Well, it is officially spring and I have been lacking in my updates. In all honesty, I’ve probably ridden maybe 10times since the last clinic of 2025… AND we just had our first one of 2026!
I guess it is time for a recap, while I sit in the ski lodge watching Asher have a great time out here in VT! The rest of us did not take to skiing quite as well and have opted to do other things our last day here. lol

Breeze continued to recover from dreaded C-word hospitalization at home and thankfully he has shown no repeat of the dehydration/impaction colic symptoms – I kept my eye on them quite a bit during out January freeze though and hauled out a lot of horse tea & soup!

About 3 weeks later we finally got back out to ride with Skyler and Drum a few times at the end of the winter break, which was not very friendly towards riding weather overall 😦 We did start out the year riding, but shortly after Skyler came to a realization that Drum was not going to be the all-around horse she was looking for. While he was improving with his jumping, the canter was proving difficult for her to trust for working on it and they needed to get that canter for her age group. However, we knew he absolutely loved the trails. I reached out to his owner (being a lease to us) and mentioned I had a friend, who while a bit further south, had a daughter the same age that was a great rider but lost her own horse that year and really needed a new trail buddy to ride with her mom. All turned out to be a great match and Drum went home with his new family after a weekend of working together at the spring clinic. I would have kept Drum for myself as the “easy ride” compared to Breeze if I had time for it! He is really a wonderful horse and I’m sure he will be happy to skip the shows, hit the trails and get loved on in the slightly warmer weather of SC.
Skyler and I did go trail ride a few more times together before he left, but she has overall swapped to riding lesson horses at the barn. She’s hit it off nicely with a 17H+ youngster that she will likely show later this season, plus she has her big girl Ruby to enjoy and a few others. We are not in a rush to look for another horse for her, as I really want her to understand what she wants and needs in it.

So here we were coming up to the first clinic of 2026 and Breeze and I hadn’t ridden much at all, and Skyler no longer had a mount. So, what do we do?

Enter, well RE ENTER, Prophecy. This horse has not had to do anything except behave on the ground for anyone that I toss at him to handle, be nice to the farrier and vet, go on an occasional hand hike, and be the buddy horse, since early 2018. Going back a little ways to recap — He was my endurance hopeful after Tesla, very much built for and bred for endurance, a polish Arab that I knew as a youngster that fell into tough hands and was rescued and restarted back in TN that I bought at 8 yrs old. After shipping him to VA, I then spent the next 2 years working with him to discover an “explosiveness” under saddle when we went above a walk that we narrowed down to Sidebone pain in the front hooves by x-ray, with maybe some back pain along side. To get definitive answers would have required an MRI next and I just couldn’t justify that expense to be told either 1 – retire him to light riding; or 2 – needs XYZ that we wouldn’t be able to afford and/or may not be good for anything but light riding after.
Since I had no “need” for a walk-only/light riding horse, and I couldn’t risk him ending up in the wrong hands, I chose to retire and use him as a companion horse. Over the years, Doug never took an interest in riding, Skyler needed a ‘full’ riding horse, and Asher didn’t have much interest until last year (which has now waned), so there was no need to keep him under saddle.
Until now – Skyler could use him to trail ride with me occasionally, albeit at a walk, and this would make him “more useful” as a horse for anyone, if the need ever arose to move him on. The sidebone I’m hoping by now has stabilized per se (at 18 years old) plus there are a lot more options in hoof boots and shoes now that can help, if it is needed. I know his “signs” and will be keeping a close eye on it all for pain markers.

So we took Breeze & Prophecy to the Tom clinic and Skyler did some ground work on day 1 to see where he was at mentally, and then saddled him in Tom’s treeless western and rode a little in the round pen under the watch eyes of Tom and myself on day 2. Prophecy was game for it all, even being a bit goofy trying to eat the leather that was ticking his chin since we didn’t have a sidepull or reins out for him to use and just tied the lead under at the fiador knot of his rope halter. He really didn’t show any signs of discomfort, in fact the whole idea of it all was mind blowing for him and he did a ton of processing in yawns. We shall see if I can find a saddle to fit for her to continue to work with him – once I can set up a small riding pen for them too!

And what about me & Breeze? Well we had a really nice ride on the first day. Very little in the way of difficulties with his stops, bends/turns, and moving at a trot through some poles. I did feel him get anxious once when I asked him to follow behind Skyler running Prophecy in-hand down the line so I redirected and he settled right away. Definitely a different ride than we have had at the clinic first days before, and way better than the last ride I had on trail with a new group of riders. We worked at trying to get him to canter “on demand” as I have some anxiety over this from his prior run-away moment with me, so we have only cantered a few times on trail since. Our goal for Day 2 was to get that canter from him for me to ride in a ‘safe space’ and affirm that I can control things better now with our improved communications.

Day 2 didn’t go quite to plan as pretty soon after releasing him from the line, I lost our connection. He was really good at tuning me out on the ground, which of course one could see it translates to what he does to me under saddle. It took quite a bit of work to be big enough and loud enough for him to look you up again… Tom stepped in to get it going, and then helped me at the same time with my positioning. It turned out to be “all on me” as while I was aiming to stop him from fizzling out at spots, I would get a little too far ahead of the line and end up cutting him off. Eventually I got it lol, but didn’t get to ride it. We need to work on it more, but I don’t have a big enough flat space to create a round pen and do so at home. sigh.

So, that is pretty much that. The next clinic is looking June for us. I no longer have my mini-me to grab and ride with, so I’m going to have to start exposing Breeze to new groups to ride with and keep pushing us into the deep end little by little, with the ultimate goal to get us to at least one endurance ride this season!