Jazz’s first five days (Yes, still on the Road to Tevis #68)

Jazz’s first five days have been more eventful than expected! Today is his sixth day… I am hoping to get this published before it ends.

Backstory

Last Wednesday I drove up to Auburn to get Jazaari FA (“Jazz”; Pogrom x Jazella FA), a coming seven-year-old gelding owned by Lynne Ruvalcaba. About a month earlier, I had shared my blog post about Fantazia’s coming rest period (and, hopefully, broodmare status) on the AERC page. I had also announced that I was looking for a horse to lease for the next couple of years. Many people offered many great horses, but I thought Jazz would be the best fit that was within a six-hour drive. (The cost of diesel truly discouraged me from looking further afield.) After talking with Lynne, I was certain enough that I took the truck and trailer up. I visited Wednesday, thought Jazz looked even better than expected, and signed a lease contract. I then drove to Grass Valley to stay with old friends, Deb and Eitan Beth-Halachmy, founders of Cowboy Dressage.

Above: Jazz and Lynne Wednsday, April 13. He clearly knows she’s his mommy 😉

Read my interviews with Deb (What was I thinking?) and
Eitan (An interview with Cowboy Dressage founder Eitan Beth-Halachmy).

Debbie, Eitan, and I had a really nice evening, catching up and eating cheesecake. I fell asleep to the wonderful sound of the steady rain that started around 9pm and was still happening when I woke early the next day.

Jazz’s first five days

Day 1

Jazz’s first five days with me began the next morning, a beautifully wet day in Grass Valley… in fact, it rained all the way down to Stockton! Lynne met me in a parking lot to save me the trauma of having to turn around on her narrow street again. Jazz proved himself to be very well trailer-trained. He hopped out of Lynne’s trailer and loaded willingly into mine, in the rain, in a strange place. During the trip, he traveled like a pro… He ate hay, didn’t neigh, and barely moved. When we got home, he backed out of the trailer nicely and led calmly to his new living quarters.

I put Jazz where he will be next to Fantazia. (She’s at the vet for breeding now. I plan to pick her up Thursday.) They both have large open-air stalls under a barn roof and large paddocks. Once Fantazia is back, I will put them out in a hilly pasture during the day.

Jazz will be happy to have Fantazia. Right now he can see other horses at all times, but he’s alone. The closest horses, my boyfriend’s mares, are not close enough. They could be across the fence from him, but they spend most of their time too far for his comfort. He paces the fence off and on… except when I’ve just fed him. Then Jazz eats. It’s nice to have a horse that takes care of hs stomach. He also rolled and drank within half an hour of our arrival.

Day 2: First ride

See my post on Why I don’t give horses time to settle in.

Ground work

Jazz had had about 90 days of professional training, and had been ridden since then, including on the trail. However, as far as I could tell, he hadn’t been ridden since around last October. What’s more, I had no idea of the extent of his training. So we started loose in the round pen. I realized quickly that someone has spent a lot of time working with him from the ground. He was very willing to follow me around, though a bit too close for my comfort. He stood for flagging. I had to insist he keep to the rail, and clarify that no, he wasn’t allowed to get in my bubble. But he was pretty good, and clearly unafraid, so after about 20 minutes I took him out to be saddled.

I am always impatient to get in the saddle! Too impatient sometimes!

More ground work, but with the saddle on…

Jazz stood quietly for saddling, but I still took him back to the round pen and sent him out to the rail to move. Good thing, because he took two strides at the trot, started to canter, and then put his head down and started bucking. I wasn’t surprised or bothered by this. Many horses will buck after time off. My mare Lady would put her head between her forelegs, leap, sunfish, and scream if I gave her more than four weeks off, even after she had had over a hundred miles on the trail.

I just let Jazz buck, only turning him a few times when I thought he was getting too enthusiastic. After he’d been at it a while, I took a video (above). He stopped bucking to the right fairly quickly, but it was a good ten minutes before he’d canter to the left without bucking.

Once Jazz was done bucking, I did more ground work with him. I slapped the stirrups, made him move away in both directions, and so forth. I moved the saddle back (it had ridden up a bit). Then I put the bridle on–he accepted the bit nicely–and led him to the outside arena. It has deep sand 😉

Still thinking about bucking

I put my foot in the stirrup and stepped straight up… and felt Jazz bunch up again. Yep, there was a non-zero risk of him bucking if I swung my leg over. I am too old to fall off, so we went back to the round pen. I texted the bucking video to my boyfriend and asked him to come down to the training barn. Just in case.

I took the bridle off and moved Jazz around the round pen for several minutes, until I thought he wasn’t likely to buck. This time I stepped very quickly up into the saddle, wanting to be in it if he decided to buck. Jazz thought about it. There was a hump in his back. I had to de-stick his quarters and do a lot of little circles. He relaxed to the right fairly quickly, but he was still stiff bending to the left when my boyfriend got there.

He took one look and told me to get off. I am always happy to have help, so I got off. My boyfriend is very good with horses and has a lot more patience to get things perfect on the ground than I do. I’m always happier in the saddle… But by that I mean in the saddle, not being tossed out of it. So I was happy to let my boyfriend do some additional work with Jazz. He did the same things I had done, but put more pressure on him. Jazz resisted, realized that was more work, gave up, stood and chewed.

After a while, I got back on. Jazz was better. We walked, then trotted a bit both ways. Then I asked for the canter, starting to the right. He wanted to buck when I didn’t let him stop as soon as he wanted, but I urged him forward and he got over it. I was only in the saddle about 15 minutes, but that was enough. We went to the big arena and walked for another five minutes.

Then scary washrack and a nice bath. Jazz tried to escape once, slipped a bit, and stood stock still for the rest of the time. I then tied him in our drying shed for half an hour before taking him back to his paddock.

Above: Left, Jazz in the washrack, calm after his first bath. Right, Jazz in the drying shed, waiting paitiently.

Day 2 take home: Jazz is very smart

He learns quickly and gets bored easily. He wants to please but doesn’t know a lot of tricks, so we’ll need to work on some. Jazz needs outlets for his energy.

Jazz isn’t clear about his place in the pecking order. He kinda thinks he can do what he wants. We’ll be working on him respecting my bubble and listening.

Day 3: Taking stock

The next day when I got Jazz out I had two main concerns. I wanted to see whether he was sore from bucking/carrying me/ saddle fit and I wanted to make sure he was calmer than the day before.

He showed no sign of soreness from saddle fit or riding. He was definitely calmer. In the grooming area, he stood more quietly to be saddled (I used my Reactor Panel) and took the bit well. Then he walked quietly to the round pen. Moved off without bucking. We only walked, and he accepted it when I stopped him from trotting. He was calm in the washrack, and stood quietly to dry.

However, he did have tiny incipient splints on each foreleg. This I did not expect. True, he bucked for a total of about 20 minutes all together in the round pen. It’s a big one, but circles are always bad. However, I’ve never had a horse pop splints with so little work, and never a horse that has already been ridden for several months. I only rode him for about ten minutes trotting and cantering, plus another 12-15 minutes at the walk.

Splints?

I cannot be 100% certain the little bumps were not there before. I only found them because I was doing a careful leg inspection. They were very slightly sore. He’s a bit twitchy, so I cannot be 100% certain here either, but I’d give them a 2/10 pain, with a lot of pressure from me.

In any case, I decided to give him a slow week. I needed to gauge his reaction to me getting in the saddle, so I did ride but only at the walk, and only for 10 minutes. We worked on mounting without him moving off, and did more ground work. Jazz really is great about plastic flags!

The best thing is that it rained most of the time we were working. Jazz was fine with the noise of the rain on the roof, and I was more than fine with water falling from the California sky!

I am pretty sure Jazz would take off any wrap I put on him, so I just mixed up some DMSO/dex/ and fake furazone and dabbed it on the possible splints.

Day 4: Ground work, settling in

The next day I just groomed him and worked from the ground. Jazz has got a lot to learn. Whenever he gets nervous, he wants to keep you in his left eye. This means that when I want to work on his offside, he tends to try to escape back to the safe left side. We worked on this in the round pen, and then in many more places because the round pen is now his comfort zone. I am now leading him from the offside to get him used to me being solely in that right eye.

Otherwise, Jazz was settling in. He wasn’t pacing along whichever fence was closest to the nearest horses. He had been eating and drinking well from the start.

The possible splints seemed completely cold. No pain no matter how much I prodded. One seemed to have disappeared almost completely. (I can’t remember which; I’ll add info when I’ve had a chance to verify.)

Above: More ground work. Unlike Fantazia, Jazz will step on anything. Fantazia thinks those things are passages to the upside-down that will swallow her up.

Day 5: He found a way to hurt himself

Of course. They always do. The scary thing was not the injury–it’s very minor, as you can see in the picture on the right below. It was that it was just like the much more severe injury Beroni had suffered last spring. Jazz was in the same paddock. I had gone over the place with a fine-toothed comb last year, or so I thought.

Above: Left, Beroni’s serious injury (read about it in this post from last July: Everything I am doing wrong). Right, Jazz’s minor wound. You can understand why I almost had a heart attack when I saw it! They had clearly injured themselves the same way, and Jazz had had a narrow escape.

I washed Jazz’s foot and put some zinc oxide on it before tying him up. If I couldn’t find the place of injury and fix it, he wasn’t going back in that paddock. Luckily I found it pretty quickly. It wasn’t that hidden, and it helped that I had seen how Jazz moved around when he ate. You can see the space where they stuck their left forefeet in the picture on the right below.

Above: Left, Jazz eating in his open-air stall. No obvious dangers. Right, the gap where Beroni and Jazz had stuck their feet, after I had poked at it. The concrete under the mat had worn away, allowing it to dip below the metal sheet. To fix it, we filled in below the mat with rocks, pushed a large rock up against the other side, and placed more rocks along the edge. I’ll keep an eye on those rocks. If they move (because he’s been bashing them), we can fill in with cement.

We didn’t do anything else on Day 5.

Bonus: Day 6

Because I didn’t get this blog post published last night, you get to hear about today.

The good

The wound looks fine. No swelling or heat or pain. I’m thinking it will heal nicely without leaving a mark. Jazz will need to see a vet in the next few days for his insurance check anyway. The vet will tell me if I need to do anything other than protect it.

The flooring and rocks in his stall are exactly like we left them, so I think they’ll hold up. We’ve been cleaning both his and Fantazia’s stalls and paddocks. Two giant oak branches had fallen in them, so it’s been a lot of work. This means Jazz has had a lot of company since he arrived, which is great for bonding. Even if the company was wielding a chainsaw, wheelbarrow, rakes, pitchforks, and a tractor. Good training.

The bad

When I led Jazz down to the training barn, he spooked at the tractor my boyfriend was driving. Same tractor he now ignores in his paddock, but I guess that’s different. He pulled behind me and got away, giving me a rope burn. Stopping for an occasional bite of grass, he trotted leisurely back up the driveway to the other horses and I caught him easily, but the damage was done. He had discovered he could Get Away.

Not having been born yesterday, I put on leather gloves and took him back to the training barn.

I had planned on another low key day. At first, it looked like I’d get away with just grooming and a few minutes of bubble-training. (Bubble-training means reinforcing his respect for my personal space.) Then I took him to the washrack.

The Evil Washrack

Just to be clear, this was his fourth time in the washrack. No, he had not walked “happily” in the other times, but after a brief hesitation, he had given to the pressure on the lead and walked quietly in. Today, having realized he could Get Away, he took one look at the rack and tried to spin and bolt.

I was ready for it, so he didn’t get away. But he also didn’t walk right in. I had to make him work for ten minutes before he’d go in. By “make him work” I mean keep his feet moving, circling to the left and then to the right, faster the further away from the rack he got. Someday I’ll make a video of it. Works for trailer loading and just about anything.

Jazz didn’t like it–they never do, that’s the point. He especially doesn’t like it to the right, and tried to run into me, so we had to have a serious attitude adjustment. He worked. Veins popped, eyes rolled, sweat happened. Then he gave up and walked in the rack. I tied him, said good boy, and let him stand. That’s the reward: no annoying human moving your feet.

Some more good

After washing the wound well and hosing off the entire sweaty horse, I took him out. Then I asked him to get in the adjacent stall in the washrack. He said no, but this time it only took two circles in each direction before he went in.

Yep, Jazz is a fast learner.

Above: Left, Jazz, looking leaner after much pacing and new-home anxiety, in our training barn. He’s getting quieter about grooming each day.