Eli has now tossed his left front shoe twice and his right front shoe once. This has led to me not being able to ride him at all, and a lot of days of missed turnout for him. This is all in the space of less than two weeks.

Other than they are bar shoes and Eli likes to grab his heels, I have no idea why they are coming off so easily. It looks like he is literally just stepping out of them, leaving all the nails in tact in the shoe.

Once he gets his left front tacked back on again, he’s going to be on a slightly modified turnout schedule that means less time outside and no turnout right next to another horse. I am not actually sure how much that will help, though, especially if he is going out after a few days of no turnout due to no shoe — he’s going to run around regardless of which turnout he’s in. He should be able to run around! It makes me think he just can’t wear bar shoes, but I don’t know what other options we have yet. (I plan to find out soon.)

I may buy some hoof boots, but that’s not ideal considering they wouldn’t do much to support his low heels. I’d have to fit wedge pads in the hoof boots, I guess? I’d like to just ditch the bars entirely, because Eli has never pulled off shoes like this before. I am starting to feel really bad for him because he’s stuck in a stall until the farrier tacks a shoe back on and all he is doing is being a normal horse in turnout.

I also just bought him a new heavyweight turnout blanket because his current heavyweight blanket is a stable blanket with no shoulder gussets, but he went outside in it once anyway. It’s so disgusting now I don’t even want it on him again until I get it cleaned. But with a heavyweight turnout blanket, he won’t need the stable blanket.

It’s getting to be pretty close to the time Eli can start jumping again. And he felt pretty much awesome in basically perfect weather on Sunday evening. Yay? Initially, yes. But also not exactly because horses.

We have less than ideal riding weather forecast this week AND Eli tossed his left front in turnout.

I looked around the paddock he had been in (while being followed around by a very friendly bay who clearly wanted to sit in my lap which was not conducive to me finding a shoe).

The light was disappearing, but I managed to finally find Eli’s shoe … 20 feet past the gate outside of the paddock. How does a horse do that with a front shoe?

The farrier was out briefly last night to work on a different horse, but I had already wrapped up Eli’s foot so I left a check and asked the farrier to get to him when he could this week, no rush … since it’s raining.

Eli hadn’t ever really thrown a shoe before — maybe once the whole time I’ve owned him. Uncharacteristic of thoroughbred feet, although he makes up for it with other hoof puzzles. But with a bar shoe and the way Eli plays in turnout sometimes? Yeah, I figured this would happen eventually. Luckily the right front shoe stayed on, since that’s his jacked up hoof. And the left front hoof didn’t really get torn up. Small favors, I guess?

I don’t plan on actually jumping Eli for real until November, but there was a schooling show at the barn over the weekend and the jumps were low and looked so cute. I couldn’t resist pointing him a couple to see how rusty we are. We are a bit rusty, but also a bit enthusiastic. I think Eli misses jumping as much as I do.

One time we thwacked one.

Thwack from patentlybay on Vimeo.

That shifted the little camera, but he picked up his feet the next time.

Playing from patentlybay on Vimeo.

Also, I got a new helmet — not sure how obvious that is from the video. Apparently GPAs are the only ones that fit my head shape both in circumference and at the crown. I am not ready to give up my CO yet, but sadly the Trauma Void pretty consistently gave me a headache on the top of my head that would last a few hours. So it fit at the brim, but not at the top. Even without putting my hair up. I didn’t notice this about the fit until recently, since Eli got injured only a little while after I bought the Trauma Void, so I hadn’t worn it consistently yet.

While Eli still nips at me a bit, he is mostly just shoving his nose into me and licking me in a teeth-free manner.

Is he finally cuddly? Eh, maybe most of the time. He gets a ton of treats and always takes them very politely. He’s generally good about me messing around with his mouth in general … I regularly stick my fingers in his mouth to feel if his check teeth are getting points and he doesn’t seem to care. Perhaps because I am shoving a cookie in his mouth next?

I know some people discourage hand-feeding treats or using cookies or grain to incentivize the correct behavior from a horse. I am not one of those people. Obviously if Eli were rude about it or still biting me, I’d take a different approach. He’s food-motivated, though. He makes friends with people who feed him stuff. And he won’t try to bite your hand off.

He cannot possibly ever get enough of the German Horse Muffins (that name will crack me up every time … are they muffins made OF horses?). After getting one he just sort of zones out sucking his own tongue and licking his teeth and lips.

Oh, and I STILL have not body clipped him. It’s much cooler outside today so I am not super motivated to spend 2-3 hours covering myself with horse hair …

Eli did not do a whole lot last week. He’s doing well in the different shoes but on Tuesday he seemed a bit reluctant to go forward. Not too bad, just not his normal more-go-than-whoa self. He had a booster shot on Monday, so maybe that was it? His vet was scheduled to come out again to work on his teeth on Wednesday, so I asked if we could just go ahead with the Osphos that same day. Having had his teeth done, I was not going to to ride Thursday & then it rained Friday so Eli had a few days to do not much at all.

Good roll from patentlybay on Vimeo.

But on Sunday I finally got back on him (after he rolled–ugh he was so gross). He felt fantastic! I only rode for 10 minutes because now there’s another snag: He is furry AF and it’s not exactly cold here. I didn’t want him to get too hot, especially since our reconditioning schedule has been a bit sporadic. He got a shampoo bath, which made him look even fuzzier.

It’s supposed to rain Tuesday, so I think I’ll body clip him after work that day. Humid days are actually the best days to body clip, at least for me. Not so much static and flying hair — when it’s damp outside, the hair just falls to the ground.

Maybe by this weekend we can get back to a more consistent reconditioning schedule? I mean … I could use some reconditioning, too.