Blogger Lauren Sprieser

10 a.m. Tuesday: The farm truck is stuck halfway down my driveway. I did not put it there, and that is all I have to say about that.

I am, however, in charge of supervising its removal. My working students schlep valliantly, and out it comes. I really want it at the barn, but there just ain't no way. So it goes to the end of the driveway, and there it will stay.

Fender has settled in very nicely, and what timing—we’re waiting now for Round 2 of the 2010 Snowpocalypse, and there’s already 27 inches on the ground. So far I’ve managed to ride him every other day, which is perfect. I’m aiming for four rides a week; we’ll see how that goes. As it is, he’s the only one of my horses making any kind of progress.

5 a.m. Friday morning: I wake up shivering. Why is it so cold in my house? Thermostat is on. Power’s on. Heater’s making noise. What’s up?

Oh no. I try to start the stove—no dice. I run outside to check and confirm my fears. I am completely and totally out of propane.

It is now 6 a.m. and T-minus four hours until the snow is scheduled to start.

I can't remember my first time on a horse. I would have been very, very young, and it was probably a pony ride at the park. I do have a vague recollection of riding ponies tied to a hotwalker-like contraption at the local rec center in the town I grew up in; I couldn't have been more than 5 or 6. I remember liking it, a lot.

At some point, as a quality professional horseperson, you're going to get invited to a Black Tie Affair. I think this is hilarious. Our clients are the kinds of classy people who have classy soirees; we are the kind of people who think Danskos are formalwear.
 

I've been conspicuously silent on the subject because I wanted to get the Is dotted and the Ts crossed, but it's officially official: I just bought a horse!

He's a coming-4-year-old Oldenburg gelding, Sir Donnerhall—Silvermoon. He comes to me from his breeder, Donna Garner, in Kentucky. Donna's a lovely woman and already a patron of the sport—my horse's mother, Alabama, is in Germany in training with a superstar expat Canadian trainer named Eiren Crawford, who steered me to the horse, and whom I owe a very large beer as such.

I'm on my way back from visiting beautiful Lexington, Ky., to see a sale horse. I've managed to be an equestrian most of my life without ever spending any time in Lexington, so this was a real treat. I'm also so lucky as to have some good friends here, so between their lovely tour guiding services and the recommendations of lots of COTH bulletin board posters, I had a really good trip!

I'm knee-deep in my search for a 3- or 4-year-old to be my next superstar, and I'm finding an interesting phenomenon—the best horses aren't on whateversalewebsite.com. They're sold by word of mouth.

This is not terribly surprising; I think many sales, from young prospects to international competitors, are done that way. But as a member of the Under 30 demographic, I keep expecting everything to be on the Internet. I've scoured dreamhorse and warmbloods-for-sale, breeders' websites and the breed organizations too.

I went to visit Cletus today! Visiting a fetus is really very dull. I was a total dork out there in the paddock, with my ear to the belly of my very patient recipient mare, Sweetie, who really didn't care what I did as long as I kept the carrots coming.

Having been around horses for most of my life, I know one thing: When all else fails, bribery is the way to go. To ensure that Sweetie doesn't mind me hanging around once Cletus becomes more than a fuzzy ultrasound picture, I'm going to become The One Who Brings The Food, so that I am as much into her good graces as is possible.

I hate scratches. Hate, hate, hate.

Scratches, for those not in the know, are a pesky bacterial/fungal infection that cause ugly open irritations on the back of the pastern. They plague Midgey, with his sensitive white legs, and I've tried every remedy out there to cure them, from the benign to the totally wacky.

A brief list of some of my personal favorites: