Equus Absentius Holiday-itis, or EAH, can afflict both humans and their equine partners though symptoms vary depending on the species.  It is especially noted in December and more common in the countries that celebrate the Christmas holiday.

Symptoms in equines can include:

1. Pinning of ears when their human visits to express their displeasure in the lack of attention given since their human has been distracted by holiday shopping, cooking, visiting, and eating;
2. Attempting to bite their human when they turn their back to leave the stall;
3. Attempting, yet again, to bite their human when the girth is tightened;
4. Walking away from the mounting block to make it impossible for said human to get their butt in the saddle;
5. Cow kicking, crow hopping, and more ear pinning when asked to move;
6. Leaning on the reins, bracing against contact, yanking of reins out of human’s hands, giraffing the neck, and avoiding any steady contact; and
7. Shashaying, dosey-doeing, and generally attempting to have body parts moving forwards, backwards, left and right all at the same time.

Human symptoms include, but are not limited to:

1. Straining to fit into tight-fitting riding pants after consuming too many cookies, too many rich dinners, and imbibing a bit too frequently;
2. Getting easily distracted while at the barn and forgetting to remove the mud from one side because you are trying to remember if you took the price tag off the gift you wrapped for your grandmother;
3. Forgetting to remove shavings and hay from equine’s mane and tail, so the poor animal looks like a scarecrow as you ride;
4. Trying to fit in a warmup, walk/trot/canter work, circles, loops, halts, lateral work, and cooldown in less than 20 minutes since you have to rush home to bake cookies for the office party, neighborhood cookie exchange, and make food to take to your family dinner.
5. Straining to half halt correctly and coordinate your aids for a shoulder in since lack of time in the saddle has caused there to be a lack of communication between the brain and extremities;
6. Huffing and puffing because your are out of shape from lack of time to ride or do any athletic pursuit; and
7. Deciding that it is okay to not clean your tack since you have 100 presents to get wrapped by Christmas Eve.

The only known cure to EAH is to forego any further holiday activities, throw out any remaining cookies, let the decorations gather dust, and get yourself to the barn as soon as possible.  Pack the tissues (runny noses are not an excuse to stay inside), brave the cold (invest in some winter riding boots and britches), and get your butt in the saddle.  Symptoms should subside quickly and should remain in remission with regularly scheduled barn visits.

I am certain that every writer/blogger has had writer’s block.  I have had it before and it will happen again.  Today I’m not having writer’s block, but title block.  It is hard coming up with a catchy title a couple of times a week that will draw in the readers.  Just glad that I don’t rely on writing to make a living.  It would be a poor existence with the horses living in the trailer in our backyard and eating the weeds that substitute for green grass (who has time to mess with grass seed when you can be riding your horse).

Made it out to the barn yesterday dressed to ride, but just could not bring myself to tack up Ike for another cold, wind-blasted ride.  My chapped cheeks were still recovering from my lesson the day before.  Fingers were also stiff from their time spent as numb stumps.  The treat lady shared peppermints with Cigar and Ike and all their barn buddies.  Also decided to groom both boys.  As you can see from Ike’s photo, there was not much work to be done.  He tends to stay relatively clean – I typically only have to brush sawdust off his coat.  And then there is his brother………

Cigar’s level of filth these days makes Pig Pen look like he just had a bath.  He is especially disgusting in the upper neck area and face.  It starts with a base of Uncle Jimmy’s Licky Things Horse Treats (molasses flavor to be exact).  Since Mom insists on hanging the treat where it cannot be pinned, Cigar insists on rolling it all over his coat and getting very sticky, and then topping it with a layer of dirt, sawdust, and hay.  You then add another layer of sticky goodness and more dirt and hay.  It is like building a dirt-laden lasagna.  You then let it set overnight and wait for Mom’s arrival.  The crud has now hardened to the point that no curry comb or brush will set the hair free.  I have tried to use a damp cloth to no avail.  There are then two choices: 1) pull the crud/hair out while avoiding Cigar’s teeth or 2) wait for the hair to shed in the spring.  I attempted to pull some of the crud ridden hair on Saturday at which point Cigar spun away from my hands and trotted off.  After I lured him back with a candy, I attempted to brush him to at least tidy up the rest of his body, but got tired of playing ring around the rosy as I gripped his halter.  Fine, be a dirty fool.

The winds died down today, so I set out to ride.  No attempts at grooming Pig Boy. (Ah, Ta-Da!  The title to this post just came to me!)  Grooming Ike took me all of 5 minutes.  I allowed for a good walk warm up, but Ike was a bit of a crank when I asked for trot.  He even got a bit pissy to my leg.  Hmm, halt please, One rein flex to the left, to the right, please stand patiently without yanking the reins, and try again.  Slight ear pinning, yank on the reins.  No, Ike, that is not acceptable behavior.  Someone must have woken up on the wrong side of the stall.  I then remembered what Ms. C told me the other day.  When having challenging days, either work on quick walk trot transitions or work on your lateral movements and controlling Ike’s shoulders at the walk and trot.  Diffuse what is happening and redirect his attention.  Okay, Ike, let’s get started.  We spent the rest of our ride either transitioning at every letter or leg yielding or attempting shoulder in.  The crankiness never really went away, but at least Ike did try to work with me for 30 minutes.  Thank you Ike, that helped keep you off the naughty list.

Mother Nature sure was busy blowing today.  I kept hoping she would get out of breath and take a breather, but no, she found her second wind and blew harder.  Phew!  I believe some of the wind gusts were 20-25 mph.  Some of those wind gusts were enough to take your breath away.  It was a bit of a shock to the body since we have been enjoying warmer than normal December temperatures.  This weather does feel more “Christmas-like,” but I am already missing the 55 degree weather.

And of course, this was lesson day, so not only were Ike and I working the wind-swept look, poor Ms. C had to fend off the winter chill plus the wind and try to talk loud enough for me to hear her over the whoosh of the wind in my ears.  Thank goodness for my winter riding pants – wind-proof and warm.  I’ve got both FITS and Kerrits  – don’t have a favorite, just glad that I have them or I’d be hibernating until spring. [Note to self: if we ever lose power this winter, I will be sporting these around the house to stay warm.]

I’m pretty sure Ike was wishing he had something more than his hair to fend off the winds.  When we started, he was very tight through his back and hind end which made for a very short stride and bumpy ride.  Lots of transitions, some time in two point, and ultimately some canter work finally got the blood flowing enough for Ike to relax and normal rhythm to begin.  But then, we are just getting into the middle of my lesson when all the other horses at the farm decide to go bat crap crazy.  There was bucking and snorting and running and jumping and cavorting and body contorting.  So we had to take a time out from the lesson so Ms. C and Mr. D could tuck the banshees safely into their stalls before someone got injured.  Ike looked a bit lost once everyone had left him for the relative peace of the barn.  “Why am I not returning to my stall???”  To his credit, Ike never once took a misstep during the melee or after everyone left him.  I love him for the trust he puts in Ms. C and I to take care of him.

Well, back to our lesson.  Our canter work was surprisingly sane given the weather conditions.  Ike’s transitions no longer shoot us to the moon and he almost always nails the correct lead even without a whip guiding the hind end.  We are now focusing on slowing down the tempo so we have less Marmaduke and more Valegro.  Ms. C says that Ike is also ready for more lateral work.  Last winter, the focus was on straightness – lateral work would have meant losing my knee to the fence.  Now we are actually achieving a correct shoulder in position tracking both directions.  It might only last a few strides, but that is better than no strides.  The other piece of the puzzle that is finally falling into place is my ability to know when I achieve the correct position.  The neck isn’t overbent because of the over use of the inside rein and I’m not tilting the wrong way in the saddle.  I think I even half halted correctly since Ms. C didn’t fuss at me about it.  Trust me, she know when I’ve been slacking on my half halts…she is like Santa in that respect.  You can’t get anything past her.  I guess you could say that Ike isn’t the only one who has made strides in his work this past year.