Alex

As I was looking through some of my old pictures of Alex to use in this blog post I realized that it was three years ago today that he joined us for retirement.  In a sense I guess you could say Alex had some excellent connections to our farm.   Alex joined us for retirement from Florida, and there were already two other horses from his barn in Florida retired with us, Elfin and Levendi.  Thus when it came time for Alex to retire it seemed an obvious choice for him to join his fellow barn mates in Tennessee. 

Alex and his mom dressed up for a Hawaiian Luau at a Halloween show; Alex was the perfect first horse

Alex is known as Time Marches On in the show ring.  He joined his forever family over eleven years ago.  They don’t know exactly how old Alex is, but they think he was in his early teens when they purchased him.  In addition to his exact age being unknown Alex’s breeding is something of a mystery as well.  They were told he was some kind of warmblood cross, however one of their vets felt he was probably a quarter horse or quarter horse cross

Alex and his young rider in the show ring

Their daughter began taking riding lessons when she was seven years old, and as all horse crazy girls do, she begged her parents for a horse.   Her parents finally broke down and said they would buy her a horse when she was in the fourth grade.  Like most parents who purchase a horse for their child, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. 

Alex and his young rider

The great horse search began for the first horse.  Several horses were tried that did not work out for various reasons.  Their daughter began riding at a new barn in the midst of their horse searching process.  They told her that she could ride Alex while the search for her perfect first horse continued.  I am sure it is obvious to everyone where this story is heading!

One of the very first rides Alex and his young rider had together; Alex is showing off his springy jump!

Alex had been at the farm for a few years when his eventual forever family came along.  The farm had originally purchased Alex as a resale project.  They had not been able to sell Alex and instead ended up leasing him out to some different riders. He was leased by various people and shown in the adult hunters. 

Alex (second from front) grazing with friends at Paradigm Farms

Darby, Alex and B-Rad

There are a few reasons why Alex ended up not being the successful resale project the farm had originally meant for him to be. Alex is a bit on the small side, and he is definitely not an easy, automatic ride.  Alex also firmly believes that his rider must do their share of the work.  I’m also told that he has a very bouncy canter and jumps very round and hard.  A springy canter and a round jump are not bad things but they also don’t always make for an easy ride.  All of these factors probably played a role in Alex not being sold. 

Alex and B-Rad hanging out

Alex

Their daughter did not get the memo that Alex was not supposed to be a child’s first horse.  She did not care that he was small or that he had a bouncy canter.  In her eyes he was the perfect horse and she fell in love with him.  Despite the fact that she fell in love with him the farm waited a few months before they were willing to sell Alex to his forever family.  He had never been ridden by a child before and they wanted to make sure that Alex really was going to be a suitable mount.  Finally the sale was completed and Alex had his own family.

Darby and Alex having a nap

Darby, B-Rad and Alex

Alex taught his new young rider not only how to ride, but how to ride well.  As mentioned above he expected his rider to pull their weight and to ride him correctly.  He was actually much more challenging to ride at home than at shows.  At home he would sometimes duck out or do a  drive-by past a jump if things were not being done to his standards.  However take him to a horse show and Alex became all business and turned into the perfect horse. 

Alex and Ogie grazing together one morning

Alex and his young rider first competed over cross rails.  They then moved up to short stirrup and from there went on to the pre-children’s division.  The pair earned year end ribbons in their divisions every single year for three years.  By the time his young rider was  ready to step up into the children’s hunter at the 3’ height Alex was getting older and was no longer able to consistently jump that height. 

 enjoying some down time in retirement

with his friend B-Rad

Alex’s young rider ended up getting a new horse to move up on. However her mom had grown very attached to Alex during the three years he had been in their family, so she began to take riding lessons on Alex.  However between being a mom, having elderly parents to take care of, and working, it was very difficult to find the time to ride.  They had all become very attached to Alex and did not want to sell him, so they ended up leasing Alex to a friend of their daughter.  Alex and his new partner were very successful showing in the pre-children’s division, and he ended up helping their family friend win a scholarship for college based on their winnings.

Alex hanging out in the woods with Darby, Lighty and B-Rad

Alex

After their daughter’s friend stopped leasing Alex he joined their other horse at Kingsmeade Farm, and  Mom began taking lessons on him again.  Unfortunately Alex came up lame soon after that.  A lameness exam revealed some very arthritic hocks and the vet felt that Alex should not jump anymore.  

Alex and friends enjoying another great day of retirement

Alex on the run across the pasture

The hope had been that Alex could be partially leased out so Mom could ride him as her schedule allowed and to help cut down on expenses.  As we all know keeping two horses at a show barn is not inexpensive, and their daughter was doing a lot of showing with her new horse as well.  In the end the best decision for all involved, Alex and his family, was to retire him.

trotting across the pasture with B-Rad

As I mentioned earlier Alex had two barn mates, Elfin and Levendi , who had already joined us for retirement.  It was a natural decision for Alex’s family to send him to Tennessee to join them.  Thus, three years ago today, we welcomed Alex! 

Alex grazing with friends

Alex finds retirement tiring

Most of you will associate Alex with B-Rad and Darby as they are his constant companions in most of the pictures.  When Alex first retired with us we thought he was a very submissive personality with the other horses.  That was the case for the first few months, but once Alex had gotten the lay of the land things changed.  He became quite the bossy little guy and has been that way ever since!

We hope you have enjoyed learning a little bit more about Alex! 

Sharpening the Saw

(post by Jason) When I worked in corporate America it seemed that the office world was full of metaphors. I can remember attending a three day workshop where we would pause often to "sharpen the saw" and "beginning with the end in mind" was a corporate credo for the masses.

Well guess what I did today. I began with the end in mind, the end in this case being very real and very large clean fields full of waving green grass. The very first thing I did in the spirit of beginning with the end in mind was stop to sharpen my saw. In this case, my saw is a Stihl MS362 and it took about an hour to run a file across all the teeth to put an extra edge on the blade.

Just as you probably spend significant time picking up sticks and fallen branches from your yard before you fertilize and mow in the early spring, we do the same for our pastures. The difference is in the size and scope of our tasks. My "yard"  encompasses 149 acres and, as you might imagine, there are a lot of branches and limbs that need to be dealt with. In the next few weeks I will go through many tanks of chainsaw fuel as I create several vehicle sized burn piles.

Every farmer in North America starts his spring work by cleaning up the mess that winter leaves in his work space and we are no different. When you wonder what we could possibly be doing with our free time in the waning days of February now you know. Anybody care to lend a hand ? :)

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Levendi

George and Gus

I seem to take a lot of "grey horses only" pictures.  This time I took a "bay horses only" picture. Snappy, Fabrizzio, O'Reilly and Slinky

Lighty and Murphy having some playtime

I had recently decided that I would award Bergie the title of dirtiest grey horse on the farm.  However after taking this picture of Moe I am reconsidering that. Moe loves to roll in a mud puddle that forms in a small ditch in his pasture.

headless horses; Thor, O'Reilly and Lucky eating hay

Clayton

super cute, super fuzzy ponies Traveller and Norman sharing some hay  . . .

... and cute, fuzzy Cuffie pony was napping off to the side

Hemi and Elfin were being wild boys

Copy Cats

It may surprise you to learn that neither Melissa or I do a very good job of keeping track of what other businesses in our category are doing. We never asked anyone for advice before we started, instead we did a lot of planning, number crunching, and tweaking of plans. We have pretty much hoed our own row ever since. Mostly this is pragmatic. We are too wrapped up in what we are doing here to worry very much about what others may or may not be doing. That said, every now and again it is a good idea to have a gander at what others are doing. In that spirit I spent a couple of hours on the internet earlier today checking out what the virtual world had to offer.

Mostly I found exactly what I expected to see. However I was quite surprised to see how often I ran across our pictures, blog entries and portions of our website that had been lifted whole from our modest online presence. I'm not going to name names....this isn't a witch hunt.... but I found the whole experience quite disappointing. Managing our online presence, writing a blog several times a week, and taking and uploading the pictures are among the most difficult and most time consuming tasks we do outside of hands on horse care.  I said to Melissa that she should take it as a tongue in cheek testament to the quality of her work.  She laughed and said that would be doubly true if those that felt the need replicate what she does online also felt compelled to provide the high level of horse care, client communication and horse infrastructure that we do. But even if they did offer every amenity and service we do they are missing the most important one and that is integrity. Unfortunately I can prove it with a single mouse click and a vigorous shake of my head.

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Calimba

Tony with Leo and Chance in the background

Grand and Homer

Africa, Murphy, Dutch, Wiz

Chili and Renny

Silver, Lotus, Gus

Bergie

Rocky

Faune

Griselle

 Oskar and Kennedy

Lighty

Lighty is a big, grey Holsteiner gelding who joined us for retirement in the fall of 2011.  In more formal situations he goes by the name Casa Blanca, and he is by the famous Holsteiner stallion Cassini I.  Lighty and his mom became a partnership in January 2007.

Lighty showing his winning form at a horse show

Lighty's mom is also the owner of Renny, another of our retirees, and even though they are not actually related to each other we often refer to Lighty and Renny as brothers.  It goes without saying that their mom has a great eye for picking horses.  Their mom went on the search for a new horse as Renny was getting older and starting to slow down.  Although she was still riding Renny she was no longer showing him and she decided it was time to find a new partner for the show ring.    

Lighty checking out his winnings

Lighty showing off one of his many ribbons

Lighty's mom is one of those lucky people that typically does not have to embark on a long and frustrating search for a new riding partner.  As she said for whatever reason her horses tend to find her very quickly and there is never much of a "looking around" process.  In January 2007 she traveled to Florida, tried Lighty, and ended up purchasing him and bringing him home to Michigan.  Ironically she almost did not try Lighty because of his name.  Lighty, his barn name, is actually short for Lightening.  Since his mom was looking for a laid back, easy going horse she assumed the name Lightening was reflective of his personality and that he was not at all what she was looking for.  Apparently his name Lightening was something of a joke as he turned out to be a very quiet, slow and laid back horse.

Lighty hanging out at a horse show

His mom does not know a lot about Lighty's history prior to her owning him.  He was nine when she purchased him and he had been shipped to Florida from southern California to be sold.  His owner in California had aged out of the juniors and was off to college which led to Lighty being for sale.  Apparently Lighty spent the majority of his life in the warm California sun as he did not quite know what to make of the Michigan winter when he arrived in January of 2007.  When he first arrived there was no snow on the ground, but a few days after he had shipped to his new home it snowed.  When he was being led out to the pasture after the snowfall he put the brakes on and refused to go out!  Apparently Lighty had never seen snow, and it took quite a bit of convincing to get him to put his feet in the cold, wet white stuff.

More wonderful horse show pictures of Lighty. My favorite part of these posts is seeing pictures of the horses before we knew them. Not necessarily horse show pictures, some of our residents never went to a show, but just pictures of them in their "prior life."  The ironic part is if I was asked to produce pictures of my own horses I would be hard pressed to produce them. They are all either shoved in a box that I can't find, or were lost in a computer crash, etc.  

Lighty's other protest to the winter weather was the constant trashing and removal of his blankets.  Apparently he had not had to spend a lot of time in blankets before his arrival in Michigan and he let everyone know that he did not like wearing them.  Since he was body clipped when he arrived in Michigan from Florida he realized after awhile that life was better with a blanket on.

Lighty showing off the goofy side of his personality

Lighty did a lot of winning in the show ring.  A good friend of his mom showed him quite a bit in the adult amateur hunters to help prepare him for his mom.   Lighty's big, rolling canter combined with his striking grey coat made him a very striking presence in the show ring and he brought home a lot of ribbons.  He had a huge stride and could almost walk down the lines, and he always went around with his ears pricked forward and wearing a happy expression. He really enjoyed being a show horse.  

 Lighty enjoying retirement

grazing with his friend Chili

hanging out in the woods with his friend Johnny

being goofy with Johnny

Although Lighty was a laid back guy and always looked like an easy ride, as with any horse he did require a certain amount of skill to ride him.  He was so laid back that he required a lot of leg, and his mom said you always had to watch his left sided drift.  His mom said his canter was very, very comfortable and easy to sit which made him a lot of fun to ride when combined with his cooperative personality.  One thing Lighty did not approve of was puddles in the show ring.  Although like all grey horses he loved to roll in mud and get as dirty as possible he definitely objected to being ridden through puddles.  If there was a puddle in the ring Lighty would make his own bending line to the next fence, and his mom said there was little you could do about it.  As laid back as he was about everything else you really couldn't complain about his objection to puddles!

I think Lighty probably doesn't miss the show ring, his retired life is pretty nice

napping with Alex and Darby

playing with B-Rad

Lighty won many championships in the Adult Hunters at the "A" shows with his mom's friend riding.  At his last horse show at Horse Shows by the Bay in Traverse City he won every over fences class. He was Grand Adult Hunter Champion out of all the sections at that show.  Although his mom did not know it at the time that turned out to be his last horse show. Lighty went out on top.

Johnny and Lighty on the run

Africa and Lighty

Lighty and friends having a relaxing day

The year Lighty was retired he began having an occasional small trip.  He was tested and treated aggressively for EPM and also had his neck and back worked on.  He was back in work and going well until one day when his trainer was schooling him over some fences.  Lighty jumped an oxer in beautiful form, but when he landed his front legs buckled and he fell halfway down on the landing side of the jump.  Luckily neither Lighty or his trainer were hurt.  There were more vet visits and various treatments and Lighty seemed to get better again.  However when he was started back to work at the canter he had another tripping incident and his mom knew it was time to retire him.  None of the many treatments had worked and of course she did not want Lighty or anyone else getting hurt.  He was 13 when he retired and traveled to our farm to join his "brother" Renny who was already retired with us.  

Lighty and Alex having a good roll

Lighty looking stunning as he gallops across the pasture

Lighty has been retired with us for a year and a half now. His transition into retirement was very seamless.  Some new arrivals need a lot of help as they need to learn how to interact with other horses and how to be a horse. Lighty was not one of those horses.  When Lighty arrived he walked off the trailer like he owned the place, and nothing much has changed since that day!  As you can see from his retirement pictures Lighty has made the most of retirement and thoroughly enjoys spending his days doing whatever he wants whenever he wants.  

We hope you have enjoyed getting to know Lighty a little bit better!