guinny on these "trail rides" -- his enthusiasm evident and his glee is palpable! His first ride was with Shanna and while he was a bit nervous he was willing to go forward with only slight prompting.  Eyes wide, Big G's head was on a swivel, much like a child at his first carnival.  Since he doesn't have much experience with terrain and elevation gains, his down-hill steps were tentative and mini.  He would almost shuffle down the hill, not quite sure what to do with his legs.  Each successive ride up and back down the hill has brought even more enthusiasm and confidence, and today's included a brisk trot and even some keen cantering. It's amazing to us that by the time we get to the top Guinness is hardly winded -- he must have extraordinary lungs!

It's hard to say who has more fun on those logging road rides, but everyone's joy is evident.  We are increasingly more in love with our handsome boy, and very excited about our futures together.

We have been planning to ride in tomorrow's local dressage schooling show, but this past week when we hadn't received our ride times (or any information for that matter) we called the show secretary.  It turns out that our entry form was never received, and unfortunately there is no more room and there have been no scratches. So, our debut won't be happening this weekend.

But it'll take place soon, and with the progress we're making we're expecting our experience will be even better and more fun. And we promise to get video and great stills!

Despite the fact that we won't be competing this weekend we did take the warmish sunshine to bathe the dirty beast. And as is his custom, he insisted on helping!

And after he dried we decided to try this activity called "planking" -- it's all the rage these days: http://www.planking.me

With muzzle in the grass, indulging in his favorite pastime, Guinness didn't seem to even notice the lack of tack (or helmet) for the situation, thankfully.  He can be such a spaz sometimes, but when he's comfortable and pleasantly tired, he's almost bomb-proof.  Or at least plank-proof!

Guinny's Done Getting High

Great news for us and our boy!  It turns out that the reason Big G has been acting like a spaz all this time is because he's been getting FOUR QUARTS of GRAIN EVERYDAY! The poor fella can't even think straight with such a ration!

Once we discovered this grave error (it's not the first time we saw he was getting grain and asked them to stop) and put up a giant sign on his stall door, it's been awesome to see how he's quite a gentleman. And now he doesn't really even want to be lunged before a ride!  He's consistently great under saddle and has very few freak-outs now that he isn't high as a kite on grain.

Our posts have been sparse lately because we took a week of vacation and flew out to Lexington to spectate at the Rolex CIC-4****  Three Day Event. One of our former trainers qualified her horse to ride in her first 4 star event so we went out to support her and enjoy the sights (since goodness knows neither of US will ever compete at Rolex!). It was a super fun week and we were freshly inspired by the pair that came in second place (only by a slight time penalty on cross country), Allison Springer and her mount Arthur.  Artie's personality reminds us both a lot of Guinness -- he's goofy and spooky and can be overly excited. But Allison has believed in this guy forever and it's clear that they're a solid team. Even when Artie is a spaz, she is somehow able to get him to focus on the task at hand -- a 5-minute dressage test or a 12-minute cross-country course. We fell in love with the pair and are eager to figure out how Allison is able to channel Arthur's high-strung moments into brilliance.  Because if Artie can fly around a huge stadium course with 4-foot verticals and huge oxers cleanly, despite all the spooks at the in gate and another freak-out on his way out, we can certainly learn to do the same with Big G.

So far our trainer Rachel has been very helpful with getting Guinny to focus, which is sure a lot easier now that he's not amped up on grain. He was settling nicely into his routine at RockMeadow, and we're sure he'll do the same at Rachel's new barn. We moved him just a few days ago to her new facility and he seems very happy there.  He's made a strong friendship it seems with his next-door neighbor, Monty.  Apparently they're thick as thieves, which is funny because all the rest of the geldings at the former barn strongly disliked Guinny.  The feeling was mutual, though he was definitely a ladies' man....

We're sure Guinness will thrive in this smaller, more focused environment. He's definitely the king of the hill with the end stall and the largest paddock. When we first arrived he settled in and ate his lunch (after walking calmly into the trailer like a total rock star) while his humans attended to other matters. We arranged his copious amounts of stuff in the new tack room and then hand walked him around the property. It's lovely this springtime and the creek through the place is flowing strongly. This, of course, was a new opportunity to spook.  But no worries -- we'll have him jumping it in no time!

Walking around the indoor arena was also quite exciting as there is a low-hanging anti-bug mesh that surrounds the structure. In order to go in or out the horse must duck slightly and walk under the material. As you might imagine, this was the perfect time to act like a spaz. So we walked in and out, in and out, in and out (more than a dozen times) until he'd do it like a gentleman. He cracks us up.....

Our first show is set for just over 2 weeks from now. It's a tiny little schooling show at Bridle Trails in Redmond, the public-use equestrian venue. Erin and Guinny will be riding in the Introductory Test A and B classes, and it looks like they're the first to go early in the morning. Which will make it tricky for Guinny's entourage, we know. But since it's such an informal event, how about we agree to get it all on film and video and post it here? That way it saves a number of lovely Canadians a lot of hassle. And when we compete in our first actual horse trial/event later in the season we can have a big spectacle and party of it then?

The other good thing about waiting to have visitors is that we just learned this week that the house we put on offer on way back in October (a short sale = lots of paperwork) was accepted and we will close by month's end.  Once we get unpacked there will be lots of space for guests to stay, including eventually Big G himself!  Our plan is to erect horse fencing and eventually a barn, but for now it's a very good thing that Guinness is at Rachel's so she can ride him a few times a week while we're working.

He's coming along nicely and just in the week we were gone we can see that Rachel's rides have helped increase the muscling in his hind end. He's starting to move a bit straighter (which is good for our centerline trot in the dressage ring!) and he loves to jump. We are really eager to start some cross-country schooling with him soon, too!

Oh, before vacation we took him out on his first "trail ride". We walked down the road from RockMeadow and found a lovely series of wooded trails. It was tense going at a few points for the Big Fella, as he's clearly not used to walking on unlevel ground. He kept picking up all 4 of his feet like a cat in wet grass! But with Momma Shanna walking in front, Momma Erin in the saddle and Uncle Neal walking in back we spent about 30 minutes out in the woods. Guinness did a superb job of staying calm in the face of all sorts of new things, and really his only major upset came with the combination of soft footing that was slipping as he was trying to climb a steep hill while his on-foot buddies were starting to get a little too far away. But we worked through it and despite being completely sweaty after a half-hour at the walk (he soaked through both saddle pads!), he really seemed to enjoy himself.  We are eager to get him out on the miles and miles of trails that start at his new barn -- good for his mind and his budding new muscles!

Below are a few photos we took of Guinny's arrival at the new place the other day. He's getting new shoes today as well and we'll post pictures of that soon!

He can go in and out whenever he pleases!

The view from Guinness' paddock across the creek to the indoor arena.

One of his 5 neighbors (Monty, his favorite isn't in the shot).

King of the hill with the largest paddock, of course.

Checking out the smells in the new stall.

In, out, in, out, in.....

Guinny's Getting Fat!

Our boy's belly seems to be growing more rotund by the hour, despite the consistent work he's had in the last few weeks.  Erin has had the good fortune of being home more often than usual lately and she's taken advantage of that by spending a lot of time working Guinness.  Last week he was ridden 6 days in a row and, thankfully, by the end of the 6th ride he was quite tired!  It's not easy for us to keep up with the handsome fellow, so when we do manage to wear him out we count it as a personal victory.

Our lessons with Rachel are extremely helpful and we're excited to be moving Guinness to her new barn at the end of the month. There will only be 6 horses there and we're all eventing students at about the same level. Her property will allow Big G to be outside most of the day and when he's in his stall he's got a run attached to it so he can go in and out at will. And we are very excited about the miles of trails just over the hill (read: hackable distance) from the new facility. The thing we love to do most together is ride and it's our hope to find an extra horse every week to take out for a few hours on the trails. We're convinced that arena-only work melts their minds, and we want to have Guinny as happy and relaxed and fit as possible, so having the trails there is a huge plus.

Over the weekend the weather here was amazing so Guinness got to spend most of the day on Saturday outside in his paddock.  The quarantine is getting less restrictive over time and now the horses are able to get out with an empty paddock between them (so nobody sneezes on anybody else). Shanna, the former avid soccer player, took the opportunity to teach Big G some fancy new footwork. After he realized that the red Jolly Ball wasn't actually going to eat him he couldn't help himself.

In our rides with Rachel we're working on building up his hind-end fitness.  He's still a little weak back there compared to his muscular front end and she's showed us great exercises to help with that.  We're also practicing DAILY Scary Plastic Flower desensitization. It takes us awhile but we can eventually get to the point where we're calmly walking over the flowers on a loose rein. Unfortunately our boy's Flower Memory is short and the following day we have to start all over again, but hey.... we've all got issues, right?!  The good news is that (as long as there are no flowers next to it) he loves to jump. We've hopped over a few 2' rails in the last weeks and are really happy that Guinness enjoys jumping so much. He's great about rounding his back and picking up his feet, and once the human contingent gets into better shape we'll start jumping courses.

If this doesn't get him over his fear of flowers nothing will!

It was with some amazement that we learned that Guinness' ever-expending belly and his difficulty to tire out actually make sense -- he's been receiving (despite our repeated pleas to the contrary) two huge scoops of grain each day!  The combination of that and the excellent quality timothy hay he's eating make him awfully frisky. And now we finally understand why it's been so hard to get him to chill out -- the sweet Latino workers who feed the horses seem to think they're doing us a favor by giving Guinny so much grain, because everyone knows that food is love!  Hopefully the latest communique to the owner and her staff has remedied that, and soon it won't matter anyway since we're headed to a different facility in two weeks. But it was definitely an "A-ha!" moment for us to see all that grain in his bucket....

Notice the Giant Belly and the Look of Friskiness!

 As the weather gets warmer his coat gets even lovelier and Guinness is definitely the envy of the barn. Not that all the leaping about he does makes people want to actually climb aboard, but he is definitely a presence who demands an audience!  And we're extremely smitten with the handsome gent. When he's sufficiently tired and calm he's quite the snuggler and we think we've finally learned all his favorite Scratching Spots. Food is definitely the Main Path to Guinny's heart, but scratching his withers, shoulder and under his jowls is a sufficient detour....

We continue to learn from and be amazed by his cleverness, his sense of wonder and awe (even though the plastic flower thing is getting old) and his athleticism. Each week brings us closer together and we're confident that the move to Rachel's new barn (where she can ride him a few days a week and we can ride in private lessons the others) will prove to be beneficial to all.  He'll make new friends and get new fanny muscles, and we'll all have a good time in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest forests (where we anticipate a fair amount of Various Woodsy Things Desensitization Sessions).

We're intending to enter a local dressage show in May (after we get back from a week of vacation in Lexington, KY at the Rolex Three Day Event, of course) and once we have that on the books we'll be in touch. Guinness is very excited to have his entourage visit soon, but for now he's asked us to leave you with this parting shot:

The "cool down" after 20 mins on the lunge

A Ride So Good We Could Scream!

Like we've already mentioned there's a virus going around our barn so all the horses are in a 3-week quarantine: nobody in, nobody out. And until yesterday everyone was stall-bound for a few days, which for Big G. is like trying to contain a hot nuclear reactor. Last night we walked him around the outdoor arena in hand for about 45 minutes. Actually, it was good exercise for the human contingent and while Guinness didn't get any aerobic activity it was one of the few sun-breaky moments we've had here in the Seattle area. The pasty-whitest among us appreciated it. Although it was harder to appreciate the vast amounts of liquidy mud splattered about as the silly guy pawed the giant puddles every time we walked past. (But we're trying to foster his bold cross-country love of water!)

After the leg-stretch we gave Guinness an extremely thorough grooming in his stall (not an easy task given the massive amounts of mud in every orifice).  Everything has to be done in their stalls these days (rather than in the cross ties in the aisle) to minimize the spread of any potential germs. Thankfully no more horses have gotten sick since the original two and we are all being really careful it stays that way.

We learned recently that Guinny is able to think more clearly under saddle if he's allowed to get his ya-yas out first on the lunge line or in a round pen.  He prefers the lunge, as do we. So he cruised around flinging his limbs about and we giggled, thankful to be flat-footed on the ground while he performed his rodeo maneuvers.

Once that was out of his system Erin climbed aboard to get down to work.  We've got a new super-special saddle pad that helps his back stay warm, which helps him focus better and be more supple while we work.  His lateral movements are delicious and he's as responsive as a Maserati.  SUCH a fun horse to ride, even when he's a bit of a handful!

Everything we asked him to do, he did with gusto. It's hard to tell who was happier, the horse or the humans. He is getting much better with others coming up beside or behind him in the arena, and since our facility is under quarantine there are 3 barns worth of horses who have to get worked without intermingling. That means that arena time is at a premium and that it's generally pretty crowded.

But Guinness was a rockstar and it was the most satisfactory ride we've had yet. His previous family calls him Lucky Guinny, but we're pretty sure WE are the lucky ones!