Jack, Just Because

This is an old pic, but one of my favorites, so here it is again.

Old

Photo shamelessly stolen from Liz's blog

Liz had the vet in for her 30-ish years old horse, Tyler, yesterday. It was good to get the old boy looked over thoroughly and make sure that she was doing everything right with his care. Been hard to keep the weight on him.

It was decided that his teeth are excellent, no major systemic problems, getting all the good care that he needs, etc. etc.

He is just old.

The conclusion was that there isn't a thing wrong with him that being young wouldn't cure.

Guess you could say the same thing about me. ...probably about a lot of us.

Both horses got rabies boosters too. The darned fox was in the barn with them, in fact in the stall with Tyler the other night, and Tyler must have kicked him and broke his jaw. So better safe than sorry, although after getting a good look at him we think he was just young and mangy.

Never a dull moment around here.

Horses of Northview

Or should I say, one big horse and one small pony gelding who thinks he is a destrier.

Meet Becky's pony, Jack, and Liz's grand old man, Tyler.

Jack is a pistol, big horse in a little package. When he trots out he looks like an old fashioned war horse...all he needs is half a dozen hands or so in additional height and a guy dressed in a tin can. Maybe a few flags and pennants and a cheering crowd too. (You can see that in his head he is hearing that crowd even now.)

Tyler is an elderly quarter horse that Liz is providing with a cushy retirement. Alas, for some reason he doesn't like me much and pins his ears and hides in the corner whenever I go in the barn. He has only lived here a few weeks and I am hoping that in time he will warm up to me.

He is in his upper twenties and it is getting hard to keep the weight on him. Despite that he is as sound as a two-year-old. When he trots it is like water flowing over smooth ground, big, scopey and springy. I can't imagine what it must be like to ride his gaits, but I'll bet it would be sweet.

So there you have them...the current crop of horses at Northview.

All the News

That's fit to type.

Got a surprising, but very welcome call yesterday, that the 4490 was not only ready, but the bill was reasonable. Didn't take the guys ten minutes to be on the road to go get it.

Tyler, Liz's old horse came home last night, to a gigantic new box stall built by Alan. We used to have a pair of almost 18 hand Belgians that lived in tie stalls in the old barn. He took down both of those stalls and turned them into one big box. I will get some pics later, but other than hitting himself with the hammer he did a real nice job.

The rain continues, so the time spent cleaning up and building stuff and flower gardening goes on....all well and good but it is past time for the crops to be planted, vegetable garden in and haying started. Will this rain ever end? We are beginning to wonder.

We are breeding cows like crazy now...if they all catch we will be fielding calves left and right next February or March. Busy, busy. We had five in heat Sunday alone.

That is Bama's new baby, Cinnamon Twist, in the photo. She is NOT that color, but rather a dark, rich mahogany color. I don't know why it is so hard to get true color photos on the milking shorthorns. Once in a while I get it right, but rarely.

She is about the smartest calf I have ever seen. She was eating grain and hay before she was two days old. Now she jumps up and down if she sees me kicking hay into the mangers. And she knows her name. She can be sleeping and you call "Cinnamon-n-n-n" and she jumps right up and starts bouncing and calling. What a little sweetie!

We are Awake Now

Magnum

You have probably read of all the barn collapses all over the Northeast. There have been hundreds of them, many cattle, calves and chickens have been killed, horses trapped and at least a couple of people have lost most of their machinery....all kinds of horrible stuff going on.

There has just been a tremendous amount of snow and then late last week it rained and sleeted on top of it, causing many buildings to fail. It is so sad for all the families that have suffered these losses.

So far we have been fortunate. Most of our roofs are very high, but they are steel and steep, both good. The guys have shoveled off the lower ones already to keep them safe.

However, last night we were milking when a tremendous, thunderous, long, rolling boom shook the barn. The cows panicked and scrambled for footing. We ran around like chickens chasing corn kernels.

Up to the mow, out to the barnyard. Round and round we hurried, looking for what was happening. There was nothing to see though. All was well. It was just tons and tons of snow sliding off the newer part of the barn. No harm done.

All through milking it kept doing that, as one roof after another let off bits of their encumberment. It was not boring.

And I am ready for that to be over with I can tell you. Oddly, after the first couple of cascades the cows paid no attention.

Back in the day when we still had horses they loved to stand and soak up the sun along the dark wall of the old heifer barn. Every now and then in the winter though they would throw up their heads and bolt, seemingly at nothing. We knew then that in a few seconds the snow would slip loose from the roof and come crashing down where they had been standing. Must be they heard it begin to come loose and knew enough to run. Of course Magnum was aways in the bunch and he was a real smart old guy.

Sanford Stud Farm Kitchen

I loved these kitchen items and the rooms themselves. They reminded me so much of camps owned by relatives when I was a kid...the same style of wainscoting and dishes and all.

More Sanford Stud Farm Photos

Mare and foal barn

Medicine Cabinet in Jumping Barn

Kalamazoo track rake

Down the aisle of the mare barn

Sanford Stud Farm

Also known as Hurricana Farm. Today we were fortunate enough to be given a personal tour of the restored barns that are now under the care of the Friends of Sanford Stud Farm .

What an incredible place. At one time it covered a thousand acres, or so I have read. It was one of the largest stud farms of its day, housing as many as 150 breeding horses, sending one winner to the Kentucky Derby as well as an American horse to win the Grand National. Native Dancer, northern Dancer and Big Brown spring from horses bred there.

Mare and foal barns, not included in reconstruction area...alas....

The farm barn, which housed teams of pure white mules and dairy and beef cattle
Also unrestored

Saddle racks

Hand made stall hinges, made on site by the farm blacksmith

Saddling area

Jumping horse barn

Today much of the land is under Walmart and many of the buildings are gone. Those that remain are simply amazing. In the jumping barn the stall walls are inch-thick solid cherry. In the mare barn you can still see the marks where the race horses kicked the walls, and the edges of the doors (which are nearly as high as my head) that were chewed by generations of thoroughbreds. The atmosphere in the stables and rooms speaks of a time when life was much different, long before supermarkets and highways. (In the early days of the farm the race horses were walked to the track at Saratoga.) We were most grateful for a chance to glimpse the glory days of racing through our visit to this historic spot.

A medicine cabinet in the jumping barn

Solid Cherry Stalls

Gibson Oat Grinder, the only one in the US

"Suicide Ladder"which goes to the oat bin

The Funniest Ad

You will EVER see. Courtesy of my friend Teri.

Six-Horse Hitch

And a tiger just for good measure.

NY Confirms EEE

From NY Ag and Markets:

NY CONFIRMS FIRST EQUINE CASE OF EASTERN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS

Two-Year Old Oswego County Gelding Showed Symptoms; Died of Mosquito-Borne Virus

New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker today announced the State’s first confirmed equine case of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, also known as EEE, this year. The affected horse was a two-year old gelding kept in Oswego County. EEE is a rare viral disease of horses and humans that is spread by infected mosquitoes. To date, there have been no reported nor confirmed human cases of EEE in 2010.

“New York’s abundant water sources and humid climate unfortunately make the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and the EEE virus,” Commissioner Hooker said. “Therefore, we highly encourage horse owners to protect their animals and consider vaccinating for EEE. The EEE vaccine has proven to drastically reduce the incidence of the virus in horses and can be easily administered by a private veterinarian.”

The infected horse was a two-year old gelding that was purchased at a New York auction earlier this year. The young horse had an unknown vaccination history at the time of purchase and was not vaccinated after purchase. Last week, the gelding was showing typical signs of EEE, including loss of appetite, circling and leaning against the stall, and after examination by a private veterinarian, was euthanized. Brain samples were sent to the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Laboratory and tested positive for EEE. To date, the other horses on the same premises are not showing any signs of EEE and have since been vaccinated.

More Horses in Strange Places

Eight Belles

I swear, I am going to stop picking horses in the Derby. We have a family tradition of each choosing a horse through the year before the big race and cheering our choices on. This goes back long before I even knew the boss....Secretariat and Affirmed were both horses I liked back in the day. I picked Barbaro the first time I saw him in the newspaper. We all know how that turned out. This year Liz picked Big Brown and the rest of us didn't pay much attention. Then Alan and I both liked Eight Belles for first and Big Truck second when we saw the actual line up. And it happened again.

Laugh until it hurts

HT to Apple for this story of some young gentlemen who found a really, really creative method of getting into some very serious (but hilarious) trouble.

Go
Read
Laugh...you will be glad you did.

Bareback reining with no bridle

I don't usually cry when I watch someone riding a horse, but I did when I saw this video



Sorry folks who still have dial-up, but this is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen!

HT to One cowgirl, who saw it first.....

Magnum

Nights when sleep is slow in coming I reconstruct my old horse in my mind. Sometimes I start at the bottom at his round black hooves, with just the one waxy, yellowish white one on the near hind that looked pink inside when it was raining. I can say, "Pick," in my mind and he will hand me a hoof so I can scrape clean the grooves around his rubbery frogs and the edges of his shiny steel shoes.

I work my way up over his strong pasterns and the hard roundness of his shaggy fetlocks, with the sharp little bony place at the back that you could always feel through the hair. Next to his cannon bones, on legs so solid that the only unsoundness he ever had in over thirty years of life was a splint he popped when he was two. I am usually asleep by the time I reach the night eyes or chestnuts, the little oblong protuberances on the inside of his upper legs. I am told that those are vestigial toes from the days when horses ran on more than the one toe they use now.

If I start at the top the first thing I envision touching are his fringed black fox's ears. He had wonderful ears. They would flop all anyhow when I was grooming him, or prick eagerly at the prospect of dinner. How he loved to eat...he was always hog fat in summer, so round he made my knees ache when I rode him bareback, which I always did. Next come the deep hollows over his dark brown eyes. They say the offspring of an older mare will have deeper depressions there. I don't know if it is true, but his dam was not young when he was born and his hollows were always as deep as those of an old horse. In my mind I can feel the silky hair of his forelock when I brushed it and the wiry waves of his long, thick mane. I have never stayed awake long enough to feel his sharp withers or to dig my fingers into the soft fur between his forelegs, where he loved to be scratched. However, if I go over him in the daytime, inside the memories of our decades together I find every dapple, feel his elbows, knees and the soft hair on his upper lip when he licked my hand for the salt.

I can remember the way he felt bouncing between my knees at the bottom of Grey Road Hill. He knew we were going to run up it every time we went that way and he loved it as much as I did. What a feeling to have him canter in place beneath me waiting for the slightest lift of rein, the least shift of weight to tell him, go, go, go, race up that hill as if tomorrow waited at the top.

He would pound up the winding curves running so fast he was flat on top, not a ripple in his racing. Then as we reached the apex his fine chiseled head would come up, his back would round into a canter and he would snort with delight, as if to say, "We done good boss, didn't we?"

We had to put him down about four years ago when he colicked from an impaction and twisted intestine. He was 31. I bought him when he was two and I was just past twenty. When I get to missing him...and I do...because you never have more than one first horse and he was both my first and my last, although I owned many others during his lifetime...when I get to missing him, I reconstruct him in my mind and then we tear hell bent for the top of Grey Road Hill just one more time.

Barbaro's death got me thinking of him today....

Horse auction

The boss dragged me across the river to a horse auction yesterday. I won't lie and say it wasn't fun, although I really didn't want to go. (Just lazy I guess). We came within about 25 bucks of bringing home a horse. (Whew, close one there.)

Anyhow, what an assortment of horses we saw. The migration of the Amish to the area brought a huge offering of draft horses of all ages and descriptions and there were a few local light horses and ponies too.

It was exciting. While we were standing behind the auctioneers' stand watching a pair of Halflingers being paraded at a high trot, I looked over at a commotion a few feet away and found myself staring right at a horse's belly button. Argghhh!!! A tall, flaxy chestnut mare was sunfishing right there among all the auction goers and horses waiting to be sold. Only the fact that a couple of big Amish boys were on her halter kept her from throwing herself right over backwards. We decided to go over by the grandstand until they got her through the ring. She was a hot one and I don't envy whoever has her in their stable today.

Just after she sold an Amish fellow brought in a little yellow colt. I was pretty sure it was a Halflinger, but it didn't have the refinement about the head you see in the hotblooded ones around here. It looked more like a miniature Belgian with a puffy little curly tail and thick, furry blonde ears. I liked it. It was very correct and seemed very quiet (could have been drugged of course.)

We watched a few more sell hoping to see what that one brought and then left. We were over in Fonda getting laundry detergent when the boss said, "I want to buy that colt."

O....ka-a-a-y.....we are about as broke as we could possibly be, milk prices are what they were in 1970, fuel prices aren't, and we already have two horses nobody does anything with. Still, the man works like a dog...two dogs maybe, and today is his 58th brithday. (Happy birthday, Ralph,we love you). So, I said, go get him, no more than four hundred bucks.

We rushed back to the sale where I sat in the car with a good Andrew Greeley book while he went in to see what he could do. He bid up to $250 on the little guy, then decided that was enough. A dealer took him home for $275.

Can't say I was really sorry. We knew nothing about the colt except that he was cute and had no real use for him. Still he was cute...... really, really cute. He had excellent feet and legs and was put together just right.


Horse prices ranged from ten dollars for a skeletal old thing that someone is hoping to rehabilitate, to near four thousand each for a pair of locally grown Paint showhorses. They must have sold a hundred head, and were still selling long after we left. You could hear the aucioneer's chant from here when the wind was right.