I Love It When It Rains...maybe...sorta...ok not really

Well, at least not today. I think today was the most humid day yet and it was just building up to the afternoon rainstorm. It was so crazy, I know all that water on my skin was not sweat...I don't even sweat that much!

Anyways, here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Morning workouts on the track at Pin Oak...this is from my back porch! :D
Soon this will be me! (Next week actually I get to ride, hopefully one of the racehorses!)
First week in KY I got to play jockey at the Kentucky Derby Museum
Me and Big B at the KY Derby Museum
Where I work everyday.
Ooo....a clown! In riding gear?
I'm branded...yeppers! And this vest is supposed to protect me how? It's so light!

Final Word:
I'm tired of eating sandwiches for lunch so if any of you have any good ideas for lunch other than that and microwave stuff like hot pockets...please share! Crockpot recipes would work as long as they don't take too long to prepare in the morning.

Thanks! Adios amigos!

And The First Casualty Is....Me

Well, we are two weeks into our breaking season and all was going well, until Tuesday. For the past two weeks (Mon-Fri) we have been putting the colts on the walker and then three times a week three of the fat fillies have been going on the walker. Monday afternoon I was off work and had to go back at 5 pm because it was too hot for the weanlings and foals to go out. So this week is my "Foal Turnout" week. Basically, I work 7-12 and before lunch it is determined if it is going to be too hot to turn the foals out. If the temperature is cool, I would work a normal day (7-4) if it is too hot I leave at 12 and do not return until 5. Because of this situation I missed Monday afternoon when they put rollers (AKA Surcingle) on the colts in the stalls. They just laid them over their backs, no tightening or anything. Apparently this went pretty well except two of them squealed and bucked a little in the stall. On Tuesday I had to work a full day because I have class that evening and cannot do foal turnout.

So Tuesday we put the rollers on the horses and tightened them down. Basically the way it is done is we put four of them on the walker and then pull one out at a time and take him in the round pen. On each horse we have our own specified 'set'. So I went in with my first horse and
Brent coached me on what we do. We have a really soft bit in their mouth (its got rubber around the metal parts so it hardly pulls on their mouth hard). Brent attaches a longe line to the bit and then I stand in the middle as he gets the horse to trot quietly around the round pen a couple of times, the whole time using his voice to teach them voice commands. Then he brings the horse into him. As he is holding the horse and leading him around, I am putting the stuff on. We first start with a saddle 'blanket' (basically just a sheet like seen on racehorses under the saddle) and then a small cotton pad that is actually a cotton leg bandage folded in half. Then the roller goes on. This is all done while the horse is walking. (I will have to get pictures one day). Then we slowly begin to tighten the roller around the horse. As soon as it is saddle tight, I move back to the middle while Brent sends them around the round pen at a trot again. Most of the boys were really good. One of them bucked and the rest did great.

Until my last horse. The hot walker and round pen get picked out of poop after every set. Well there is a new girl in the barn (Tryn, my roomie is now down in the filly barn) and she picked the round pen first before the walker, which isn't a problem except we put the horses in the walker first. So we had to walk around the round pen for a bit before putting them in the walker. My horse was getting really excited in the round pen, so I was trying to calm him down. Then we went in the walker and I had to stay with him because there are only two horses in the last set, so he is still on edge and I am still trying to calm him down. The other horse got the roller on fine and then it was my turn. Do Nice, the horse I had, decided not to live up to his name that day. As I walked into the round pen Brent went to close the door behind us while he went to grab the equipment. Do Nice did not like that and blew up, he reared up hitting me in the back of the ribs with his hoof on the way up. When he came back down he kind of bucked and was still spazing out. I did not have time to think about being hit until I got him calmed down right after Brent came back. I am fine, I'm barely even sore, but it sure was not fun. We ended up not putting the roller on him, just getting him used to the round pen.

This just added insult to injury though. That morning was my first bite, too. I was unchaining the gate and did not realize one of the colts had walked up. He thought it was play time and reached over and bit me in the arm. I have a bigger bruise from that than from Do's kick.

Such is life around horses! Especially yearling, testosterone full, thoroughbred colts!

Let the 'Breaking' begin!

So today was the first day of the 'Breaking Season'. I'm not sure if it is officially started yet, but close enough. We had polytrack installed in the round pen and the Eurosizer hot walker and they just barely got done working on it yesterday. So four of us walked the horses down the path leading to the round pen and walker. The first horse I led did not want to go, he was pretty scared of the railing and change of surface. Well, there is limited patience on this farm so they let him look at it for a minute and then two of the guys linked arms and pushed behind him onto the path. I then walked him down the path and we walked the four horses around the round pen until Brent (the assistant/yearling manager) decided everyone was quiet enough to go into the hot walker. The horse I had was a little leary of everything, but he willingly went into the hot walker and started to relax in there. He was real easy to walk in the hot walker. After a few times around there we went back up to the barn. Then I grabbed another horse. This guy had gotten kicked in the knee a week ago and still has a small cut. He was in the stall for a couple of days and then in a small pen outside for another couple days. Yesterday we turned him back out in a small paddock with his pasture buddy. So he was feeling pretty good. He is a fairly large horse and pretty confident so when I walked him over to the path he looked at it for a second and then just walked right on. Walking around the round pen with him was interesting because he kept wanting to lay down and roll, so I had to keep him walking, which he did not want to do. Also, we walked around the round pen for quite awhile because one of the horses did not want to go onto the path. When we finally went into the hot walker, this guy really relaxed and seemed to enjoy the change in routine, which is not normal for most of the thoroughbreds I have experience with. They usually like their routine. On Monday and Tuesday we are going to walk them in the hot walker for 15 minutes. We have to walk with them and then hopefully on Wednesday they are comfortable to walk on their own.

Round pen and hot walker under construction:


Some of the other things I have been doing:
I got to ride on a horse van for the first time. The best way to describe it is basically a Uhaul truck with two 'stalls' in the back. The horse is loaded and then backed up into one of the stalls that is fairly wide. I do not even think a very heavy pregnant mare could fill the spot. Well of course I get to ride in the back with the horse with the pelvis issue (this is before we knew what was wrong with him). We have nicknamed him Bird. Well, Bird has been in the stall or a small pen for three months. He is a yearling thoroughbred which I would equate to a teenage boy with way too much energy and way too high hormone levels. Though despite all this he is a pretty good horse, he is fairly calm and easy to handle. So Brent loads him in the van and then I go in there and hold on to him. I had a lead shank with a chain over his nose so hopefully I would have pretty good control. But before they close the door on me, Brent shows me a buzzer that I can hit that he will hear in the cab and then he can turn the intercom. I'm supposed to hit that if I have any problems. The vans ride very different then a horse trailer because you are so far off the ground. Poor Bird cannot stand up very well in the back anyways and a couple of times we had some sharp turns and I thought his legs were going to come out from underneath him. All I kept saying to myself was 'Don't need to hit the buzzer, don't need to hit the buzzer..." Well, I sang some Broadway songs to Bird, particularly Jekyll and Hyde and Les Miserables. And we played "Try to bite Shannon's hand without actually biting Shannon's hand" to distract him. It seemed to work, the only time he got upset was when we both just about fell over because of the turns. When he really got upset, I would whistle to him and he liked that. So that was an interesting experience. I also got to ride back from the vet with him a few days later, he was much better at keeping his balance that time.

Big Bird:


Probably the most exciting thing was I got to ride last week! On the track even! Granted it was just on a 12 year old quarter horse AKA 'pony'. Pony designates any horse that is not a racehorse or a breeding horse. Basically riding horses are 'ponies'. Rooster is about 16 hands and 1400 lbs. (Yeah, a little overweight) He is a very easy ride in the sense that he won't spook and he's fairly push button. So I got to put on racing tack for the first time. First a chamois goes on the horse to keep the piece of leather they consider a saddle from slipping to one side of the others. Then the saddle 'blanket' (it's really a cloth) goes on with the farm logos to the back. Then the foam saddle pad goes on. The front half of the chamois and the cloth fold over the saddle pad and then the saddle, (ok, it is a little bit more than just a strip of leather because it's an exercise saddle not a racing saddle), goes on the horse. They ride all their horses in just an eggbutt snaffle and with a martingale to keep them from throwing their head up. They always give a leg up to get up on a horse. It took me until the end of the week to get that down. Then Brent taught me their favorite little rhyme "Ride long, live long". This is referring to the stirrups. Well he set the stirrups for me and then I got on. Well, the stirrups would be good for jumping, not flat riding. So I lengthened them two holes...he looked at me like I was crazy! Then I remembered he has dealt with jockeys so their 'long' stirrups are about a 45 degree angle bend in their knees. So I was VERY long to him. I guess the way they ride their yearlings is the reins are crossed and you hold onto them with this 'bridge' in them and then you stick your finger in the neck strap of the martingale so that it is harder for the babies to pull the reins out of your hands. So I rode around the training barn for awhile before Clifford, the farm manager showed up. He mounted his horse and then we rode down to the track. The first two days I jogged with him for about half of the track (it is 5/8 of a mile in length) and then he stopped and I continued to jog the rest of the way. Then I would stop and watch him gallop (more like canter but that is the terminology) his horse. The next day I stopped with him and then turned and galloped about ten lengths behind him once around the track. Well, trotting on Rooster is very hard. He is so lazy that trying to keep up with the racehorse is next to impossible! Also, he has a shorter stride so posting the trot took a lot of energy. However, galloping Rooster was only a problem because sometimes he wanted to take it faster than 'easy'. He is a good horse though. It was so cool galloping on a track...practically a dream come true, minus the quarter horse and the slower pace. Well the third morning it was raining so the track was way too wet. So we went on the grass gallop. That was too firm to gallop, so we trotted about a mile and 1/4. The next day the gallop was soft enough that we jogged most of it and then we galloped a mile 1/4. This time we took it even easier, but Rooster really wanted to go, especially since there is a downhill dip in the gallop and he tried to pick up some speed there. Fortunately, I shortened my stirrups a little because I'm barely in good enough riding shape to stand in my stirrups for that long. Actually, I do not believe I ever have stood galloping for that long. Whew!

So that is pretty much most of my happenings right now. I will probably post more to try and keep ahead this time!

I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying life as much as I am!

Boys will be Boys

Time flies when you are having fun, that's what they say right? Well it is true! Right now things are "slow" on the farm. Or so they told me... I guess I've been working on the farm for three weeks now. I've been in the Yearling 2 barn the whole time. This barn has the colts. Yearling 1 has the fillies. Tryn, my roommate, has been back and forth between Yearling 1 and Yearling 2, but has mostly been in Yearling 2 with me. Our 'barn foreman' is an Irishman named Paul. He has shown us how to do things the "Pin Oak Way". That is the farm I am on. It is an awesome farm. They breed to race so they have only about 40 mares and they keep all/most of their yearlings to break and then send to South Carolina for further training and then send them off to different trainers based on how the horses are doing and where they think they will succeed. The farm manager is also from Ireland, though he has not lived there in 25 years or so.

The first day Tryn and I rode around with our farm manager and looked at most of the horses on the farm. We also helped bring in some horses. He told us that they look at all the horses every day. In the afternoon I went to Yearling 2 and finished the day there.

For most of the first week it was just Paul and I in Yearling 2. I basically followed him around and he showed me what to do. Then Tryn joined us and we divided the horses up so we each have our own set to take care of. Paul and Tryn have 5 horses and I have 4 horses. A typical day on the farm (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday) starts at 7am. We put feed and water with electrolytes added in the stalls. Then we go out and get the horses. The horses are divided into different paddocks. At first we started with paddocks of 2, 2, 1, 4 and 4. We have one horse on stall rest but he gets to go out into a small pen in a pasture for the night. They thought he had a broken pelvis, but discovered he has a severely strained sacral ligament. (Attaches from the back bone to the pelvis). He walks funny on one of his back legs. Due to injuries and other problems, the paddocks switch around some.

We bring the horses in with these rubber bit things with lead ropes because they are very bitey and it helps to give us some more control as well as hopefully give them something to gnaw on other than us. Some of the boys are just nibbely while others want to make breakfast of my arm. So I always have to be on my toes.


We have one yearling about 16 hands (64 in. tall at the withers) that just likes to walk over people. Literally. When bringing in we have to do a bit of juggling around because we are supposed to start with the closest horses first so we aren't walking horses by other horses in paddocks and we cannot leave one horse in a paddock by himself.

After we bring in we take temperatures and pick out their feet. Then we bathe all the horses. The four I take care of have some little bumps/scabs on their legs so I have to wash them with special shampoo on their legs. We take turns washing, so while one person is washing the rest of us are doing something else. I have some medicine I have to give three of my horses for their leg condition. One of the horses gets 'ice boots'. These are boots that we put ice in them and then wrap around their legs. He gets these to keep his growth plates from getting inflamed. Another one of my horses gets the Equissage. This machine goes on their back like a saddle and massages their back. This is because he has a bit of a sore back. We only have one Equissage and two ice boots. So we juggle these around too because we have several horses that need these for one reason or another. Sometime during all this one of the managers (there are three, the farm manager, assistant manager and broodmare manager) stops by and we pull all the horses out of their stalls one by one and he feels them all over and tells directions such as bandages, meds, etc. Then we walk them down the shedrow and back so he can watch them walk. We also pick out the stalls as we go in and out of them. Then we groom the horses that are dry and braid (or plat as Paul says) the manes that do not lay on the right side of the horses' necks.

Sometime during the day one person drives around and checks paddock. This includes making sure the automatic waters are clean and are working properly. Also, we fill hay racks with hay. We have to 'fluff' or pull apart the hay in the hay racks to make sure it fills them and so it looks nice. Once the thoroughbred paddocks are done, I have to go and check the retired mares, teaser and ponies (AKA riding horses) paddocks and hay and water them. We have a golf cart to do this in and good thing because the retired mares and teasers are far away.

We blow the barn and water the horses before we go to lunch at 12. When we get back we have to feed grain again. Then we medicate. We put on more ice boots and Equissage if necessary. (Both have to stay on for about 20 minutes, so when 4 or 5 horses are on them it takes awhile to get done). Then we finish grooming if necessary. At this time I put on poultice. This is to help cool the joints on the one horse of mine. It is a fairly sticky substance and then I have to put brown paper on it to let it dry and hopefully not get straw in it. Also, I have to put mineral oil on the legs that have the bumps and any other medication on little nicks and injuries. Sometime during the afternoon we have to move the pen for our stall rest horse. It is heavy and we basically drag it to a new spot. Then we take the horses out. We start with the farthest horses first and then work our way closer to the barn when turning out. We take them out together so again no horses are by themselves unless they are supposed to be. The barn is blown again, all the rooms are swept and cleaned, the water buckets dumped, the feed tubs washed, hay shaken out in the stalls and stalls picked. Then we are finished at 4. On Saturdays and Sundays they finish at 3 so we quickly groom and we usually do not have to do any extra things like clean halters and whatnot.

Tuesdays and Fridays the stalls are mucked out. We clean out the stalls except for the clean straw and then re-bed them then bring in and do the typical. These days are usually hectic so we just give the horses a rinse and quick groom. Sometimes we get more done than other days.

More on next post...do not want to overload your eyes!