I also, find it hard to not worry about how my
horse is doing while I'm at the awards dinner and often find myself glancing
that way if I'm within "eye shot." I always wondered why you weren't there,
Julie!
But also like you, I have my routine when we arrive
home. I don't have anything hilly to test on but we always go through the "man
gate" in the back yard, attempt to walk across it, but so far, knock on wood, we
always prance, on our way to the pasture where we go through another narrow man
gate. Tank then waits rather impatiently for me to take his halter off so he can
run to the other end of the pasture, twirling his head and kicking his feet, to
his favorite spot to roll. Then he prances around a few circles in front of the
other horses, who are looking longingly over the fence at him in the pasture,
while they're still in the corral. I think he gets a great deal of satisfaction
out of his blatant display of "I'm better than you are."
So far, we've only come home once where he didn't
immediately run down the length of it to roll. He dropped right inside the gate
and when finished trotted off to the other end.
Re: "it's not over after the completion
VC:" Been there, experienced that too. (Kashmir a couple of
times coliced about 3-4 hours after getting a (darn fine)
completion.) I've also always looked at the trailer exit at home as
a big clue to how my mount's feeling.
Reading your occasional email to RC, Ms.
Suhr, reminds me why I loved your book so much. You are a wonderful writer, and you have such a wealth of
experience to share--thank you for sharing some of it with us!
I would be interested in a veterinarian commenting
on the horses that pass a post ride vet check with low pulse rates who get
into serious trouble without a raise in pulse rate later on. In my
experience, relying on a HRM to tell you your horse is okay is courting
disaster. I am so paranoid about my horse's condition (learned the
hard way) that I will not go to post ride award dinner unless it happens to
be within a hundred feet of my trailer. I am much too busy watching my
horse. Julie Suhr P.S. On arrival home I have a system that tells me
how my horse is feeling. We park the trailer a ways from the
barn. To get to the barn, my horse must go down a slight slope
of about 150 feet, then level for about 50 feet, then fairly steep uphill
for about 300 feet. When I take the halter off at the trailer and give
them a swat and they run the whole distance full tilt while announcing to
the world and their best friends that they are back in town, I know they are
okay and I can go to bed. If they saunter, I sleep in the barn, with a
guilty conscience.
