A little update on progress.

Time for a quickie update on Skeeter. She's gone swimming a few more times and has even *drumroll please* gone in without having to be backed!!! WOOO! We did NOT break that record! And she also did 2 laps for the first time. The next time she went, she just did one lap so as to not try too hard and exhaust herself and when she came down her heart rate was at 125! She's definitely getting fit fast.

Now that she's starting to get fit through swimming, I've decided it's time to up the workouts a bit. There is an AQHA show in July I would love to go to (a lot depends on finances, of course) so I really want to get Skeeter as fit as I can to make it there.

So, on days that Skeeter isn't swimming, we're working in hand and on the longeline with a neck sweat. I don't really like to work my horses for very long on a longeline. At the most, I may do about 20 minutes of work. Once the horse is sweating well and has worked for a while, I like to quit. There's only so much going around in a circle that I can handle.

Skeeter's routine is a series of circles at a fast trot (usually around 20 or so) followed by a series of loping (about 5 right now, because she still isn't good at holding her lead). Then we walk, reverse and do it the other way. Quick, fast, dirty workouts. Gotta love em.

New condition pics! These are from June 4. I'm super excited to see the progress this mare has made in her fitness already.

The Booty Shot:

Still need some work here, and the way her hair is worked up from sweating looks wonky.
The Chest Shot:

I'm really pleased with how she is coming along.
The Side Pic:

Skeeter wears two neck sweats. She has on a red neoprene sweat and a thin blue nylon sweat to help increase the heat. The nylon one doesn't really do much other than help hold it all in place really get the sweat going. Here's a pic of Skeeter trotting on the longe.

This one shows the sweats. Well, the blue one, anyway. Are you ready for this? That thing is a SMALL. Small for a draft maybe, I dunno. But basically it's going to be falling off soon it's so big. Maybe it needs more layers under it. ;)

Just Some Pics

Back when I graduated high school, I took my senior pics with Skeeter. Now, I've graduated with my Bachelor's and I figured, why not doll her up and do it again?

Skeeter was pretty stoked when I pulled her mane and clipped her, and when I banded her mane...hoo-boy. She must have figured she was going to a show or something! (Too bad we were all dressed up with nowhere to go.) Hopefully soon, we'll be getting cleaned up to go show! Here are some of the better pics. :)




This next one is really turning into my fave one. I think it captures us pretty well. Skeeter saying "Ooooh, a kitty!" and me saying "Waiiit! Don't go anywhere!"


(That one was pure luck!)




Yesterday, we went swimming again. By "we" I mean Skeeter. Third time to go, third time to have to back in. Luckily this time there wasn't quite the giant leap into the pool, although her ears did get a little wet. The funny thing is that Skeeter doesn't like the swimming part, but she absolutely loves being put on the hotwalker and going around. Funny, huh?

Skeeter Goes Swimming!

Luckily for us, a horse hydrotherapy facility has opened near home. Prior to my coming home for the summer, some of our other horses had been going to swim pretty regularly. Mom and Dad wanted to wait until I could be there to see my horse go. And I'm glad (kind of, maybe) that I was.

Skeeter went swimming along with Dundee, an all-around gelding who is getting fit (the most fit he has been in his LIFE) for showing. Brett, who owns and runs the facility also likes for first time swimmers to see another horse swim so the horse can see what's going on. Also, he believes if they see a veteran swimmer go first they're more likely to go in.

The facility where Skeeter and Dundee swim has a circular pool for the horses to swim instead of a straight line or a treadmill underwater. The circle makes it possible for the horse to swim multiple laps without coming out and bearing weight and getting a little break like they do with a straight pool. Also, the horse doesn't bear any weight like they would on a treadmill.

When we got to the facility and unloaded, Skeeter got to watch Dundee go through the process of preparing to swim and actually in the pool.

First, their hooves are cleaned out and the horse is rinsed off. Then, they go in for a swim. Some horses go just one lap, some go a lap then come out for a minute and go back in for another lap, and some become fit enough that they swim multiple laps before coming out. Dundee is up to 2 laps without a break. The record is 9 laps by a rehabbing racehorse.

When Dundee went into the water, Skeeter was VERY concerned. She snorted, and looked for him, and called for him. It was kind of cute. Poor girl. After he came out, Dundee was put on the walker to let him relax and keep him from cramping up (just like after any excercise, proper cool down and stretching is necessary!) and it was Skeeter's turn!

Skeeter, I had forgotten, does not like water. In fact, during a flood-ish period, Skeeter did not cross the little creek that cuts our pasture for two months despite the other horses going across several times a day.

When it came time to go in, Skeeter did not want to at all. She did rear up a bit and refuse, so Brett and his assistant turned her and backed her down the slope a ways and then turned her into the pool. (The record for number of times it took before a horse would go in without having to be backed: 16, held by a roping horse. Here's hoping we don't beat that record).

Once she was turned around, Skeeter JUMPED into the water. The problem with this is that she also sank like a rock, and her head went under. She did panic a bit, and Brett and his assistant did a great job of pulling her up. When she jumped in, Brett explained to me, she buoyed back up out of the water and it takes a couple tries before a horse can level itself off to swim properly.

Once she was swimming, she really got going and made her one lap successfully, if not a little worryingly low riding in the water:


She was happy to come out (a little mad at being made do it) and her heartrate when she came out was a whopping 153! After a little time on the walker, it came right down and we even saw some improvement in my girl. She was VERY invigorated, and would walk and bounce jog along with the walker. When she was walking, she even strode up under herself a lot more than she previously had! Woo Skeeter!



Before today's swimming session, I took a pic of Skeeter to get an idea of her condition to help track how she is doing. Here's today's shot (not very good, I know):


After today's swimming, her heart rate was at 137! A huge improvement from the last time (although that high rate could have been a bit from her freaking out over going under...) One thing about this mare, once she starts getting fit, she gets fit FAST!

The Backstory

Skeeter is my 2003 AQHA mare. She was bred specifically to be my show horse. I've had her since conception, literally, and I love her to death even on days I want to murder her.

Skeeter has a different sort of pedigree. Her sire is a halter horse. Her dam is a Jackie Bee bred mare who also has some halter horse, western pleasure, and cowhorse thrown in for good measure. She has a lot of really good lines, and is a great looking horse that really can do just about everything. Skeeter looks a bit different. She's very modern looking and is pretty heavily muscled. She does move really well for a halter-bred horse, and her niche was Western Pleasure and Showmanship in addition to halter.

When Skeeter was two, I took her to college with me to break her at the college's facilities. She was only there about a week and a half when there was a bad lightning storm, combined with a bunch of kids partying down at the barns. Something freaked her out enough, that she tried to jump out of her stall. Here's the damage to the gate:








Now imagine what that did to a two-year-old horse. Skeeter apparently had hit the gate full frontal. Remember that movie White Men Can't Jump? Same concept. She flipped over the gate and landed on her back. She managed to get up, and we thought nothing was broken. She went to vet who was more concerned with the humongous hematoma between her forelegs and the muscle damage to the left side of her chest. I thought her halter career was over. We never thought to do spinal x-rays or anything. The vet palpated her spine and hips and thought they were fine.

Amazingly enough, after a few months of stall rest, handwalking, and eventually longeing, she came back. Skeeter went from taking short, limping steps to a free moving walk. The vet okay-ed her to start riding. Skeeter was trained and really excelled in Western Pleasure, so that is what she did, and did well.

Cut to my junior year of college. I had Skeeter at school with me. My goal was to get her flying lead changes more solid and start campaigning her. During mid-February, I had a bunch of exams and projects piled up one on top of the other. I didn't really have the time to ride, so I had taken to turning Skeeter out.

On Valentine's Day, I came out to the barn to find Skeeter with her feed bucket hanging off the front of her blanket, crushed. Her bedding was disturbed, and the front of her stall had hoof marks where it looked like she had been trapped. She had somehow gotten cast in her stall and managed to get up. I pulled her blanket, and everything looked okay. I walked her around and she was moving just fine.

Stupidly, I decided to ride. I saddled up and took her out to one of the outdoor arenas. When she jogged, she was just ever-so-slightly off on one side. Skeeter just wasn't taking as long a stride on the right as she was on the left. I thought she was maybe stiff from not being worked, and when I asked her to extend her jog the short-stride went away. When asked to lope, Skeeter did something she had never done before. This is a horse that never bucked, never ran off, and was so easy to get going under saddle she's probably spoiled me for life.

Instead of stepping off into a lope like she normally would, she stopped and dropped her head, and wouldn't move. I hopped off, pulled my saddle and was in tears by the time I was on the phone with my mother. Around her lumbar vertebrae, she was swelling up.

I thought she was just really, really out of alignment. I had my chiro out, and he found the problem. An old fracture on her lumbar had been aggravated and knocked when she was cast. Show career? Possibly over. The only thing to do was let it heal.

I used an ointment with Arnica to ease her comfort, and hauled her home. At the advice of a friend of my mother's whose horse overcame a broken wither, I turned her out to pasture to let her start to heal up on her own.

It's been a little over a year. Now, it's time to assess where we are at. If riding is out of the question, so be it. This year's goal is to see where we are soundness-wise and see where we can go.

The Goal: Fit her up for halter and start showing again. She loves it too much to cut it out completely. We'll just have to see where we can go.