Lovely Surprise

Monday I was off of work so Colleen and I (George too somewhat), ventured around and went to multiple horse stores. I got royal blue stall chains from Central KY Tack, they're one of few places that carry stable things in kelly green so I'll be going back there to get the full vinyl stall guards next month. Standlee Hay distributor... the store is super simple and small but wow wow wow... I may become a crazy horse owner feeding $30 3 string hay bales after all! 

Then we wandered toward Paris. I took my time driving because the scenery of that drive is second to none. My goal was to get Echo's registration papers or get a bill of sale so I could request duplicates. Neither of those things happened of course so I'm back to a waiting game there. However, I did get to see Lovely Surprise, Echo's 2yo filly by Don't Get Mad.

Her and her pasture mate, a grey filly that's a half sister to a millionaire and by Lemon Drop Kid, were both annoying to the extreme. Lovely Surprise definitely has a lot of her mother's personality but is built a lot like her sire. Both fillies though were more interested in searching our pockets and eating the iPhone instead of standing for a photo.

Her pasture buddy by Lemon Drop Kid

Lovely Surprise is definitely growing. Quite downhill right now but I didn't see any reason why she won't outgrow that. They're keeping her right now to keep the Lemon Drop Kid filly company until she goes off to the track for training. Plan is in the fall they're going to let me know when other filly leaves and I'm going to take Lovely Surprise for 30-60 days. In that time I'll work on ground manners and introduce her to tack. Then I have 2 different friends already interested in taking her from there, possibly a few hunter jumper stables interested too. Also in the time I have her I'll have to work on getting her Jockey Club registration completed. She's been named and things have been processed but her application still shows as 'pending' so who knows what they're waiting for at the farm.

Fingers crossed everything works on getting Echo's papers and eventually taking Lovely Surprise on so she can become a show horse and give her dam a start to progeny records.

Packing Time

Farrier came out yesterday morning at 11, which really he was suppose to be there at 10, but that is a typical farrier move right? So no big deal, I had Dakota inside and decided to groom the hairy beast. His winter coat is never very long, but very dense and thick coat. Echo, just looks like a woolly mammoth with her long hair. Anyways, I'm grooming Dakota and realized how long his mane was. Since someone despises mane pulling and has to be tranq'd to do it, I just grabbed a pair of scissors and decided to hack it off like I always do. Also I'm fairly positive my grooming actually made him dirtier with the shedding and being caked in mud, it was a battle I was not going to win.

Farrier came and trimmed both horses while they were just tied to the wall - both were extremely well behaved - shocking. Dakota is usually terrible every other time and now twice in a row he's behaved to be trimmed. MAYBE he's maturing into his soon to be 13 year old brain? Doubtful but one can wish. Echo almost fell asleep while she was being trimmed. Such a well behaved girl. 

My older 'sister' Amanda was in Michigan from Texas for the weekend so she came to meet her niece Echo and pick up some stuff I bought her at the tack sale back in March. It was great to see her since we talk all the time but rarely get to see her. I free lunged Echo around a few times so she could see her movement in person. I got her A+ approval and agreed with me about eventually presenting her to RPSI to get her into a mare book for future breeding. She was a bit short on her front left from being trimmed - he had to take a bit more off in one area on her so I didn't push it too much with her, but got an ok walk, trot, and canter out of her.

I started the packing process finally. Thursday I took over two hours and cleaned my car out. Such a dreadful thing when your car looks the way mine did. It still needs to be vacuumed but I'll do that by the end of the weekend. Maybe I'll convince my dad to do that - surely he will be happy to help since he's all for me moving. Yesterday I pulled boxes out of storage that were in good shape from my last move that I kept. My goal is to fill the boxes I have already by end of weekend. Then Tuesday I'm going to go to the local liquor stores and take their boxes since they're perfect for packing. 

I also got my replacement screws for the Wintec saddle in the mail so tomorrow I plan on doing gullet surgery and putting the Wintec together finally. I just need to find a pair of irons to use on it and I'll be set to take it for my first ride in it - can't wait!

I mean.... he has muscle development issues already because of  PSSM but he really looks like there's no neck to the horse!

There's his neck! After being chopped and before I cleaned it up. Of course I didn't take a post clean up picture. I'll get one today or tomorrow to prove his mane really isn't a disaster.

In other exciting news, my friend George in Kentucky welcomed the addition of a healthy filly at 12:44am on Friday. The dam is Slewcy's Gale, who is by Slew City Slew and is a rare bridle thoroughbred. The sire is Into Mischief who has two runners in this year's Kentucky Derby. Happy day of birth sweet filly! Can't wait to meet you <3 My other friend Colleen in Kentucky has a foal due in the next two weeks so lots of baby pictures to come after I'm around the two little ones! Okay really three... there is a saddlebred filly at the barn too that's about 3 weeks old now. Click the images for bigger photos of George's girl!

Finally - I bought my cat's ThunderShirt's to help with stress of moving and stress in general with Abu. Has anyone used them on their cats or dogs? Abu really doesn't mind his, which is surprising with how finicky the cat is. He almost struts around in his shirt doing his 'look at me' routine. Holly on the other hand can't figure out how to walk normal in her's and has a 'omg it's squeezing me' look. I'll update on how well they worked when I use them for the first time traveling.

ThunderShirt to the rescue!