I Don't Bounce Quite Like I Used To...

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I had a couple of pretty serious accidents while riding Guy.

Guy is a BIG boy. He is 17.1hh 6-year-old whose head is roughly the length of my entire arm. When you're up on his back, you sort of have to appreciate that the ground is a looooooong way away. I have always been a confident rider and have never been scared on a horse until the first crash off of Guy.

We were riding a lesson with my old coach, who also happens to be Guy's owner. We were working on keeping his excitement levels down when jumping outside, because he had proven to get really strong and full of himself when we worked outdoors. He jumped a tiny vertical nicely a couple of times, so my coach raised it (it was still only about 2' high). Unfortunately, as Guy was jumping, my coach's young dog (a herding breed) ran out at him and spooked him (don't ask me why the dog was loose around a working horse, I couldn't tell you). Guy took off with me and ran straight at the barn. He ignored all of my attempts to stop him, to circle him, to do anything but tear blindly in the direction of home. As the barn approached, I couldn't help thinking in increasing panic, "He HAS to stop. There's no WAY he's going to keep going." Well, I was partly right. He did stop, but slid on the gravel outside the barn and swung around, leaving me to fly off his back, hit the side of the barn with the right side of my body, and fall to the ground.

Needless to say, that left me quite bruised and sore. I bruised some ribs and had huge, ugly, yellowish-black-purplish bruises all down the right side of my body. I took a day off from work, rested up, and was back in the saddle after about a week. I made the decision at that point to ride my coach's older, packer Quarter Horse mare for a while in lessons, rather than Guy, because I felt like jumping and the whole course was set up outside.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks. I had already made the decision to stop part-boarding Guy and to move to a new barn. I had met Brady and Bea and made arrangements to begin part-boarding him as of September 1st. Unfortunately, that meant that there were about 3 weeks left in August when I would have no horse to ride. Upon the urging of the Boyfriend, who didn't want to hear me whine for 3 weeks about not riding, I decided to go back and do a few more lessons with my old coach.

I got there, I told her I was interested in working on the flat, and she gave me the choice of riding Guy or the Packer QH. I hadn't ridden Guy in ages, we were just going to work on the flat and my coach implied several times that she had worked him and he was being good, so I decided to go with Guy.

I knew he wasn't quite right as soon as I hopped on. He was a little hot, but also felt really stiff at the walk, as though he hadn't done work in a while. He was lazy while we worked at the trot, really not showing any interest in extending. When I asked him to canter the first time, he grudgingly picked up the correct lead, but broke back to the trot after half a round of the outdoor "ring" we were working in. When I asked him to canter again, he tossed my ass up on to his neck, and then up and over his enormous head. I landed hard on my shoulder and wound up with this terrible injury that I would never, ever wish on ANYONE:



 

That giant, ugly bump protruding from between my shoulder and my neck? Yeah, that's a broken collarbone, about a week and a bit after it happened. It has been such an enormous pain in the butt, and is the most painful and uncomfortable bone I have ever broken in my long history of breaking bones. It has also meant that I haven't been able to ride for the past two weeks...so yeah, things didn't really work out for the Boyfriend. Now not only has he had to listen to me whine about not being able to ride, but also about how much pain and discomfort I'm in on a very regular basis.

So, my part-boarding plans with Brady have had to be pushed back. Bea has been very understanding and we think that October 1st might be a better start date. She has invited me to visit and to work with Brady on the ground, which I plan on doing as soon as I get my doctor's approval (hopefully that will happen tomorrow!). In the meantime, I do a lot of sitting completely still, and wishing that I had never gone back to a barn that I knew wasn't particularly well-run...and this is definitely NOT the way that I would have chosen to learn this lesson.

About Me

After my brief introductory post yesterday to the world of part-boarding, I feel like it's time to introduce myself!

I'm Essie, a 25-year-old from Ontario, Canada. I have been riding horses off and on for just over 15 years. I ride English, and for the past 10 years, I have been focusing on the hunters. I have ridden a huge variety of horses in the past, from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds, Tennessee Walkers to Trakehners.

My first experiences part-boarding a horse came when I was around 15 years old. I worked and volunteered at a therapeutic riding centre, where I was invited to exercise a 14.3hh Tennessee Walker gelding. This horse was a stubborn little guy who was carrying a lot of extra weight and an allergy to picking up the correct canter lead. With time and patience, I whittled a lot of the weight away and finally got him picking up the correct lead...at least most of the time. Because I was still a minor, I had to be accompanied by an adult every time that I rode. It only took one winter of sitting in a frigid indoor arena for my mother to nix the idea of me part-boarding again until I was over 18. As I waited anxiously for this birthday to arrive, I took weekly lessons at a nearby riding school.

Unfortunately, my turning 18 coincided with my going away to university. That meant that riding got put on the back burner while I got a couple of degrees. As my time at university drew to an end, I knew that I had to start riding again, and contacted my old riding coach to set up some lessons. It wasn't long before I fell in love with the big, goofy Thoroughbred gelding that I was riding in my lessons. When I secured a temporary job in my field, I decided that the time had come for me to part-board again. I decided to go ahead and part-board the Big Guy.

Guy taught me a lot about myself and my strengths and weaknesses as a rider. We brought each other a long way, and I had big plans to enter him in a series of summer schooling shows that would be not just his first outdoor shows, but my first shows ever. Unfortunately, the best laid plans often go to waste. Guy was calm, careful and spook-proof at home, but was not the same horse off property. He was also underweight, and when his owner learned that I wanted to show him in the summer, she knew that he was too ribby to take out in public. He was fit, but needed to gain at least 100lbs to look truly respectable (a fact I had struggled with ever since I began riding him, hoping that the money I spent part-boarding him would be put back into his care, thus improving his quality of life). It became pretty clear very quickly that Guy was calm and laid back because he didn't have the energy to be anything else. As he was finally started regularly on grain, he became stronger and much more unpredictable.

Problems at the lesson barn (with horse-keeping standards and negative people) and two major accidents involving Guy (I was hurt in both cases, not him) lead to me deciding to leave the barn that I had been riding at off-and-on for 10 years. I was on the search for both a new barn to ride at, and a new horse to part-board.

I will talk about my search for a barn and horse in later posts. Suffice it to say that I found a great new barn and an awesome new horse. Brady is a 6-year-old Thoroughbred gelding that I will be part-boarding in the near future. Unfortunately, I am still recovering from a serious injury incurred while riding Guy, so I can't start riding Brady just yet. He is a challenging ride without being dangerous, and my goal is to improve my riding and work towards having him ready for schooling shows next summer (2014).

Once I am back in the saddle, this blog will revolve around my experiences part-boarding Brady, and my relationship with his owner, Bea. Until then, I'll likely be talking about the good and bad sides of my time spent with Guy, sharing some information that all part-boarders should know, and my opportunities to begin to build a relationship with Brady from the ground.

I look forward to sharing with you!

Essie

Part-Boarding Particulars

As anyone involved with horses knows, they are expensive creatures to maintain properly.

 At the most basic level of ownership, if one just wants to have a pet horse to visit and to coddle, the horse needs somewhere to live, basic medical care (vaccinations, worming, hoof trims, etc.), food to eat, and probably some clothes to wear (a winter blanket, maybe a fly sheet and a mid-weight blanket).

The more you want to do with your horse, the more it will cost you.

Want to ride? You'll need a saddle and bridle, stirrups, stirrup irons, a girth, a bit, a saddle pad. If your horse is strong, or young, or pushy, or has special health needs, or has specific conformation challenges, you may need extra equipment like half pads, boots, martingales, a breastplate, a crupper, a double bridle. You'll probably want to enlist the help of a trainer for your horse, a coach for you, or both.

Want to take your horse somewhere, like on a trail ride, to a show or to a clinic? You'll need a truck and trailer (or someone who will haul for you), shipping boots, a poll protector, possibly a passport for your horse and/or a Coggins test. And don't forget at shows, you'll have to pay your entry fees (and a scratch fee if something goes wrong and you need to back out), a fee to use the warm-up ring, a coaching fee, possibly a fee to board your horse at the show grounds overnight. You'll need show clothes for yourself (helmet, breeches. show shirt, show coat, gloves, field boots) and, if your saddle and bridle are older or shabby, show tack for your horse. You may even need to pay an annual membership fee to an association or group to enter certain show series.

Insurance for your horse is a necessary investment. Responsible horse owners ensure that they have coverage for damages caused by their horse, and to protect themselves from being wiped out financially by sudden illness, like colic. If you plan on letting others ride your horse, you'll need to be insured in case of accident or injury, and you'll need coaching insurance if you want to give lessons.

And then, of course, you have to take unexpected expenses into account. Maybe your horse will need shoes. Maybe he'll need a custom sized saddle. Maybe he'll come down sick or sore and require medication or surgery that isn't covered by insurance. Maybe your horse will be injured or incapacitated in some way that renders him permanently lame or un-rideable. The costs associated with horse ownership are crazy!

That's why, sometimes, horse owners look to defray the costs of ownership and look for ways to lighten their financial load. That's where people like me come in.

As a semi-recent university graduate with an unstable source of income, I can't in good conscience buy a horse. I could afford it, but just barely, and in my 15+ years in the horse world, I have seen what just barely being able to afford a horse does to an animal (I'll leave that for another post). To get my "horse fix", I have found part-boarding to be an economical and beneficial route to take, both for me, and for the owner of the horse I am part-boarding.

Basically, part-boarding is a form of "renting" a horse. I pay a specified monthly fee to the owner of the horse, and in turn am able to ride a particular number of times per week each month. My part-boarding agreements have always included one lesson on the horse, and two "free rides" each week. The free rides are basically my time to do whatever I'd like with the horse, whether that be schooling something we've been working on in lessons, or going for a relaxing hack. In this way, I am having the opportunity to work and build a relationship with a horse without the costs associated with having one of my own.

This blog will explore my experiences as a part-boarder. I will share stories about my struggles, challenges and successes in the hopes that other part-boarders out there can learn about the pros and cons of entering this interesting type of relationship.

Please feel free to post questions, comments or advice!

Essie