Visit

Oceania

It was Show-and-Tell day at the stable yesterday, and by that I mean my dad came down to the stable.  It was both stressful and exciting.  Exciting because my dad has only seen Artemis once before, when she was only a month or so old, and stressful because he was mostly just coming down to make sure we aren't ruining Jimmy and Artemis. 

Before Jimmy came down, my dad's landlords were really harassing him to sell Jimmy.  Not for any particular reason, I mean, he doesn't eat much, he wasn't dangerous, they just decided.  Well they almosst got my dad to, to a daughter of a guy he works with.  I was not on board with this as I didn't want to sell Jimmy in the first place, but if we had to, I absolutly did not agree with selling an untrained three-year-old to a fourteen-year-old girl whose only horse experience was coming out and riding Pawnee a few times.  We did eventually decide not to sell him, but the harassing didn't stop.  So to get them off his case and still keep Jimmy, he sent Jimmy down with Socks.  And then he kind of forgot about him.  This past month though, he's realized he should probably make sure Jimmy was still alive.

Artemis has been a great cause of frustration and anger between my dad and I.  She's not the only reason, but she's one of the big ones we haven't been getting along.  She is the first horse we've ever owned that has had nothing to do with him.  He wanted to come pick her up the day she was born but i wouldn't let him.  He was angry I didn't consult him on her name.  He was even angrier when I decided I wasn't going to to send her up there.  It's only been in the past month or so that we've been able to sort things out.

Nonetheless, I was still stressed out.  I know what he thinks doesn't really matter, in the sense of they're staying down here no matter what, but still, I didn't want him to come down and think we were doing an awful job.

My mom and I arrived at the stable first.  It was busy there.  As we walked into the barn, L, the stable owner's daughter, came running over to us, saying, "You're here!  New horse!  Eli!  Jimmy!  Socks!  I have to get my parents!"  And then ran out of the barn.  We were confused.  We didn't wait around for her to get back, we went out to catch Artemis. 

Artemis has a new best friend in the pasture.  Oceania, the gray mare, is going to be out there for the next three months and she's always with Artemis and Ebony  The three of them are the youngest out there.  Artemis wasn't being overly great.  It was windy and she was being spooky.  As we were leading Artemis my dad arrived. He met us at Jimmy's pen and Artemis, well can I just say I absolutly love her?  Gone was the spooky pony.  She stood perfectly still and did not move a muscle as he was looking her over.  He couldn't get over how much she looks like Socks (although besides her colour, I think she still looks more like Fonda).  She does look good now too, a lot of her fuzz is gone and her summer coat is coming in.

We brought her in the barn to groom her and he was impressed by how quiet she is in there.  Then my mom brought Jimmy and Socks inside.  We saddled them and then my dad and I brought them outside to go for a ride.

They were awful.  Just awful.  I've never seen Jimmy that badly behaved.  I realize now I proably should have expected it.  It was windy, it's spring, it's one of the first time he's been ridden outside in a while.  He was throwing his head around, spooking at absolutly everything.  He was threatning to rear.  He did once (barely, he basically hoped back on his back legs and his front feet went about a foot off the ground).  He tried to bolt.  I've never seen him like that. 

The neighbours foal.

Socks was just feeding off of his energy.  She was trying to run everywhere, tossing her head around.  We loped across the field and when I didn't let her gallop, she threw a little fit and started crowhopping in a circle.  All it managed to do was really hurt my wrist. 

We rode out into Artemis's pasture and tried to avoid the other horses.  Unfortunantly they all crowded around the gate as we came back up.  Jimmy...was perfect.  He didn't do anything, didn't freak.  He just walked through them like nothing.  Socks tried to kick EB (granted EB was trying to run into her).  Artemis was back out by this point and she was the worst one.  She ran in circles around us, tried to kick Socks and I, and then when Oceania came too close, she ran over to her and booted her.  Oceania spun around and kicked Artemis which, I have to admit, she did deserve.  But as I told my dad, this is the Jimmy I usually see.

We unsaddled them and L's little outburst as we came into the stable finally made sense.  There's a new horse at the stable, a big, thick Percheron/Thoroughbred gelding named Jimmy.  They were waiting for us to be there because they want to move him into Jimmy's pen and move Jimmy into jumper Eli's pen.  So we put Socks out and then led Jimmy down to his new pen.  We were all curious to see what would happen.

The neighbour's pretty mare.

As let Jimmy go and he started pawing the ground to roll until he noticed Eli at the bottom of the pen, eating hay.  Then Jimmy took off running towards him.  As Eli came to meet him, Jimmy did a big arch and went straight to the food.  It was now his food.  He wouldn't let Eli eat.  Nothing major happened to be honest.  They smelled each other, Jimmy stamped his foot a few times and Eli gave him space.  By the time we left they were eating side by side peacefully.  It's funny to see them together, Jimmy is 14.3 hh and Eli is just under 17.hh.

Overall it was pretty good.  I did have to point out to my dad that Jimmy wasn't being any worse than the horses at his place are this time of year (don't even get me started on how Sadie was last time I saw her).  He did have a few good tips that we are definitly going to try.  He was impressed with Artemis and was happy to see Socks.

Next week is another show and tell weekend.  My sister is bringing out two co-workers and one of their daughters to come meet the horses.