Cob Jockey

Disco has a fan club.

They're neighbors that live near the farm and take walks down the fence row. I don't know how many times he's done it, but I get the impression this wasn't his first time propositioning these strangers for scratches, lol. Cobs are so predictably people-oriented and I'm here for it.

The bravest of all the babies this year, that's for sure

He's really starting to look like a horse now. Final color is still debatable, but he'll definitely be some shade of dark chestnut, and is that a flaxen tail I see peeking out from behind him in that last picture?! Flaxen manes can take a year or two to come in, but the tail often goes sooner.

His two-year-old full sister, not that it means much in terms of color. Flaxen inheritance is such a crapshoot, and he could definitely still end up with a same-color mane and tail.

We're maybe 6-8 weeks from him coming home already, I can hardly believe it! I'm a little apprehensive about bringing a baby pony home to a co-op, but mostly excited. His "be a good boy" halter arrived this week:

My color options were navy or lime green so...

I'm a leather halter person all day long, but I was definitely not shelling out an extra $65 for the leather version of this when he'll only fit in it for a year or two if I'm lucky. I've never used one of these hybrid halters before, but I know a lot of people who swear by them, and in the interest of keeping the peace at the co-op (with people that really didn't sign up to handle baby horses!), this felt like a good move.

Time to start making a plan for all the baby skills he needs to learn!

It was 65 and sunny on Sunday (yeah, four days after hitting record lows below zero - I can't figure it out either) so I took advantage and gave Connor his first spa day in months.

I've modified my tail routine since I last posted about it, and I'm really happy with it - I wish I'd taken a before picture, it was so gross!  I don't bag his tail, and I also don't wash it at all over the winter.  I was convinced it was going to be stained yellow but it came out pretty dang white:


I'll write up my new routine in a post sometime.  I also gave him his third and final clip.  I tried wet clipping for the first time, and it was fine, but I don't think I'll do it again.

It did turn out really, really nice though.  Especially for that being the third clip on these two sets of blades.

Bye bye disgusting guard hairs

He was clean, but even still gunk kept getting all over my clipper blades and the wet hair was harder to brush off him and me than dry hair is.  Some people swear by wet clipping, but I don't think I am one of those people - at least not for the third clip when the hair is super short.

I took a couple glamour shots just to commemorate the fact that he was clean for approximately two hours.

Just...sigh.  I wish it was like this all the time.

I also pulled his mane.  I am deadly serious about my "no mane pulling below 50 degrees" rule.  And equally as serious about pulling it the second it's warm enough.

Tryin' ta eat here, lady.

Then he got put out without a blanket for the first time since October.  YES it killed me to watch him roll immediately, but he was so happy.  Tails will wash, happy horses are more important.

With the clinic coming up on Tuesday, I spent the entire day Saturday at the barn, first for a lesson and then to get a few odds and ends taken care of:

1. Finished mounting the panel the fan is hanging on in the below photo.  It's been partially complete since I put it up in October.


Not shown: added a foam bumper to the upper left corner of the chair rack so it wouldn't scratch the wall anymore.  Not noticeable: did some massive rearranging on the main wall.  I had some refining to do on my setup after living with it for six months.


2. Installed pipe insulation on the bottom of the swinging door to keep shavings out of the tack room.  Seriously could not have been cheaper.  $5 for two 6 ft sections of this stuff from Lowes, and it comes pre-sliced with adhesive on both sides.

"You know, I've noticed a difference in the way he carries his tail lately," my trainer said in the middle of a recent Dressage lesson.

"Yeah?" I said, "How so?"

"He carries it higher and centered now, when he used to always carry it to the left ever since I've known him.  It is a lot of weight, his tail."

It's interesting, because as an extension of the spine, the tail should be centered.  I wonder if he was trying to use it to counterbalance his lateral imbalance, muscle-wise.  Hmm...

Mary and C after their jump school, December 2015

I dressed like I was going to ride on Sunday, but ended up just taking care of Connor instead.  I hooked up his new heated bucket and cleaned his stall.  I do that a lot.  I don't commit to it, but if I get to the barn at my leisurely 11am-2pm timeframe and it's not done yet on a weekend, I do it just for fun.

Nice and clean, and with new heated bucket.

And the old bucket just in case he doesn't like the heated one, but who am I kidding, this pony has never met a bucket of water he didn't like.

Look, Ma, no baths!

Too easy to get wrapped up in the other stuff and not write about the rides.

Love this quirky little guy.

I had a makeup lesson Sunday and a ride on my own on Monday.  Sunday was a drinking-from-the-firehose sort of Dressage ride, she was calling out movements as I got to letters.  It was hard work, but we got some great stuff from Connor because I had eyes on the ground to call me out on bad riding.




It's the type of ride I couldn't ever give him on my own, because I can react to instruction way better than I can think ahead.  This is going to be the theme for a while as I get used to this new phase in our training.

We are SO CLOSE!  Just need to keep those hind legs moving a fraction longer so he's under himself.

Monday was less than impressive, because I'm still struggling to internalize ALL these positional changes (that are working!) that have been discovered in the past week.  If you're keeping score:
- Left leg at the girth (instead of six inches behind it)
- "Shopping bag elbows"
- Left shoulder/entire side of my torso back
- Turn torso around circle
- Do not lean back against him ever

I also had the good idea to ride in the newly mowed across-the-field area, which we hadn't been in all summer since they were growing hay there.  Didn't exactly do much for softness and relaxation.  That probably should have just been a trail ride, but we ended in the arena with some decent work.


All in all, just another up and down of the old training progression.  I'm content.  We ended Monday with some pre-clinic pony spa:

My full tail care routine is here.  It starts with soaking the dry tail in soap designed to remove engine grease (from the automotive section) for 20 minutes!

During the 20 minute Goop wait, Connor got his dinner, since he's still on night turnout for now.

All done, after rinsing the Goop, shampooing with grey hair people shampoo, and banging it.

Not quite dry here, it will fluff out.

So how about an actual Connor update for the first time in a week?


I'm riding way less right now - maybe 2 times a week.  For a variety of reasons, including giving him a low-pressure month's psuedo-vacation, and oh also, currently being unable to get to the barn:

We got another two inches after this was taken yesterday, for a total of eight inches.  I was supposed to have stalls today but literally cannot make it out there.

This week the high is not supposed to make it above 20F for a couple of days, with a low of 5.  No productive ride is going to occur for either man or beast in that weather.

But he's at a point in his training where he's not suffering for the reduction in riding.  In fact, our lessons have been better than ever.  We've had two back-to-back jump lessons in which he was taking the fences so much better than just a few months ago.  There's none of that scrambly "Well I know I have to go over this but where do I put my feet?" feeling anymore.  Mary contributed to that quite a bit, but my trainer also says it's because we've worked hard on the canter in Dressage purgatory, and he's comfortable enough in it now to know where his feet are and what to do with them.

We also jumped some of the scary looking fences the guys built last summer, like the bright red ramp with the orange and yellow sun painted on it, flanked by starburst and lattice standards.  Connor has spooked at it a million times going past it, and finally my trainer told me to ride defensively, put my leg on, and trot it.  He went over it like he didn't notice it!  He does seem to prefer facing and jumping his fears to going past them.

On Tuesday I went out to ride but Connor had just been fed minutes before.  So when life hands you a recently fed horse and a 50 degree night/unfrozen hoses in December, you get in the wash rack and wash that yellow tail!

Still wet here

I'm afraid of tail bags so it will eventually go back to being yellow, but I did Showsheen the heck out of it .  Maybe it will put an anti-mud force field around it.

Finally, as the rain and the temperature started falling on Thursday, my trainer and I decided to cancel my lesson, but I left work early and raced the freeze line to the barn in order to put his blanket liner and hood on and kiss his nose and give him some treats.  I was serious when I said I do not want to burden the barn staff with putting his liner on when I went to the liner system, and plus, I just missed him.  My husband said I was crazy for driving an hour and a half for that.  Oh well.  Hopefully he's warm and snuggly!

Doing his tail takes about an hour and a half total, so I only do it about once a month.  The flaxen color looks dirty if I don't get it really clean, so I've worked hard to develop a good process:

1. Put Goop (in the automotive section at Walmart) on his mane, tail and feathers and let it sit on the dry hair for 20 minutes
2. Rinse Goop
3. Shampoo mane, tail and feathers with Clairol Shimmer Lights for Grey shampoo
4. Rinse shampoo
5. Apply Showsheen or Vetrolin spray, allow to air dry until almost completely dry
6. Pick the tail, strand by strand

Picking the tail takes about 45 minutes, and I do it like this primarily to break up the curly dreadlocks that form.  When the tail is dry enough that the hairs can easily slide over each other, I get into a squat off to the side, drape the tail over my left arm, and with my right hand I pick the tail two or three strands of hair at a time with the first tine of a metal mane pulling comb.  I start at the bottom of the tailbone and make sure each set of two or three strands of hair are free and untangled all the way to the ends.  If there's a tangle, I don't force it, but gently work out the tangle with my fingers.  Tangles usually mean I've gotten more than a couple strands of hair.  This, and never brushing or combing his tail, prevents breakage, which makes his tail look fuzzy - and fuzz really stands out when your tail is many shades lighter than your body!

Luckily, Connor doesn't mind standing still for this process:

Zzzzzzzz.

He's really filling out these days.  Magical 7th year.

Hey there, nice butt.

Who did her horse's tail and mane and then promptly threw him back out into the mud?

Still wet and not fluffy here.

See the mohawk?  Of course you do.  Ugh.