Back to School

Aria’s fall vacation or hurrication is over. She goes back to the training track tomorrow. My fat mares will be so happy to have her gone. No more having the 3 yr old ruling over the dinner buckets. I think Aria will be happy to go back to work. She’ll get more grain to eat that will definitely appeal to her.

Aria will be learning new things. I suspect she will soon be learning to swim. This will be a complete shock to her that anyone would expect her to get her body completely wet! Aria does not really appreciate bathing so she I suspect she won’t be a duck taking to water. Her bridle path is growing out. Racehorse folks prefer a short bridle path . . . an ear length so her nice show one is growing out. She has a small Mohawk on her neck. I just want to cut it off, but I’m resisting. I don’t do long bridle paths, but it is longer then the racing one. Shoes, Aria will be getting her first set of shoes when she gets back. I bet she’ll like them. Mia loves shoes. She learned that shoes mean, she could grip the track and run faster. Once out of race training, I discovered that when newly shod, Mia rips around the pasture like a maniac trying out those new shoes, ducking around trees and other horses.

Well we all survived Ike. We lost a big tree at the farm in the gelding pasture. It must have scared my geldings. It’s taken them a week to go out in the pasture to graze. Poor guys, but other then that everyone was fine. I left the horses out in the storm. Aria ran around with the fat mares. They were shocked at her return, but quit following her around after a while. Nobody enjoyed the stinging rain or the ripping wind. None of the horses, but the stallions in stalls looked like they wanted breakfast. They ended up with a late lunch/early dinner. All the horses were fine.

Now, the training facility was closer to the eye of Ike and lost roofs, some buildings and run in sheds. The fences suffered from the wind and flying debris. But Aria’s barn held up without any damage. The facility has water and electricity but at the front of the property so the hot walkers will not working and long hoses will be used to get water to the stalls. There won’t be as much turn out for a while. The track didn’t suffer from the storm and so horses are already galloping on it. I hope to watch her gallop this weekend and get photos.

Natural Disasters and Training

Aria has been doing great in training. She walks through gates and is galloping nicely. The rider can stand up on her most of her gallops, which is fantastic. She is going 1.5 miles in her gallops. Everyone is very pleased with her and her behavior. She’s ready for shoes. I had planned on watching her gallop this week at Sam Houston Race Track, but, ol’ Hurricane Ike came to visit us. The training track Aria lives at is known to flood in heavy rains, much less in a hurricane. It can be serious flooding with horses having to swim out .We toughed it out and no one left when Gustof was due to hit us, but Ike looked much serious. I decided to pick her up and bring her home. Her trainer was packing and heading to San Antonio to ride out the storm there. I’m far enough from Houston that I thought we would be safe.

Aria came home and my fat mares were not happy. They were hoping I had sold her or something. She came back full of confidence,the 5 fatties following her around and acted tough, this did not impress her. By the next day, she had re-established herself as the alpha Hoover in this herd. She has a few hoof prints on her thigh; the head mare has a hoof print on her chest. I can guess who discussed herd ranking. But all is calm now.

The storm hit and no one enjoyed it. The horses thought they had found themselves in a watery hell with stinging rain and horrid wind. I left the pasture horses out because it seems to be 50/50 on what is the safest place for horses in a hurricane. Out loose they can run and avoid flying debris, hopefully escape flooding. Stall horses are protected from flying debris, but cannot escape rising water or collapsing buildings. I tagged all the horses with nametags that included phone numbers and email addresses. I peeked out at them in the morning. They all looked miserable, but okay. I did not feed them breakfast. It wasn’t safe out there. I doubt a bucket would have stayed on the ground with the wind. They had a very late breakfast/early dinner once the storm was gone. All seemed grateful to be alive and to have food show up. Several trees fell out in the pasture, but no damage to the buildings. The boys seem to be the only ones who are freaked out. They don’t want to go out in their pasture? The mares are acting normal. I may have to move them around.

Aria will return to training after this break once her trainer comes back to the area. I think it was good for her to have a break. She’s enjoyed the constant eating of hay, grass and getting to run around. Next week will be back to school for her and back to work for me.