I've been very lax on the blog, but so much has happened which I should have been talking about. Poplar came back from the "trainer" last November, and it was bad. Really bad. She was skinny, had no foot left, ran the "trainer" over when he tried to load her into the trailer, I canceled my final check, and documented her deplorable condition, bad. Even worse, mentally, she was a disaster. She ran, constantly. She was afraid of everyone, and everything. Yea, she was much better on the long line in terms of respect, but had exactly one speed, terrified. I rode her, barely, when she came back, something felt wrong and in a rush to enjoy my new horse, I went against my instincts and got myself hurt. She spooked at a barrel in the arena, and I hit the ground like a rock and cracked two ribs. Got back on, rode until I really could not breathe, tossed her saddle on to the rack and decided it was time to start over, and do it my way.
The disappointment, regret, and overall sense that I had failed her by allowing this to happen was crushing. It took a lot of time, thought, and the loss of quite a few pipe dreams to accept that this was my mess, she was my horse, and we had to do this, again, together. It was going to take a long time. It was not going to be fun, but it had to be done. My husband asked more than once, why I didn't simply sell her and call it a mistake. He's not a horse guy, and while he tries, he is a very analytical person. In his mind, Poplar was just that, a big, expensive, soul crushing, mistake. I said, no, he accepted my decision, and we moved on.
I pastured her for two months, just to let her mentally and physically recover. Her back had atrophied in the perfect reflection of a western saddle, my farrier declared her hooves unfit to be ridden, she had stress ulcers, and she was about 100 lbs underweight. Mentally, she was a frazzled mess. When I pulled her back out, we, very casually, started round pen work from scratch. Now, I joke that she taught herself "Lunging for Respect, Stage 1" over the winter while I stayed home and prayed that the roads would clear before I had to drive. In the spring, being ridiculously honest, I did not accomplish much with my horses. Refusing entry to all excuses, I done goofed. I let myself fall into a mental funk and it took me three months to climb out. We missed all of the spring ride season, and we only started really conditioning in June of this year. I didn't ride once between April and June.
Just seeing that on my screen is depressing.
However, today, Poplar is recovered, both mentally and physically from her ordeal and we are about to start backing again. I want to do a few weeks of long-line work before hand, but she is no longer afraid of the saddle, my farrier trimmed all four around this past cycle for the first time, and my sassy little (actually pretty large) punk is back. I missed her very, very much. Oz is doing even better, and other than scamming his way out of a 10 mile training ride with a new friend, we are ready for Big South Fork, in September. We did a 15 mile, hard and fast training ride last week and he came back to the trailer, eating, drinking, and ready for more. He got a giant bug bite on his tendon this week, and gave me a half panic attack, until nearly every respectable horsewoman at the farm had confirmed it, bug bite. Smart ass.
