Oh, how I love a good transformation post. And thanks to Cathryn, I get to use her blog hop as an excuse to post another one, hooray! So here we go:
The Baconator:
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| 4 year old stinker |
I got to bring Bacon home in April of 2012. She was a growing giraffe who roughed it through winter, and looked a little scraggly. But after seeing her at the track the summer before, I knew how beautiful she could be all shed out. I hopped on her bareback straight off the trailer, and she was so good. Albeit, uncomfortable.
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| OOf. |
I then had difficulty with feeding her grass hay, and she lost top line and muscle and gained a hay belly. I tried many things, but switching her to alfalfa was the main answer.
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| Looking better. But depressed and lame. |
That October, she came up very lame and we got no certain answers. She stayed that way for a year, so she did her best to just hang out, look pretty and make me sad. But then she got better!
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| Our second ride back after initial lameness. October 2013 |
2014 brought promises of future fun, as Bacon and I started our training pointed towards the eventing type. I didn't know what I was doing, but Bacon played along, stayed sound and we did our first show. An event derby at cross rails. Throughout summer, we kept practicing, and ended the year doing our first beginner novice event derby,
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| The weekend after our first even derby! |
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| And our beginner novice derby! |
In 2015, we moved up to Novice, and battled some more soundness issues with those feet. An epic battle with thrush ate away her frogs. We tried multiple different things with her feet, and finally found that frog support pads and magic cushion were the way to go. Our goal of going to a recognized event did not come to fruition.
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| Our first jumper show! Came away reserve champion for 3' |
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| During the Jan Bynny xc clinic |
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| Novice event derby that October |
And now we are here. We found out the real reason for Bacon's lameness. A damn bipartite navicular bone. We jumped our first training level jumps on xc. And we made it to TWO recognized events! It wasn't at Aspen, like I was hoping, but it has been a good year. My horse has stayed sound after her injection and we are looking forward to what awaits us next year.
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| Stanton Horse Trial! 4th place! |
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| Spokane Sport Horse Trial. 9th place! |
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| Looking pretty darn good nowadays! |
She's looking great! It's so fun to read these posts and see the horses really growing into themselves, not just physically, but also gaining confidence and growing into their personalities!
ReplyDeleteI know. I love reading them!
DeleteWOW It's easy to forget what a scraggly looking little youngster Bacon started out as! You both have come such a long way in the past few years - true eventing athletes, both of you!
ReplyDeleteShe was pretty scraggly! Thank you for the kind words.
DeleteShe's such a great type. and you've worked really really hard with her! is her race name she sizzles or did you come up with that?
ReplyDeleteShe was race trained for two years, but never raced because by the time the trainer figured out she wasn't registered, it would have been too much money. So I came up with the She Sizzles!
DeleteShe looks great!
ReplyDeleteBacon is such a badass mare - she has done so well with you and I'm so happy you found the root cause and an apparent solution to the lameness!!
ReplyDeleteOh boy, me too. I know it will always be there, but at least I know what it is. Kind of like my stupid Lyme disease.
DeleteThat is a pretty awesome transformation!!
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize you and Ms Bacon just started 3 day eventing together!!
Neither one of us knew how to jump or dressage, so this whole thing has been over fun adventure!
DeleteI just remember being so impressed seeing you jump for the first time and you had only been jumping for maybe a year!
ReplyDeleteWhy thank you!
DeleteYou guys are legit! Love those badass pictures and can't wait to get more of them next year.
ReplyDeleteI'm always excited to see what picture we will get!
DeleteWow! She is gorgeous and talented to boot!
ReplyDeleteThank you, I think so too!
DeleteYou guys have come so far!!! Shes looking so good.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing all these scraggly baby horses grow up to be such bitchin' athletes!
ReplyDeleteShe looks amazing! You've done a great job with her.
ReplyDeleteLook at how that Baconator has transformed!
ReplyDelete