Kat

We received a sad update from Shar on July 31st:

Catherine‘s beautiful post about Butters (on the Facebook SAFE Alumni page) gave me the nudge I needed to share with all of you that I lost Kat last month to colic. She was 27. Losing her crushed my heart. I miss her sassy attitude and her cute little mustache every single day.

We have taken things slow with Kat since she returned to SAFE. First we needed to get her dental updated and put her on a weight gaining plan. She was not getting enough calories before coming back to Safe Harbor so Melinda, our Herd Health Manager, set up a plan to slowly introduce more food and calories for Kat. It took a few months to get to her ideal weight and we then were able to start working her under saddle.

Once she was cleared to start working, things went very quickly. I was able to reintroduce riding without any issue. The adopter had kept her just as a companion. We have now been riding her for about 3 months and she looks great! No soundness issues and she keeps getting softer and more balanced. She has gone on a few trail rides and each time she is more relaxed and seems to enjoy the ride and human companionship more and more.

Here is a video showing a little bit of the work we have been doing with Kat at Safe Harbor:

Erica is a SAFE volunteer who rides Kat on a regular basis. She had this to say about her work with Kat:

I have now been riding Kat since December, and the most notable points for me have been her willingness to work, and her demeanor.

Kat hasn’t ever seemed particularly cuddly, but what I have noticed is that she is happy when we’re working. She likes to trot, and it feels like she really wants to move, even though we still restrict her from cantering with me riding. We’ve gotten to a point where her trot is quite forward, and she really powers herself well from the hind end. While lunging, she likes to canter, and seems to trip less and less.

Her demeanor really is positive while working, too. She responds well to positive reinforcement, and I notice her licking and snorting more and more! After working, she always looks forward to doing “carrot stretches,” and never pins her ears for that!

I truly enjoy working with Kat, and I feel like Terry is working extra hard with me and Kat, retraining us both! My sincere thanks to Terry and SAFE for giving me this opportunity to work with Kat and all the other horses!

Sara E is a SAFE volunteer who has been riding Kat on a regular basis. She had this to say about her work with Kat:

I first met Kat when I first started volunteering with SAFE and was doing night feeding. Truthfully I wasn’t impressed, she was standoffish and a little food aggressive. She was never out right mean, but was not a cuddle bunny or tried to seek out your company. Over the last year of working with her and now riding her I have come to understand a little more about miss Kat. She puts up a hard front, but once she trusts you and you two start communicating she comes out of her shell. Now she will never be a snuggle girl, but she does seek me out when I’m around.

I started riding her twice a week for a couple of months and then got a job that took me away from riding her for about a month and a half. When I started riding her again, I could tell she was a little mad at me for not coming out. Really, her being mad at me was a great feeling to have, it meant she liked me enough to miss me when I was gone. Instead of being indifferent to whether I was the one riding or not. Since starting to ride her again I have noticed her become more and more open with me, she still gives me her ‘mad’ ears but now its more like an inside joke between us. Leading her is now more of a formality, since she mostly just follows me around when we are together. She is a one person horse, if I have ever seen one. She puts up with people, but she bonds with just one.

I think one of our biggest breakthroughs was about a month ago, when we really finally started to communicate with each other while under saddle. Kat likes to do well when riding, and she can easily get frustrated when she doesn’t understand what you want her to do. Once she figured out how I was trying to get her to do things, and I figured out how to get her to do what I wanted, we started working so much better together. The best relationships are built on good communication, and with Kat that is so very true.

 Kat is an amazing little horse, shes got that good Quarter horse mind that thinks through things with out big blowups. She forward in her riding and yields to leg and seat ques and always tries to do what you want. She’s a little of a hard nut to crack, but when she starts to like you it makes you feel so good that the little standoffish mare only lets you give her hugs and kisses.

It’s been a while since we updated you on Kat. We’ve seen a definite improvement in her tendency to trip over her front feet, and we suspect that the addition of vegetable oil to her diet has helped with that. Volunteer Sara E has been working with Kat under saddle and after a great ride last night, Sara had this to say about the little redhead:

“Kat’s doing great! I think she likes the western saddle a lot, she’s not as cinchy when I tack her up and I think she likes the bit I use with her, no more head tossing. We are still working on her getting strong enough for the canter, but she has been doing super!”

We had a little dress up fun with Kat this last week and she looks amazing!  Sara E., one of our fabulous volunteers, brought her western barrel saddle over to Safe Harbor for us to borrow.  The western saddle is heavier than the English saddle that Kat had been using in the past and it has a rear cinch that prevents the back end of the saddle from rising up in working situations.  I’m sure this isn’t the first rodeo for this cowgirl but she was absolutely un-phased by the new accoutrement.  Now Kat won’t be cow penning any time soon but the western saddle maybe nice for some trail rides.  Truth be told, she is a quarter horse…and we all wanted to see how good she looked in the standard western getup!

Cowgirl Kat

As earlier post have stated, Kat has not been training this summer due to some tripping issues while under saddle.  We are just taking it easy till we know more about her situation.  But, she is still getting plenty of attention here at the Safe Harbor Stables.  She is groomed on a regular basis and enjoys some light lunging along with turnout aside her friend Lola which are all keeping her moving and happy.  Kat is a very steady mare, always likes other horses and is probably hands down the cleanest horse at the stables!  She is a little shy at times when we catching her from the field, but she quickly understands our purpose and lets us halter her without resistance.

We’ll keep you posted to developments on getting her back to work.  In the meantime, if you have a western saddle that is just laying around…think about donating it to SAFE.  We would love to have one or two on hand to ride some of the horses.

Over the past month or so, we’ve been noticing that Kat has been tripping more and more, both under saddle and even when being led. It’s gotten to the point where we’ve decided to pull her out of training with Brittney until we can have a vet examine her and possibly do a neurological exam. Our attempts to treat this problem through shoeing have not yielded much change. We’ll have updates on Kat’s situation when we know more.

Kat under saddle with volunteer rider Casey:

Kat is such a treasure! 

Kat has been in regular work for just over a month and so far she is a very steady and level headed mare at the walk and trot. She was ridden by one of our novice riders at the SAFE show and did great! Her canter work has proven to be a bit of a challenge as she does not seem very confident in her ability to balance at the canter. Our trainer, Heather, is working her in the round pen where she can work on cantering without the burden of balancing a rider or the the ability to lean against a lunge line. We’re confident that she will come around soon.

We were able to bring Kat to the SAFE show, and thanks to Chelsey Braswell, Kat got to experience so many wonderful things! Kat surprised us all with her willingness, bravery and ability! Here’s a full report from Chelsey:

Oh my goodness, Kat was a superstar. I cannot express how proud I am of her, we have only been riding her for 2–3 weeks, personally, I rode her one time before we went to the show. She really shined on western day, first thing we entered was Halter Rescue horse, and took 5th, she really squares up beautifully. Then we saddled up and entered the Walk/Jog (for the life of me I cannot remember if we were in Rescue or 18–29, hmph) but her cutest little jog got us a 5th place. We mosied on over to the mounted trails after that, just went for it. She was absolutely fearless, until we got to the noodles. But from what I hear no one got through the noodles haha. She ace’d everything else, over the pole no problem, the bridge she didn’t even blink. She did dance around the noodles, I brought her back around 3 times but after that I figured I didn’t want to scar her for life so we moved on, she did really well. We took first for mounted trails.

After that we had a couple hours for a break and a rinse, we tried out Western Dressage, since we missed the sign up for Saturday’s tests. She was amazing! She gets so excited that she gets a pretty quick jog going but just talk to her and she smooths out quite nicely, I am still trying to figure out the best rein position for her, so we were a little wobbly heading down center line, but everything else was fantastic! And she got a 5th place!

Then it was time for the costume contest. I found a Pocahontus costume at party city just looking for ideas (FOR $5!) and it just went from there, I decided it was perfect for Kat, being a Quarter Horse. My family and I really enjoyed dressing her up, because she just really seemed to love the attention, we tied some bright colored feathers in her mane and tail, and painted hand prints and designs all over her, making her the cutest Pocahontus’ War Pony you would ever see! We took second for the crowd pleaser award.

So finally we were done for the day and she had a much needed bath. I must add, this dramatically improved over the course of the weekend. She probably had 4–5 baths, the first one was a bit scary for her as she really was NOT about to get into the wash rack if she had anything to say about it, but by Sunday night, she completely unphased and just stood there soaking up the suds and water. And of course she loved her evening graze in the sunlight to dry off each time, might have helped.

Kat and I tried a few new things on Sunday, including Trot poles, which I failed. I lost track of the course and well, we were disqualified, but Kat was great. She hesitated over the first pole, but then glided over the rest of them like she was on a mission to finish.

Walk/Trot was fun, she is very good about transitions and steering (mostly with your body and legs, reining greatly improved over the weekend!) she was just too cute, and a little too fast.

From there we did the in-hand trails and flew through everything like she’d done it a million times before, even through the noodles this time! We took 4th place, and called it a day. It was so hot, and she worked SO hard the whole weekend, it was time to let her be done.

I cannot express how proud I am of our ponies, every one of our adoptable horses took home ribbons, it was really a great weekend!

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We have a wonderful photo gallery of Kat at the SAFE show, thanks to Chelsey and her family!