Tonight we bring you part 6 of Jenny’s adventure as a working student and EN guest blogger. Jenny has ambitiously decided to spend the next year as a working student in Lexington, Kentucky. Anyone from Lexington will notice some familiar names, such as Megan Moore, a rider and coach, and the amazing Dr. Chris Newton. Thanks for writing this Jenny and thank you for reading.
These past two weeks have had a different vibe than all the rest, as the show season is winding down and a few complications have disrupted our usual schedule. While it’s been a different two weeks, it has been fun and we have been able to do a lot of odd jobs around the farm. The best job was probably collecting fecal samples from every single horse on the property for our de-worming program… this would be put into the ‘not-so-glamorous’ category of being a working student (although it really wasn’t as terrible as it sounds!) The process of collecting the samples was interesting, especially as some of the horses live outside–let’s just say every time I see a horse poop now I get excited and think to run to find a plastic bag!
On a less exciting note, Molson is still out of commission and will be for some time now, as his heel cut is still bothering him and not healing as fast as I had hoped. While I know it is not the end of the world, and hopefully Moo should get better, I can’t help but be a worried mom. After all, he is my first horse and my other half! The good news is that we took a bunch of x-rays and nothing is broken, so the culprit really is just the crack in his heel. Since he is quite a big boy, and the crack happens to be right where the tissue displaces when weight is put on the foot, it makes it harder for the crack to heal. I have all of my faith in Dr. Newton and am hoping this week we will find a solution so Moo can be on his way to a speedy recovery!
A few other unfortunate complications resulted in both Megan and Andrea being out of riding commission, so we did what every ‘grounded’ rider would do– went shopping for more equines! Megan purchased Andrea and I two upper level prospects, one 8 year old, 14hh paint pony we named Pesto, and one 12.3hh bay roan pony we named Penne (pasta ponies!)…. Just kidding about the upper level prospect part, but Pesto has been my project (and Penne has been Andrea’s) for the past two weeks to train and prepare for the life of a lesson pony (as opposed to her previous job as a lawn ornament). Riding Pesto has kept my mind off of the fact that I can’t ride my own horse, so I have become rather fond of my pony, even if she does grow roots and refuses to move when she is tired! I tend not to like mares as much as geldings, but she has certainly found her way into my heart! It has been fun to see how far both ponies have come since we brought them home only two weeks ago. The only problem with this whole operation is that Andrea and I are now extremely attached to our ponies and don’t want to give them up to the little children! I think Megan foresaw this happening so decided we needed more equines to play with!
This past weekend we acquired two new OTTB’s, and now we have new projects! We looked at a few before we settled on these two, so Megan had the chance to teach us how to look at a horse and figure out how it will look under saddle and how it will jump at first glance. Seeing as she has produced multiple upper level horses this way, I can only hope that one day I can have an eye half as good as hers! Having only ridden the new horses a couple of times, they are already considered good eggs in my book and I’m excited to see what they can do with a little more training under their belts.
This coming weekend we are bringing the two little ponies to Lakeside for some show exposure, and I don’t think I have ever been more excited. Don’t get me wrong, I love showing my horse more than anything, but jumping little Pesto is pretty fun!
