Tanta’s nose lump is all better! I did have a whole post outlining everything that happened with that, but it was soooo long and sorta boring and it happened so long ago. I decided to forgo it and instead do a more generalized post about more recent happening. the short version of the nose lump story is; her old nose lump (tooth related) flared up in November, we put her on antibiotics and within a couple weeks it cleared up!
We then had a few wonderful weeks where I could actually ride my horse. It was splendid. But now poor Tanta’s stifle is sore. boo.
Just over 2 weeks ago now, when it first showed, it was really bad. Poor Tanta was uncomfortable with me just doing up the leg strap on her blanket. I’m not sure what happened, maybe she slipped in the paddock… She got bute and the week off. I tried riding her lightly after one week. There was definite improvement, she didn’t mind me touching her stifle, but unfortunately she was still felt stiff/stabby behind and reluctant to go forward. I just rode her enough to asses that and then hopped off. another week off and liniment, and I tried riding her again yesterday. She felt better than she did a week ago, but still not 100%. We just walked around a little bit. She seems to be on the mend though, so that’s good! hopefully its not too long till she’s back in action.
I am sad, I really wanted to do May as Well Events’ most recent blog hop! but I CANNOT get the backup computer with the old pictures to turn on… 😦
Cutest little Lilliput pony
Maren already blogged about the ridiculous winter storm we had here a couple nights ago. Seven trees came down. SEVEN. Plus 4 tree tops snapped off. ugh.
❤ ❤
I actually think that’s it… I havent been doing much riding as of late, although Maren did let me ride Ollie once! He’s such a good boy. I will try to update my poor neglected blog more often!!
What does everyone use for winter gloves? I’m in need of a pair for riding in, and not sure what brand/type to get. I’m sorta picky. Haha. I need something that will keep my hands warm while not being super bulky. Is that even a thing? I haven’t been able to find it yet.
Sorta unrelated but cute pictures of the ponies in the snow last year
I have a pair of the SSG -10 gloves that I absolutely love for chores. they are so warm, but I find them too bulky to ride in.
My coach introduced me to These gloves from Costco a couple years ago, and I love them. They are not designed to be riding gloves, but work really well as the have the silicone grip. They last really well, I’ve had the same pair for multiple years now. Also they are inexpensive😉. The only problem is although they are warm, they aren’t that warm. Best for fall, in my opinion. At least here, they aren’t really warm enough for the whole winter.
Has anyone tried the winter roeckls? Maren has a pair of the Chester gloves (non winter). I’ve tried them and quite like the feel of them. I’m just hesitant as they are not cheep gloves and I’m not sure how warm they will actually be! 🤔
I am going to a very awesome trade fair at the end of this month (the shopping is amazing ;), so I will be keeping my eyes open. Any recommendations (or what to steer clear of!) are appreciated! 🙂
Tanta has been on the antibiotics and bute for almost 5 days now, and unfortunately her tooth is looking the same. The vet prescribed 10 days of bute and antibiotics, so we will see how she is after that, but it’s looking like she will need her tooth pulled. The farrier came today, and I had him pull her shoes for the winter. I was originally planning on getting one more set, specifically so she wouldn’t be foot sore on the hunt (it can be pretty rocky in places), but seeming as I’m not riding her right now and the chances of us actually going in the hunt are pretty slim, it would most likely be a waste of money to get them on only for the hunt. this way we are getting them off before the ground gets too hard/frozen, so it’s easier on her feet anyway. But it is disappointed because this means we definitely won’t be going in the hunt. but I can still have fun spectating!
the weather has been sort of crazy… it went from being pretty warm to super cold and frosty really suddenly!! We have been having record braking cold days for this time of year. Last week was the coldest day here, on that date, in over 100 years! Haha. I actually really love the weather, because it’s cold (it was -1 when I went out to the barn the other morning!) but still sunny. Unfortunately the forecast for this week shows warmer and wetter weather…
I think I have talked briefly about Tanta’s nose lump on here, but I haven’t really gone into detail. In late 2017 while Tanta was pregnant with Raven (she did not belong to me at this time. She lived next door at my coach’s place and I rode her), she acquired an odd lump on the right side of her face. It was fairly large, but she did not seem to find it painful. My coach had it X-Rayed, and it turned out to be a tooth with a bad root. The vet said it was probably a good idea to remove the tooth. Apparently it’s quite the procedure to remove a horse tooth, The vet said it can take all day! Anyway, it couldn’t be it removed while Tanta was pregnant because so much sedation wouldn’t be good for the foal. The plan was to get it removed once Tanta’s baby was weaned. It was fine, because she didn’t seem uncomfortable.
Until it could be removed, I just rode her in a rope halter which she was quite comfortable in.
If you zoom in you can see the lump on the right side of her face, just above where the halter nose sits.
when Raven came along and was nursing, her nose lump mysteriously got way better and much smaller. And she still had the tooth. The lump was still there, but it was basically a non issue. The vet was happy it had improved so much, and thought that it might not have to be removed right away anymore. But to play it by ear. It stayed small and didn’t cause any problems for awhile.
Last winter when Tanta was getting her leg X Rayed, we had her mouth done as well, just to check up on it because we had the machine out already. This wasn’t our normal vet, as she doesn’t have a portable X-ray machine.
The new vet said that dental X-rays are hard to read, but she thought it all looked fine, and as long as Tanta was feeling good, she didn’t think there was any need to remove the tooth at that point in time. If It ever flared up or became an issue or concern, the images could be sent to a vet who specializes in dental stuff. Awesome.
BUT, on Wednesday I went to get Tanta to ride… and her nose lump. Was. HUGE! Even bigger than when she first got it a couple years ago! Uh… so sudden too. It was “normal” on Tuesday. It did have good timing, though. Our vet was booked to come float teeth and do vaccinations on Friday (a couple days ago now)
This was on Wednesday. not a great pic, but you can see how much bigger the lump is! Also, sidenote – I don’t normally have her halter so high on her face… thats just to try and avoid it sitting on the lump!
When the vet got here on Friday she palpated Tanta’s lump and it was sensitive:( she then had a look at the X-rays from last year, and thinks she can see something in one of the roots still… Tanta is now on antibiotics and bute, and she will probably need that tooth removed. Unless it will go back to being stable. Although we might as well just remove it… no point in avoiding the inevitable, as the vet said. Apparently it’s not a question of if, but of when. She did say that this is a pretty good time of year, if Tanta had to get a tooth removed. No flies and it’s not getting in the way of any shows! Poor Tanta:( so far, after a couple days of antibiotics, she seems about the same. she hasn’t been off her food or anything, although I suspect it would take more than a bum tooth to put Tanta off her food! I am hoping this is all sorted out by next month as we are supposed to be going in the local humane fox hunt! I am not sure how long after they have a tooth removed before that can be ridden? I need to do some research!
So! I am so late posting this… but-Young Riders camp happened this year!! it was a pretty last minute decision that Tanta would be able to go, and I was so busy frantically packing that I didn’t have time to do an update on here. but basically, it was the BEST. SO FUN!
Unrelated but cute photo
It seemed that Tanta was getting bothered by her boots… as long as I rode her in polo wraps she was happy and sound. this was, obviously, a huge relief. and at that point there really wasn’t any reason not to go to YR’s! Maren and a friend were planning on going, so, for the first time ever, we had 3 horses in our 3 horse trailer!
I was worried about finding XC boots that wouldn’t rub Tanta… as I already said, the decision to attend camp was so last minute, I didn’t have time to order in any sort of soft cross country boot to try on her. I ended up just trying what I could find. nothing was working and I was concerned she would have to go bootless on her fronts. Tanta doesn’t really interfere, nor is she particularly clumsy, but I feel better knowing she has some amount of protection on her legs. As a last resort I tried some old fashioned (not sure what they are actually called, do they have a name?) jumping boots, and they didn’t run her!!! I don’t know why, but I’ll take it. My coach kindly let me borrow them for the show, and it just so happened that some friends had a couple pairs of the same style of boots they didn’t need, and gave them to me! which was super nice and very helpful as I dont think they make that style of boot anymore! So basically, if I ever see any boots of that style at a used tack store or whatever, I’ll buy them so I have a stock😉
The wonder boot!!
Back to the camp. we left Thursday morning, fairly early as it takes 6+ hours of traveling to get there. all the horses traveled really well! When we finally arrived it was HOT. SO HOT. I felt like I stepped out of the truck into an oven. we walked the ponies around and let them graze in the shade, so we didn’t melt. the stabling there is my favourite of all the show venues, because the pens/stalls are larger and fairly spread out. They are mostly in the trees, and are arranged in clumps of about 4-6. So it’s sort of separate and nice… there’s a road/driveway that separates the stabling from a big field. Last time we were there people camped on the big field. This year hay was planted on the field, so the organizers had asked everyone to camp beside the stalls. I should have taken a picture but I didn’t. it was fairly squishy, but I loved being so close to the horses. and I mean squishy trying not to have our camp spill onto the road or into the stalls, not squishy with other people. it was actually really nice in that people weren’t camping on top of each other!
There was a rider meeting at 7, to go over rules and whatnot. out group opted to wait and ride after that, in hopes it would be cooler by then. it was, but at that point we were a bit unmotivated lol. we did ride though, and that was good. I didn’t want to tire Tanta out before our lessons, so I just walked and trotted around a couple times and went for a little light seat canter. we were riding on grass, in one of the XC fields, so Tanta was nice and forward. it was fun:)
Friday I had a cross country lesson. My ride time was 9:30 which was pretty nice. We were done before the heat of the day. My group started in the arena, so our instructor could get a good idea of where us and our horses were at before we went out into the XC fields! We did a little flatwork and jumped a few small fences then we were ready for XC. Tanta was a bit sluggish in the arena… but she perked right up as soon as we went onto the grass! The facility is super nice – it has a massive cross country course with lots of different obstacles – ditches, water, all sorts of jumps, hills etc. The first day we schooled logs, the up/down bank, little houses, and finished up be doing the bank up out of the water. Not really that much to report, because Tanta was perfect! (As per usual😉)
Day 2 was super fun- we started out in the arena, but hardly spent any time in there. We started with a mini course, and then schooled lots of other stuff. As I am writing this I’m forgetting what happened when, so my descriptions are a little vague. Sorry😐 in my Defense there have been a lot of XC courses in the last couple weeks. NOT complaining!
we did do a super fun little house coming out of the water:
It was so fun!!! I wish I could post videos, but my blog plan only allows pictures. On the second day we also had a dressage lesson. Let’s just say that Tanta was TIRED. So tired. They were running the lessons in groups of two, and the other horse in my lesson was tender footed on the arena footing. So basically with the foot sore horse and the super tired horse, I’m pretty sure we had the shortest group dressage lesson ever. Lol! Oh well.
The third day we had another cross country lesson, and of course Tanta didn’t feel tired at all. We did some little courses, ditches and then some small logs at the top of some fairly steep hills. We came up first, then went down. Those were really fun.
After those our lesson wrapped up. We still had pace though, so we couldn’t leave quite yet. For pace there’s a track running around the outside of a big field, and they time you cantering around and average your speed. We were aiming for 350 meters per minute, as that is the time for Pre-Entry. By this point, poor Tanta was SO tired. We kept breaking to trot… so our averaged speed wasn’t really very accurate. We went something like 337 or something. So the instructor said that when we were cantering, it was probably a bit too fast, because our average was almost 350 and we had trotted so much. We went again and were closer to the time with not as much trotting. It… was good to get to feel what that canter was like… except I didn’t really get to, because we were so inconsistent… haha so pace was sort of a bust but oh well.
We let the horses hang out and have some water, then we hit the road! Altogether it was SUCH a fun weekend, with lots of great schooling, and Tanta was the best (like she always is!)
Canadian Dressage Pony 