Starting the Year off with a BANG!

New Year's Eve I spent the night over at my parent's house so that I could help to calm the horses from the fireworks. Apparently last year they were really scared and my dad had to stand down in the pasture with them too keep them from galloping around in the dark. So this year it was my turn. I had some oral Acepromazine left over from the 4th of July so I gave Ben 5cc and Jena 2.5cc. This seemed to help out a lot. It took 30-60 minutes to go into effect so I gave it to them at 10:30pm. The fireworks were the loudest between 11:50pm - 12:10am. At the worst point, even though the horses were worried, they weren't racing around, which was very good. Jena seemed much more nervous than Ben. Neither was really that interested in eating their dinner though. At 10:30pm when I went down to give them the medication they had over 1/2 of their dinner still left. I managed to get Ben to come into the barn and eat but Jena would just grab a bite and then go trot off into the woods and Ben of course had to follow. I'll have to be sure to stock up on Ace each year, because this year was much better than last year.

This afternoon I went over to meet one of my parent's neighbors, Krista Martin. She has a 11 year old Arabian mare and keeps her at home on her 5 acres. She also has a small outdoor riding arena that she said I could start riding in. So I went over to check it out and it looks like it is going to be something that will really work out for me. I'm very excited to be able to ride somewhere a little closer. Right now it's taking me 25-30 minutes to walk to Barnabee, so not having to do that each time I ride would save me an hour of travel time. As long as it's not raining and the footing is good, I think I'll only ride at Barnabee now for my lessons.

After talking with Krista I decided I'd take Ben over there so he could sniff the place out and get used to it a little. What luck! Right after I got changed into all of my riding clothes it started pouring rain. Ugh! But since I had everything all together and Jonah was peacefully napping I decided to go ahead with it anyway. So I got Ben all tacked up and took the 5 minute walk down the road. Ben was pretty excited when we got to their pasture and was very alert. However he was pretty confused as to why he couldn't see the other horse. Krista has her kept up in a little paddock near her house, so you can't see her from the pasture and arena. Ben whinnied a couple of times, but no answer was returned. He was a little sad. Hopefully he'll be able to meet her make a new girlfriend one of these days. Since it was raining so hard and I was already soaked by the time I got there, I decided to just walk Ben around the arena a few times and then walked him a bit around the trails. He behaved really well, but the whole time was excited since it was a new situation, but at least he wasn't afraid of anything.

When we got home we were very wet and I wanted to hurry and get us both dry. While I was unbridling Ben, he managed to slip away from me before I could hook his halter on him. At first he just walked over to the grass to eat, but when he saw me following him trying to catch him he trotted off. Luckily, my dad was outside down by the woodshed, so I called to him for help. He ran up the driveway and waved his arms in the air to try to get Ben to stop and keep him from going further down the driveway. Since the ground was so soft and wet, Ben slipped and skidded in the grass and created many divots, which I later patched up.

Seeing him trot down the driveway brought back many memories when Toasted did the same thing when I was 17. She wasn't as lucky though and trotted right into the road and got hit by a car. It was terrifying to watch, but at least she lived and recovered from the accident. I was so thankful that today I wasn't alone and that my dad was out there to help me herd Ben into the pasture. Once he was inside he was easy to catch and calm down.

Maybe I should have listened to my first instinct and just turned around and gone back inside when I saw the pouring rain this afternoon. But I had made myself a promise when I bought Ben that since I only am able to come and ride him a few times a week, weather wasn't going to stop me. Here's hoping that 2010 is full of good rides and incidences like these are behind us!