Thursday, February 18, 2010

In All His Winter Glory

Jasper has been moved to a pen with an attached barn. He's by himself and I'm hoping with all he can eat grass hay, plus a couple flakes of alfalfa a day, plus Equine Sr., oats, and Cool Calories he'll start to gain some weight. He has one neighbor, a little black Arab named Monsoon, that he keeps an eye on. As in stands at the 8 feet of fence that separate their corrals and watches his every move. All day.

He can trot and maybe even canter a little in his corral, but he can't stretch out. Today he had been in there for two whole days when I let him out in the arena... I didn't cluck once or twirl a rope. I stood in the middle and snapped pictures as he ran himself so hard at the end his sides were heaving with rapid, shallow breaths. It took 30 minutes to cool him out, and he wasn't dry, but man all that running must have felt good.
















10 comments:

EvenSong said...

Great sequence. Looks a little like Kate a couple of weeks ago, when I let her out.
Love the last shot, where he seems to be saying "There. I'm good now."

jacksonsgrrl said...

Oh how great that you got such COOL pics! Since Jackson is a pasture pony and then comes in at night, he has all that energy out of his system and I don't get those opportunities. A good thing, but once in awhile it would be funny! His weight looks great from the little bit I know! Anyway, it seems that he looks a bit "thicker" in the middle than he did, yes? What a good mama...
Remember when you sent me that thank you card for the horseshoes with the artwork you had done on it? It's a line drawing of a horse's head? Do you have any of those to sell or trade? I LOVE THEM! I have the card on my desk so I can see it and am planning on framing it! I can't believe you drew that...too bad we don't live closer; we could go into business together! And I HAVE made a full size shoe with a blown glass swirly glass pendent in the center. Lots of greens! Certainly came out much better than even I had hoped!
~Mindy

Anonymous said...

Nice shots - he looks good!

Jenn said...

What a happy pony! Great shots.

allhorsestuff said...

LOVE the action and the feeling of sheer exuberance in him!
XO
KK

The Equestrian Vagabond said...

happy horse!
- The Equestrian Vagabond

Achieve1dream said...

I love watching horses running, bucking and playing.

Heather said...

First time visitor! I love your story and your boys are both beautiful! Not sure if you are still having tying issues with Jasper, but what helped my horse even more than the blocker ring was the be nice halter-
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=2e87bf48-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5

The Equestrian Vagabond said...

i tagged you with the Beautiful Blogger Award... now you have homework!
- The Equestrian Vagabond

Albigears said...

He does love to run. The arena is really too small to get going, so as he turns a corner at the far end he begins gathering himself up and digs and grunts with each leap forward to accelerate as fast as possible. This is almost always followed by a buck and huge kick out backwards. Rinse and repeat.

Heather- the rope halter did wonders for the pulling back issue. Now he only does it if he's spooked badly.

Merri, thanks for the award, I will get to is ASAP. :)