Since I currently am not riding much to allow Gem to adjust to her new heat and sun filled environment, I thought I would spend some entries on our background.
Horse boarding sucks in Ohio. It is really expensive for really sucky barns that are forever far away. I picked the least crappy appearing place at the time and lasted there oh, about 2 months, maybe 3. The only good thing about that place was the self proclaimed nutrition expert barn manager. He had about a dozen different grain options to choose from - not that I had any clue what the differences were. The benefit though was that my undernourished mare did fill out beautifully there. Of course the lack of any real turnout probably helped a bit too.
I also got to learn how to play well with others. The arena was jammed packed at all times with as many horses as could possibly fit and still move. There was the lady who came out and hand walked her stall rested and very excitable gelding getting into everyone's way. There was the lady who rode the ill tempered off track thoroughbred who kicked and bucked and tried to bite anyone he could. There was the "I'm too good even for myself" jumper lady on her grey mare cantering around making comments to her horse about how awesome she was. And there was Gem.
I'm sure everyone loved seeing us join the crowd. She would alternate between standing still adamantly refusing to move even an inch regardless of how I asked or told or yelled or kicked or threatened to running off as dangerously as possible cutting all corners and generally making me scream that I was going to die. Fun times!
Eventually I decided that this place was not working out for us and looked for a place that would put her in training. I found a barn about equidistant from my house and about twice as expensive that would work with her 5 days a week and give me a lesson on her one day a week. Horse boot camp here we come!!
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