Settling in

D has been at our new home SHEC (Scott Hills Equestrian Center) for 3 months now. D is happy and putting on weight. He is now in a stall and despite the field being easier on my pocketbook its been good for him to have a place to chill out and lay down.
I have been adjusting to the cold weather energy that D always gets. He has been polite in telling me when he has too much for me to work through. He constantly reminds me that there can be no ego in riding- ever. Often times D and I just walk for 30 minutes because that is all he can concentrate on.
Dark nights are not an issue for us but blustery wind still is :)
I have been thinking a lot of how Demetrias and I became a team. Being at a new barn I have shared our tale a lot lately. Sometimes being his person is hard. He gives me a lot of things to process through and decisions to make. If he had been my first horse I never would've gotten a second one, seriously. But here are the things I have learned as we approach our fifth year together:
1. Your eyes are not what you see with but your heart
2. Bravery happens in baby steps
3. The desire to succeed and live over comes everything.
4. Listening to your horse's body language is vital
5. Sometimes you just need to hang out and graze
6. TLC is the best medicine
7. Vets and blood work are not the final answer
8. Fly masks and spray save lives :)
9. There isn't much that can't be accomplished when a treat is involved.
10. D is not the horse I signed up for but he is exactly the one I was meant to have.

            Merry Christmas everyone!! May we all be grateful for the blessings we have. 

Change of Address

This post finds D and I residents (well D is) of Scott Hills Equestrian Center in Pendleton. The beginning of August D had a bout with sand colic and the major recommendation was to get him on grass. After some researching and reaching out to a friend with a blind horse we found Scott Hills- 61 acres of grass owned and run by Chrissy.
I stopped out after school one day to see if the distance was do-able and how the place would work for D and I.
In a word it was perfect. Rolling hills, pasture and people already aware of the needs of a blind horse.

On September 15 D loaded without a hitch and within the next few hours was out with new friends incredibly alert but relaxed and munching on grass and hay as he chose.
I have been incredibly impressed with how D has transitioned. He has taken the noises and new spaces in stride and while he may have days of crazy whinnying he has settled into nearly everything I have asked. I have been super impressed.

By Tuesday of our first week I was riding and we have settled into our new place. I am able to stop there on my way home from school and am slowly learning the names and faces of both the people and horses. D and I work about 3 times a week and he is out 24/7.  I am incredibly grateful for this place-D needed to be out on grass and now he is able. He has 2 other horses with him in his pasture. Sampson, who is blind and Sampson's buddy, Rooster who is mostly retired. They are quiet and D seems happy.

D is recovering from a few "war" wounds and a leg that most likely got kicked. So we have spent some time walking and stretching him out. Saturday we were able to trot as normal and canter a bit. We were a bit unbalanced due to stiffness but not bad otherwise. Our new adventure is starting to walk around all the property. I am looking forward to being able to ride in the fields a bit and out of the ring.
So that's it- our October update, we just keep enjoying each other's company and moving forward the best we can.

August Daze

It has been a rather strange month. Last week, D started acting strange while laying down. He is a napper so it was hard to tell if there was an issue. Eventually it became apparent that there was indeed a problem. Despite our best efforts a vet was not to be had until the next day. Kim and I did our best and he rallied and made it through the night.
As far as we know he had a very minor sand colic, or gas block or ulcer issue or.... we really have no idea but with a lot a care and Kim's expertise D seems to be on the mend.

Almost a week later we cantered over a pole!!! WHAT??

Emotionally it has been a roller coaster, I thought we were to that point where our time was up. D has essentially been living on borrowed time the last three years and for all I knew we were at the end.

But once again my horse teaches me. Despite pain and discomfort he handles any change happily. Rather than turning his nose up when his food was doused in water. D happily slurped up his "soup." His greatest concern when being tubed was not the actual tube going through his nostril but the chain around his muzzle, so I didn't use it.

D is fully blind but has adjusted. He can graze in a yard with very temporary tape blocking him off, but he respects it. He waits patiently for his next small meal (back to normal now).
He adjusts to whatever situation he is in. He waits because he only has enough light for the step he is on. I need to remember this.
He trusts not just because he has no other choice, there is always another choice but because we have never failed him yet. He could be a frantic and a bully, hard to handle but instead he thinks he is a lap dog and would like you to just talk to him and pet his nose.

Once again, life lessons from my horse who is a true example of taking life as it comes and resting in the outcome.

Summer Sweating

What a hot and terribly rainy summer. D has gotten super calm in the midst of thunderstorms which is pretty cool actually.

To make up for the tardiness of my posts I will try to make this post count.

Demetrias has been doing well. He still has not completely shed out and it is indeed the middle of July. I am not sure why this is happening and can only guess. He dropped his entire coat the beginning of January right after we started a fat supplement. The assumption was that he had gotten too hot.

The idea now that he isn't dropping everything is that his seasons are just rather mixed up... his eyes are blocked up with cataracts and some sites say that part of how horses know to shed is by the amount of light that soaks in through the eyes. Obviously it is hot but apparently that isn't the only trigger- puzzling.

We went through a rather rough patch riding but seem to be on an upswing currently. I'm sure that will change now that I have written this...

We are cantering and working on downward transitions even including a pole or two. Despite him feeling unbalanced he has focused enough for us to be able to complete these tasks very well.

The baffling thing about uveitis is the shape of my horse's body. His hind end appears to be sunken. He isn't showing a lot of ribs and is happy as a clam but his body looks like that of an older horse while his face is quite young.

I wish there was more information out there about the impact this disease has on a horse as they progress but for now its one day at a time. He is happy and working to the best of his ability. I am blessed.

Lesson from Teo

I know, another blog post already?! Well, the other day I rode one of the Kim's horses in order to improve my outlook and just get another perspective. D and I were doing really well and then we hit a pretty rough patch which I'm glad to say was much better yesterday. But, back to Teo. Teo is a Dutch Warmblood school master that Kim has had for about 6 months or so I'd say. I always feel like I have barely enough time to work my horse let alone get on another horse, but I think I will make sure I ride a different horse in Wednesday night lessons at least once a month. 

In order to ride Teo well I had to relax my seat, loosen my reins and drive more from the legs. I also had to trust him, as is important in all riding but sometimes you forget when nothing is working. Teo and I cantered and jumped and just had fun although I'm not sure there was anything awesome to write home about my jumping, technique its been about a year since I've jumped. Teo is unbalanced and can get quick just like D. I needed the reminder that our challenges are not blind challenges but riding challenges. 

Yesterday when I got on D I relaxed my seat and loosened my reins and I reminded myself that for better or worse we are a team. He was still quick and unbalanced but he listened better and we managed to have a fairly successful ride. Yay!

In other news, he is not shedding his coat. I researched blind horses and shedding but came up with nothing but Kim read that some of it has to do with the amount of light absorbed through the eyes. D is obviously not getting any, so we shall see... 

Spring Fever

Back in February my post was all about the common place cantering D and I were doing and yes, he does still canter but we're having to go back to basics a bit as well. D has some pretty severe spring fever currently at least that's what I am going to call it. We are back to bucking and calling out which never works well with balance and I have resorted to working over poles just to get his attention. His answer to that is to get fast and pull so we do a lot more transitions.
On Tuesday D started bucking and we were too close to the bank in the dressage ring and he lost his balance and then tripped over the poles that were on the side and essentially we both fell. I have really no idea what happened or what I should have done differently. Kim, however got a front row seat, and her take away from it was that the way he went down was impressive in that its the first one since we've known he is blind and actually its only the second time he has fallen with me (the first one was over a jump). The other thing she liked was that he made it very easy for me to get off by the time he went down. To his credit once he goes down he stops and waits for direction. Too bad he didn't think of that that beforehand, huh?
So at the moment I am not loving riding D because we have gone backwards in my mind. But if I get my mind and ideas out of it I just dial it back. I work with him on transitions at the walk and we work slowly over poles and we don't go beyond a trot until he can handle it in a sensible way. I have a hard time just seeing the bad rides as just that, bad rides and he'll come back and get it together. I start freaking out that I have lost him and this is how it will be forever, which is irrational. D is a 13 year old thoroughbred and yes he is growing up and for awhile became the trusty old man. I had the audacity to say I was getting a bit "bored" because he was becoming complacent. What I meant was I wanted to try new things and wanted to be able to use his new willing, cooperativeness to grow. Instead, D has decided to get creative. He is a horse and he is young and he is dealing with a lot of things that are not normal. I have no plans to show, I have no plans as of right now to jump, so honestly, we have time. Time to re-calibrate his brain. Time to get his right lead to bend a bit better. Time to remind him that leaning on my hands is unhelpful. Time to remind him that using his hind end to create impulsion is so much more helpful than just being on the forehand. We have time right now and that is a luxury that not everyone has and so we will continue to ride... blind.

How we roll

Today in the ring Kim made the comment, "we're Bramblewood, even the blind horse canters." True! Then Rachel chimed in with, "That's just how we roll." Probably more hilarious if you were there but the events of the ring, D cantering that is, are starting to be come common place and it is so weird. My fully blind horse has been cantering for several weeks now and its just what we do now. I call it our new trick but really its not even that. D picks up his canter from a walk, most often on the right lead and gives me the most beautiful and relaxed canter ever. His consistency at the canter is quite amazing. He is calm and rhythmic and because of that I am able to guide and balance him without worrying about a rodeo scene. I have no false notions that this will never happen, he is a horse after all, but his steadiness has brought us into the common 3 gait workouts.

I have not consistently cantered a horse in nearly two years and so my body has had to adjust but it has been awesome. I am not really sure what changed but D and I have reached a really different place. He is ridden about three days a week and I am there a fourth which is not a ton for a 13 year old thoroughbred but its all I can manage with work. D has coped and flourished under our schedule and I find myself tacking my horse up and having fairly successful rides even when he has been off for 2-3 days. Its amazing!! I feel like we have scaled a super huge mountain. Most of the mountain I am sure was in my head. I have never given up on D, Kim pointed that out today and its true but I have had many moments where I have felt like what I was attempting was dumb but now I feel I've been given back my horse.

He has another cut on his leg, this time the the inside left front leg but he made it through a lot of storms without much incidence and its not as bad as what he has done in the past and his tolerance of me cleaning it has grown. I am under no delusion that we are out of the woods. And life with a blind horse is never easy. But the strides of the last few weeks have made me feel there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

So much of riding is letting go of ego and remembering that the horse you are working with is full of its own fears and deficiencies and unless you are ready to understand his and somehow fit yours with what he is able to give you, the ride is going to be one of battle rather than teamwork. I had a moment today when I saw D's leg and I got bummed because I so wanted to ride. He ended up being fine to ride but had he been lame, then the plans for the day adjust. He and I work the best together and that seems to have finally gotten into both of our heads.

We did it! We did it!!

A month has gone by since my last post and many events have transpired however the biggest one took place just last night.
D has been back in work for a little over a year now. He had nearly a year off of real work and we spent a lot of time just wandering and getting to really know each other. Its amazing what you can do at the walk.
Last night, for the first time since his diagnosis nearly two years ago we cantered the entire ring. Both ways. Without any fits or bucking or switching to the forehand. We have NEVER done that, even when he was sighted. He cantered the full circle, both ways, more than once.
No bucking. No falling apart in the corners. No pulling to go faster. Almost perfectly balanced. We. Just. Cantered.

It was unbelievable to me and it was hard to keep from crying.

So often being D's caregiver, his eyes, his voice, etc... is the most daunting task I face including middle schoolers who sadly need someone with more skill in discipline.
 I have no idea what I am supposed to do, what he needs and often I completely doubt my ability to care for him. To ride him. To keep him.

I have ridden for a long time but that doesn't mean I am accomplished or good by any means, I just have a lot of miles under my seat and the scars of flying through the air... a lot.

But there are those rare moments when your horse, who can't see a thing and randomly sheds his entire winter coat in January (another exciting event, still figuring that one out) or is bossy or won't stop whinnying when we are working in an empty ring (or lately for Kim to bring him hay, so sorry!) when he and I click. When the year of just walking and giving medicine and trying to figure out what the next step is, shows. Because he is ready to work and wants to move forward. When rather than rushing ahead and questioning directions he just, listens and I give appropriate leadership.

Blind horses aren't supposed to canter, not really sure who said that or why. I wasn't sure if D and I ever would again, at least not out of our circle or for very long. I'm not sure why I thought that, maybe just trying not to get my hopes up or not admitting that for awhile I haven't really enjoyed cantering, it hadn't ended well previously.

Last night I remembered how much fun it is to just, go... to feel your horse sail smoothly underneath you and both horse and rider able to just enjoy running. I remembered what it was like to trust that he was able to carry me the distance I was asking for and that we could both relax and enjoy the freedom of his movements.

I remembered that he mirrors how I feel and while I do trust him a lot, this wouldn't work otherwise, my old fears of dropped shoulders and hurtling through the ring had to be forgotten and honestly falling off is a part of the package.
However, truly remembering to have confidence in myself (which is a struggle in and of itself) instantly impacts my horse. Relaxing into how he feels and listening to what he thinks he can do is paramount as I continue to lead him on the path as well as follow.