Horse health

This morning, we're conquering Belle's fear of needles. She's really ready to get to work, and it's almost time to sit on her. She looks more "horselike" every day and less like a bratty teenager.

Okay, so a whole day has passed and the two men have not returned my good winter horse blanket or the cooler I lent them to keep their traumatized horse warm while they walked home. Now I'm totally questioning my judgment. Maybe I should have made them keep the horse in my barn, where I could have looked after him, maybe even called the vet and gotten him some care. Or maybe I should have made them haul the horse home in my trailer. They were in such a hurry to get the horse out of the ditch, Scot is now wondering if they were fleeing something or stealing, or just illegal and scared to meet the sheriff who we called right away (as we normally do when a horse falls in the ditch). Whatever the case, I'm sickly worried about the horse, and want my blanket back only so I can ask them what happened.

I did not make it to the horse show this weekend--the flu turned into a whopping case of bronchitis, so Baleno is standing around all braided and ready to go and I'm flat on my back in bed. I'm somewhat relieved, since sometimes the whole dressage thing can be somewhat humiliating--I'm never quite ready, never quite spotlessly groomed, and never quite accurate enough to earn the big scores...somedays I long to go back to the eventing days.

But anyway, had I gone to the horse show I would have missed the big excitement in our neighborhood--a horse in the irrigation ditch. This is nothing new, but it's nonetheless scary and creepy when it happens, and it always involves some guy who thinks he knows the best way to get the horse out of the ditch, and some other guys who need to be experts thinking they know the best way to get the horse out of the ditch, and so forth. In fact, those of us who live near the irrigation ditch and have pulled a horse a summer out of the ditch (at least) really do know how to do it.

Nothing to report from the horse front today. Still spiking a fever. Got a load of hay (March is a terrible time to buy hay). Can you believe I paid $12 a bale??? Highway robbery, but my own fault for not budgeting my hay supplies correctly. You'd think after all these years of horsekeeping I would have figured this out. How much are you paying in your neighborhood?

And speaking of the army of service providers any horse person needs, the farrier decided to put egg bar shoes on Baleno's front feet. He's got that quarter crack that heels, gets worse, heals, gets worse. Hopefully this will support him better.