Bad Tidings Come in Threes... Part 2

Sadly, the third tragedy did strike after all. My favorite pony, the cutest and coolest pinto pony ever, had to leave this world. SBF Debonaire was a 9 year old pony I had the opportunity to work with in 2006. He was green broke and we took 1st in all four of our walk-trot classes, 1st in Showmanship, and 2nd in English Pony Halter. He was so calm and so beautiful. I loved him dearly, as did his owner. I talk about Debon in the last paragraph of my blog entry "Peeking Around the Corner" and there's a photo of him there. He had a history of colic and this time he just couldn't be pulled through. When his owner emailed to tell me I was afraid the bad news was Banee, her 30 year old mare whose loss I've been preparing my self for years, but unexpectedly it was about Debon. I am very sad, but I know his pain is gone. I like to think of all the horses of my past running through green fields together, swapping stories and playing tag. My friend sent me this video. It's a bit sappy but kind of what I needed.

Enough of that sad stuff.

Junior's friend Max is doing MUCH better. He's able to be turned out with Junior for short periods and both of them are SO happy. We watched them a good part of the day because the weather was so beautiful and they were so funny. I tried to take a Christmas card picture using my tripod today and it was ridiculous. There are like 60 shots and none of them are good! I set my camera to take 10 photos in a row so if you scroll through them fast enough it's almost like a movie. He was not cooperative, but that is SO his personality. He tried to eat one of the decorations on the wreath I hung on the fence. Oh Junior.Here's one of the rejects, but isn't he cute? I just will NOT send Christmas cards with just a picture of the horse. It's just way too close to crazy cat lady behavior. At least if I'm also in it I feel a little better.




On Friday my friend who used Junior for her Nutrition class project came out and we took a bunch of pictures. She painted a Schleich horse to look like him so now he has a Jr. Junior!



I had her take a few photos of us riding so i could show you how much he can look like a western pleasure horse when he wants to! He's been riding well. We got a nice ride around the hay field today for the first time since the corn was harvested. He did one spook but i don't know what it was about and I turned him right back towards where we were going and all was well. I bought reins with clips at Congress and I hate the attachment. Every other ride or so one gets twisted and snaps off. Not cool. Now I've attached them to my swivel hooks and that is helping, but it just seems like excessive hardware. A bit of a kludge, really. Anyway, I still think he's too vertical or behind the vertical here, but you can see the rein is soft so I think he just carries himself that way. I do think he stretches out more when we are along a rail. Both of these pictures I was having to keep him turning a lot to stay in the right light.

And yes, he's still fat.