It has been a rough few months for my horses. My two year old colt was bitten by a rattlesnake. He had to have an emergency tracheotomy and spent a few days in the horsey ICU. He has recovered fully, thankfully. 3 days after the snake bite, my daughter's retired show horse injured his leg and had to be put down. Then my show horse went lame and, after many vet visits for X-rays/joint injections/special shoeing/etc, I had to accept the fact that he would have to be retired (at 6 yrs old!!!). He's now happily living a life of leisure in my pasture.
Such is life when you have horses. They are incredibly fragile, despite being seemingly powerful animals. I am fortunate enough to have land & resources to keep my horses, even when they can't be used for anything other than pasture decoration. So Zen is retired and my new horse has taken over the responsibilities of main riding horse and show pony! His name is Tank and he is a Westphalian gelding. He's 9 yrs old, and I use him for eventing (dressage, show jumping, and xc jumping).
I'm new to eventing, so I stick to the weenie levels and only jump the itty bitty stuff. I will eventually move up one, maybe two levels, but not further than that. I'm too old to be falling off over big fences these days!
Such is life when you have horses. They are incredibly fragile, despite being seemingly powerful animals. I am fortunate enough to have land & resources to keep my horses, even when they can't be used for anything other than pasture decoration. So Zen is retired and my new horse has taken over the responsibilities of main riding horse and show pony! His name is Tank and he is a Westphalian gelding. He's 9 yrs old, and I use him for eventing (dressage, show jumping, and xc jumping).
I'm new to eventing, so I stick to the weenie levels and only jump the itty bitty stuff. I will eventually move up one, maybe two levels, but not further than that. I'm too old to be falling off over big fences these days!