Love & Loot

I was feeling itchy about having not seen the mare in... a week (!?) so I decided that even though I didn't have a good reason, I'd pop down to the barn and give her some scratches and kisses.

To make myself feel useful I did manage a to accomplish a few things - for one, I had another bucket of the SmartCalm Ultra to take down (read: dumbo's magic feather), plus I had finally put the new CWD bridle in a bag of Hydrophane overnight and having reached an appropriate color, it was ready to be put back to use.  At some point I swear to god I will remember to take a picture of that thing.  I keep forgetting, but I swear it's not on purpose.

Also, I decided that Prair should get to try on her Circuit Champion cooler from HITS.

Those are totally legitimate reasons to drive 45 minutes to the barn.  (so I did)

Prair looks good.  I can tell she's cranky on (mostly) stall rest.  She's still happy and snuggly, but she's just a little more fidgety than normal and a little less polite about standing still.  I've never had to stall her this long before, so to be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect - but this seems like acceptable behavior to me.

let me ooooooouuuut

The only thing I didn't like upon seeing her was that her weird faux-diahrea is in full force.  I say "faux" because her manure is still formed... it's just accompanied by extra liquid, which is a little different than what I've had to deal with before.  It started when we switched barns, and has never really gone away so first step is that we are reverting to our old diet (platinum, alfalfa pellets and rice bran).  If that doesn't do the trick.. we'll keep looking at options.

She's totally hydrated, and it appears as though she's gaining weight, so I'm not too alarmed.  Mostly just annoyed and empathetic when I wash her gross tail and hocks off.

In my poking and prodding, everything else looks good.  Legs are cold and tight (though they were when she was lame too..), back is rock solid, fungus is totally gone, hooves look great, butt looks a bit.. rounder, ribs are nowhere to be seen.  All good things.

Her coat is frigging glorious too.  All shed out and glossy, glossy, glossy. Such a pretty bird.

So it was on to important things like trying on her pretty, pretty cooler.  The thing is a 78" - which is not exactly Prairie size, but her other prize coolers (bah, love that she has multiples) are all 81's, which isn't too far off...

I must say, while I like the cooler, it isn't my favorite.  Oddly, it looks a bit more casual than the Division Champion coolers from HITS, and I'm not sure the fit is as flattering.

literally the best pic I could manage, Prarir wouldn't stand far away from me

 I'm almost thinking this might become our "home" cooler.  The outer fabric might repel dust and dirt better than our other traditional fleece coolers, and I'm just not sure I think it's a pretty/fancy enough look for shows.

I do love the idea of walking around with a circuit championship cooler, but I also love the idea of wearing our "Sunday Best" when at shows.

(of course all of this is predicated on the fact that we will actually be returning to shows this year...)

So, that's our exciting update.  I'm not riding, Prair's not working... we're moderately boring.

Tomorrow is the official day we take her out and see how she's doing.  Points for fat and shiny, bonus points for actually sound....