Curly's first show...

E. and Curly participated in "Hot August Nights" yesterday. And yes, it was VERY hot! The thermometer was reading 102 in the shade - Uhg!

E. spent the afternoon washing and primping Curly for the show and he looked wonderful. After the kids got themselves cleaned up, we loaded up the horse trailers and set out for the fairgrounds. This was Curly's first trip out there so he was quite excited and wanted to look at everything.

E.'s first class was a walk, trot division. They both did well - no ribbons, but no obvious mistakes either. The next two classes were not quite so smooth. Curly did fine until E. asked him to lope (a.k.a. canter). I'm sure she was nervous because he had tried to buck her yesterday when she asked for a lope. And her nervousness was definitely communicated to the horse - so he tried to buck again. She immediately stopped him and then waited patiently in the middle of the arena until the judge asked everyone to slow to a trot. But Curly never really regained his composure after that. It didn't help that there were over 20 horses in a relatively small ring. All that nervous energy and activity was just too much for both E. and Curly.

This was a good practice, however. Now E. has a better sense of the specific things she needs to work on over the next few weeks before fair. And Curly will get another chance next week since "Hot August Nights" runs every Thursday until the fair.

I had a "first" last night as well. I drove the truck and trailer home from the show. Talk about being nervous! But we survived and the trailer is back in it's spot. Maybe not straight, but there nonetheless.

Massage Therapy...

So our new routine for Curly will now include a 10 to 20 minute massage session prior to saddling him up. The chiropractor came out and did indeed find some vertebra out of alignment. Curly was a little nervous at first but soon relaxed. We thought he was going to fall asleep as he walked back to his stall with E. when the session was all over!


It was unclear as to what exactly has caused this problem, but with dedicated care Curly should be back in top form soon.

M. has been joking (or at least I think it was a joke!) that Curly seems to be getting better care than our own children!

If your feet hurt....

....you're miserable! Or at least Curly was today. His tender feet finally got the best of him. He has been favoring one side to compensate for the pain in his feet and consequently threw his back out. E. was participating in a "horse camp" and all the gathered trainers and "experts" agreed that Curly was in too much pain to be ridden today. Poor guy! He really wanted to please E. and do what she asked, but just wasn't able.

So....he was given Bute (horsey equivalent to Ibuprofen), massaged by some expert hands (this turned into a "teachable moment" for the camp and all the girls learned a bit about horse anatomy and massage techniques), and then given the rest of the afternoon off. This evening we had a friend - who is also a farrier - come and shoe his two front feet to relieve some of the pain on the soles of his feet. She added rubber "wedgies" between the hooves and the shoes to bring his heels up and create a better angle to his feet too.

(This picture was taken a week after the shoes were put on - and he's still loving them!)

Curly was immediately happier. Tomorrow the chiropractor is coming to adjust his back. Who knew there was such a thing as a horse chiropractor!

E. should be able to ride again tomorrow and join in the camp fun.

Oh, and we discovered that Curly loves blackberries. He was disappointed that we had only a handful to share.