I miss this guy.

Wow… blog is sloooowwww lately. I'm not sure if it's godaddy's fault for having cheapo servers, or the database is just downright clogged with WP queries.

Lately I've been horse shopping online with the anticipation of not having a horse come April, when my lease on Cass ends. I've decided I have a love/hate relationship with horse shopping, much like my love/hate relationship with Target. I love Target because you can pretty much buy ANYTHING there, but I hate it because there are too many choices and/or what I want isn't on the shelves. I end up walking out of there happy but absolutely exhausted from the effort. For example, the humidifier I wanted to buy for my room - not in stock. I spent about 20 minutes looking at facial cleansers because there are about 200 types available. Too much yet not enough.

Yesterday I saw this guy on CANTER Mid-Atlantic's site. Ooooh, purdy. I'd take him, but here's what's preventing me from picking up the phone and calling the trainer:
1) My eye for conformation is crappy, so he could have some major faults that I'm aware of,
and
2) He's right off the track, something I've never done before (buying a horse straight from the track) and THAT is what the killer is. I cannot do it. I don't trust myself.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to end up with another horse that's going to fall apart on me that I can't buy anything. My trainer is in FL, so I don't have her to come hold my hand, and poor Allie has been the victim of my incessant "What about this guy?" and "I can't doooo thissss!!!" gchat IMs. Seriously. I'd rather hide my head in the sand because no one's around to help and reassure me that I'm doing the right thing.

I'm always trying to do the right thing, and at this point it's nearly crippling me. I can't afford to make another mistake.

Ugh. The bad luck fairy visited me again this Christmas, because so far life has not been too terribly great since then. Basically, Cass got kicked by his pasture buddy two days before Christmas and ended up having to go to the vet hospital… all while I was in the midst of a 14 hour journey through air travel hell to Utah. When they x-rayed him, they found he had fractured his patella and now a 1 cm piece of bone is floating around in his stifle. Recommended course of action is arthroscopic surgery to remove the chip. Fortunately, it wasn't imperative that he have the surgery done right away.

In the meantime, I was stuck facing a $1500 vet bill because, under the contract, I am technically responsible for any injuries that occur - even ones that I have no control over. The frustrating part was the fact the contract also states the horse must be covered with major medical/mortality insurance in case something like this happens. For whatever reason, his owner took 3 months (despite my frequently reminding her) to actually get the policy. However, at the time of his injury, neither of us knew if the insurance was active, as she faxed it in right before that fateful day… hence me facing the reality of a large, large vet bill for 5 days.

So, for my entire Utah visit, I was consumed with frustration ("I told her 95 times to send the paperwork in!"), worry (I was still 2000 miles away from Cass), a little bit of embarrassment (for not being available when the injury was discovered, and relying on someone else to wait for the emergency vet/subsequently hauling him to the hospital - and then home the next day), dejection (it would be at least 3 months before Cass could go back into work - past the lease term), and anger (Strike 2 on my "horses that have killed any hope for me competing this decade").

There's more to the story, such as the lease contract binding me to paying for expenses until he's "fixed" and therefore not being able to afford riding until April or May. I also feel a certain degree of resentment toward the horse that did this, as this is NOT the first time the cranky bastard has kicked someone… last time being his own human. Cody was no angel either, but he never laid a hoof on a person as far as I knew.

Moral of the story: Always, always, always buy major medical insurance. You can't afford NOT to get it.

The barn where I board is laid out a little strangely - for example, the hydrant (hose pump) is actually IN one of the stalls. This particular stall is also good for horsey sightseeing, as it's on the end and has two windows to peek out of… one of them being our sort of "hose window," as the only way to get the hose down to the grooming area below is to stick the hose out the open window.

This is great for Streaker, who is extremely insecure without his girlfriend Glory. This way, he can stick his head out the window and watch her get ready to go out. The first thing he does when we bring him in is run to the window to make sure Glory hasn't left his sight.

This past weekend at the barn, a few plexiglass pieces were put in the windows of the stalls to help with the cold, including the hose window/Streaker's "TV." Unfortunately, no one told Streak that the window was now covered up… so you can imagine what happened when he was brought inside. Streaker runs to the window and WHAM! Faceplant right into the plexiglass.

I, of course, laughed my ass off because Streaker is kind of annoying with his incessant whinnying and running around every time Glory isn't within sight… that and his habit of stepping on the hose when I'm trying to fill water buckets. :finger:

Okay, the real point of my post. On my office's floor, the door to the women's bathroom doesn't latch, so there's no handle-turning required. (I'm betting you're getting a good idea of what's about to happen.) Yesterday at work, I was on another floor for a meeting and decided to visit the bathroom before going back downstairs. Smart me, I pushed on the door and promptly slammed my face against the door. Good thing no one was there to witness this…

…but I'm thinking that if horses could talk, Streaker would be saying "Ha-ha! Sucker!"

This past Sunday, my horse Cody and I drove up to Damascus, MD to compete in our very first horse combined training event ever at Waredaca.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with combined training, aka eventing, here's a little blurb off the Western PA Combined Training Association's site:

Eventing or Combined Training, as it is also called, is a "combination of three riding disciplines that present the horse and rider with the ultimate riding challenge. In dressage, the first discipline, horse and rider work together on the flat to achieve balance, suppleness and relaxation while performing a series of prescribed movements at the walk, trot and canter.

The second discipline, cross-country, is considered the heart of combined training and has a much different approach than that of dressage. Speed and endurance play a crucial part in the ability of horse and rider to gallop "across country" jumping solid obstacles that vary in height and width (depending on the experience of horse and rider). The jumps in cross-country are mostly natural in design, such as logs, streams, and banks.

Finally, as the last phase of a combined training competition, show jumping tests horse and rider for accuracy and obedience. After challenging dressage and cross-country tests, a show jumping course will decide the final ribbon winners.

Yeah. Anyway, so since this was Cody's first time at an event and the first one I've done in about 4 years, we did the very lowest division possible - Elementary, which is a walk/trot dressage test and the jumping phases consist of teeny 18" high jumps.

Cody tends to get a little nervous and high strung when we're in an unfamiliar place, so I was just trying to get through the day without getting killed. Dressage was decent, although he whinnyed to the other horses the entire test. Dork. Show-jumping was next (they ran that before XC), and he jumped over everything in there. Finally, cross-country was good, except for the part where he slammed on the brakes when he saw the humongous lake next to the road we had to trot on. Cody has this fear of water, so when he sees this large body of water, he stops and tries to turn around:

Cody: "What the…? You KNOW I don't do water!"
Me: "We're not going in it, dummy… just trot past it."
Cody: "Um, no. Screw you, I'm going home!"

Anyway, after a brief argument, he trots right through the road, past the lake, and we finish with no problems or penalties.

Overall, we finished 11th out of 15, which wasn't too terrible, but considering it was our first time out… not too shabby. And I'm very proud of him for being a big brave horse and jumping over everything I asked him to.