Back on schedule, two years late.

Snoopy and I went to the Hollywood Charity horse show last weekend!

It was his first show in two years, and although he didn't show, he hung out and behaved like a gentleman. Well, mostly. The first day, he screamed a lot and wanted to jump out of his stall to go – I don't know, somewhere ELSE, I guess. After he'd been out for a lunge, he settled down and enjoyed his stay, except for calling out to any of his friends when they left or returned.

While he hung out, I was a working gal. There were three horses from our barn to be shown in various events. One of the owners could only be there two of the five days, one of the owners is physically limited as to what she can do, and one of the owners is a child with lovely but inexperienced parents to help. Our trainer, Tina, couldn't be at the show due to a family health crisis, which left the whole show to the other trainer, Niki. She's good, but it's hard to get three horses plus clients ready for classes that are back-to-back.

For those of you who haven't been to a show like the Hollywood Charity, certain western events require a lot of bling on really pretty horses. Here's Snoopy as an example:

For this picture (and to be shown), Snoopy was first "trimmed." His muzzle hairs were shorn, as well as the hair inside his ears, the long lashes under his eyes, and the hair around his feet. This makes the horse's outline look really clean to the judges. Next, although you can't see it, his mane was banded. This is a process of putting little ponytails all the way down his mane, which is then cut to about 2-3 inches in length. It makes the mane lay very straight and quiet, adding to the clean outline. Because Snoopy doesn't have much of a tail, he's wearing a fake tail here. Don't laugh – lots of horses wear them. It adds to the balance of the look.

Now just stick on a colorful saddle pad, and a saddle and bridle with lots of silver, and voila!

What do riders wear? Something like this:

This is a showmanship outfit, but you get the idea. Lots of sequins and rhinestones, like you've been attacked by a Bedazzler. Every time I dress up like this, I feel like visiting a karaoke bar to sing a few Patsy Cline numbers.

On show days, you clean each horse off with a damp rag, spray a conditioner on them to make them shiny, wash their face, including their nostrils and ears, and usually paint their hooves black with a fingernail polish-like substance. For a little extra shine, a dollop of baby oil on their muzzles makes them look fresh and dewy. Seriously.

So I helped Niki get the horses out, made certain they were shiny, brushed their tails, added the fake ones, got them saddled and out to the arena with their riders. After the rides, I helped unsaddle, rinsed off sweat, washed tails (fake and real), and put them in their jammies.

Jammies?

When we're at a show, we want the horses to stay as clean as possible and not rub the rubber bands out of their manes. So we have stretchy hoods to protect their manes, sheets to keep their coats clean, and bags for their tails (we braid the hair).

After all this was done each day, Niki and I would get Snoopy out and work him. One of us would lunge him, then she'd ride, and then she'd give me a lesson. Lessons during a horse show are interesting – you're trying to ride in the same warm-up arena with a bunch of competitors and everyone's trying to stay out of everyone's way.

The first day, only Niki rode him. The warm-up arenas were stuffed to the brim with reiners, so you really needed Advanced Steering. It's like riding among dive bombers. Out of control dive bombers.

The next day, I got to lesson during the English classes, so I was weaving in and out of big, long-legged horses and riders, all decked out for Hunter Under Saddle classes. Thrown into the mix was a small child who couldn't steer on a very patient horse. Niiiicccee.

Niki and I were alone in the warm-up pen on Saturday, mostly because it was time for the evening extravaganza, and everyone else was in the main Equidome. It was a fun lesson. Each time he was out, Snoopy was completely relaxed and seemed happy to be at work.

I'm not sure when our next show is, but I'm hoping that at least he can be shown by either Niki or Tina in the Green Trail Horse class (a class for horses with less than 10 points in trail). If I can get my lesson schedule more consistent, maybe I can go out in a Novice class with him.

Fun!

Short but sweet.

This is a quick post, because all I really have to say is,

"lookLoOKLOOK!"

Uh-huh, that's right. I'm riding my horse. The black one. The broken one. I've had two rides on him now, under Niki's very watchful eye and he feels so good.

And tall. He feels really tall. I'm used to riding his mom, who is 15 hands when she has new shoes and stands up very straight. Snoopy is a solid 15.3, which means he's taller than I am.

He feels different than Frostie, too. Her jog (trot for you English riders) is very smooth, but mostly because she likes to shuffle her feet. His jog is very bouncy in a rhythmic way. You're on one of those slo-motion trampolines like you dream about, where you go way-far-up, then way-far-down, without the jolt of actually hitting top or bottom.

It's okay if you don't get it - I've tried to describe it to Tina and she doesn't get it either.

Their lopes (canters) have the same difference. They both give you the rocking horse feel, but Frostie's got a very sittable, shuffling lope; her son's lope is all slow legs and long hang time. Both feel good, neither feels the same.

Snoopy's left lead has always been his weakest. This is actually good, since my right leg is stronger and I can help him more with his left side. His injury has made him use his hip a little more than before, to compensate for a lack of flexibility in the ankle, which feels very pronounced on the left lead. As I loped him down the arena, I was aware of my seat shifting every four or five strides. It could have been due to riding in Niki's saddle, but it's definitely something I must fight against.

My next post will be in about a week or so - when I tell you all how the horse show went! Yes, Snoopy is going to his first horse show since the accident. Granted, he's not going in any classes, but he is going to travel to Burbank, hang out at the show, and be ridden in the warm-up trail. If you're in the area next weekend (April 28 - May 2), come on out to the L.A. Equestrian Center for the Hollywood Charity Horse Show and look me up.

Do you believe in magic?

Even though this is Snoopy's blog, today's story is about his mom, Frostie. Frostie is the first horse I ever owned. I bought her when she was three, ten years ago. This is her:

Her AQHA registered name is One Zip in Time, so named because her grandfather's name is Zippo Pine Bar, a rather famous guy in the Quarter horse world. She is registered as a chestnut, although most people would describe her as a roan. Actually, I recently learned she is rabicano.

Frostie is very friendly and sweet-natured. Her manners are impeccable; she leads quietly, doesn't crowd, lifts her feet for cleaning with ease, stands still for grooming, clipping, saddling. But don't be fooled. There's a reason I call her the WRM (Wild Red Mare).

She's spooky. If a trash can has been moved, she snorts at it. If one of the guys is on a ladder, she won't walk by him. And if it's a windy day (which is often in southern California), forget it. Every tree that moves, every flower that waves, is going to jump out and eat her. We often tease that she sees dead people because there's nothing for her to spook at and yet, off she goes.

In the old days, she'd run across the arena with me before I managed to stop her. Now I've learned to check her with the reins and push her forward with my legs and she puts her head down and obeys me. But I still hate that feeling of her body tensing, the way her ears cock forward and her head snakes sideways, just before she tries to plant, wheel, and scamper.

Last year, one of the trainers, Barbara Pinella, at the ranch invited an animal communicator to come and talk to some of her clients' horses. She opened the offer to the rest of us once her clients were finished, so I thought, what the heck.

I listened to her discussions with the Thoroughbreds and Warmbloods in Barbara's barn. They liked jumping, some wondered why they weren't getting Christmas stockings anymore, others wondered where their stable mate went, etc. In other words, it was all about their life in the here and now.

Then it was Frostie's turn. I was feeding her some watermelon while the communicator walked into the stall and she told me Frostie liked it (well, duh, she was gobbling it up), and that she really liked the fruit salad I fed her once. That piqued my interest, since I remembered feeding her fruit salad exactly one time, at a horse show.

Once she started talking to her in earnest, things changed.

"She wants you to know she had a very bad mother and her early life was horrible."

Great. Everyone else got "I like carrots" and I get Charles Dickens.

She went on: "Her mother hated humans and told her they would be mean to her. So when they came to wean her or train her, she resisted and they were mean, thus fulfilling her mother's prophecy. She says she chose you because she knew you in a previous life. You sold bread from a cart in Europe, and she pulled the cart. Pulling a cart was very hard on her feet, and now she's always worried about and sensitive to any foot pain."

This part was interesting because we tease about her shoeing experience, that she's such a girly girl, her shoes never fit as well as they did in the store. Monte (our farrier) will shoe her, she'll walk away fine, then two hours later she'll be three-legged lame because a nail is too tight.

Then the communicator surprised me: "She says she'll give you a baby if you want one."

"She already gave me one," I told her. "Snoopy."

The communicator looked confused. "Let me ask her."

After a moment, she got a funny look on her face and said, "Oh." Turning to me, she explained. "Frostie's glad you like that horse, but it's not the baby she meant to give you. He's not an old soul, he's kind of a simpleton, and she wanted you to have a baby that was more like her, only better."

I said, "She was a very good mother."

"Yes, she said she tried to be a good mother, because her mother was so awful. But he's a little disappointing to her."

"Well, tell her we love him. He's a great show horse." I didn't tell the communicator, but Frostie's assessment is correct. Snoopy is a mouthy, smothering guy on the ground, and a dream to ride, but he's no equine Einstein. I'd equate him to the stereotypical high school jock - excellent in his sport, but don't ask him to do higher math.

She talked about some other things, and Frostie promised to try to trust me more, even when things scared her. I'd say she's gotten better at trying, although she still lets her nerves get the best of her.

For those of you who read this and think, pfft, animal communicators, let's just say I'm pretty open to the possibilities of life. First, I don't possess the hubris that says the only reality is the one humans can experience through their senses, that there are no colors we can't see, sounds we can't hear, etc. Second, I'm the kind of gal who wants to believe in magic. I think you either are or you aren't, and there's no penalty in being one or the other.

Besides, if I didn't believe in magic, I wouldn't have had the faith that Snoopy would recover from his injury, and I wouldn't be able to tell you that after almost two years, I will start training on him again, probably this week, and may even send him to a show at the end of the month.

Is there anything you've needed magic/faith/something extra for, to get you through life?

And the rains came

This post is a little late, since most of our El Nino storms are (hopefully) past us. We were supposed to get one this weekend, but it seems to be stalling and giving us less of a spanking and more of a few gentle swats.

The horses at my trainer's ranch (The Silver Rose Ranch) are mostly show horses, which means they mostly hang out in box stalls. Comfortable, roomy, but stalls nonetheless. So when torrential rains hit, we cannot get them out without worrying. The ground is slippery and some of them come out of their box stall with too much energy to walk quietly. During the last downpour, I went to the ranch, hoping to get Frostie out and at least hand-walk her around to let her stretch her legs. By the time I got from my car to the barn (a short walk!), the skies had opened up again and were dumping water on us.

"But she's been in her stall for two days now," I told Tina. "She's going to be spinning in there soon."

"She'll just have to spin," Tina said. "They all will, until we can get them out safely."

Two days later, the rain had gone and the roundpen was just dry enough to let them run amok. This is what Frostie did:

It was the best shot I could get - the others were too blurred. I like to refer to this as her "Arab mode" - tail up, neck arched, careening around the pen as she snorts.

Snoopy, fortunately, is in a large pipe stall and, although the rain might beat in at the edges, he stays relatively dry and gets more room to roam, as well as a bird's-eye view of his world. Two days later, this is what he did:

Yes, that's Tina on him. Niki has been sidelined briefly, while she had a little surgery. I won't go into detail, since I don't know how much detail she'd like to have floating around on the Internet, but let's just say she had the equivalent of a C-section, but didn't bring home any bundle of joy as a reward (or are they a punishment). So Tina has taken the horse training back for a while, in addition to all her dog training services. We all help out, so everything gets done, but she'll be very happy when Niki can ride again!

Like I've said before, under saddle, he's a dream horse. While I was getting him ready for Tina, he still wanted to eat me.

Better than checking his forehead...

We always know how Snoopy is feeling by how interested he is in putting everything in his mouth. The chiropractor, Dr. Bari, has pronounced him ADD, and I can't dispute this. Under saddle, he rides like a dream. On the ground, he wants to know what the broom handle tastes like. Or the reins. Or your shirt. No amount of spanking deters him; he always comes back for more.

So when we took our annual Christmas picture this week, we went through several shots of this:

To get to this:

I guess Snoopy's feeling pretty good these days.

P.S. Thanks, Niki, for taking all the pictures!

The leg moves forward

Here are just a few shots to show Snoopy loping and jogging over poles. Even though he doesn't have a lot of flexibility in that foot (back one with white sock), he is moving it underneath himself much better. He still uses his hip to get the foot over poles; Niki says that movement may never quite go away. After all, they fused one of the joints, so full flexibility's not in the cards.

His stamina needs to be built up, too. Niki thinks that if he keeps progressing, we can probably take him to a show sometime in the spring. They've been having a lot of one-day shows nearby (if you consider Palm Desert nearby), so I'm hoping one of those comes along when it's time.

In the meantime, isn't he a pretty boy?

We're soooo happy!

The good news is, Snoopy continues to get better every day. The bad news is, he's getting so much better I've had to put him back into full training. Can you say, "Ka-Ching"?

Niki is walking, jogging and loping him, in the big arena. Today, she jogged him over a pole, twice. It was on the ground and he was going in a straight line, but still, it's so much more than we thought would happen last year at this time.

Also, today, I got to get on him (after Niki) and walk him once around the arena. Even after his workout, the leg felt pretty sturdy. I notice he still wants to drag the toe a bit more than the other hind foot, but the leg moves in a straight line, he's advancing it further under himself, and he places the foot, as opposed to tossing it toward the ground.

All good!!!