STILL walking though we did trot for about ten steps today and he was very calm and good. He's getting softer on the bit but still fighting it so I'm going to try the draw reins on him. I also bought a used Micklem bridle to see if the anatomical would make a difference and I'm going to need to play with adjustments but I think it's worse with it, not better. We did try it on a very windy and cold day though so I'm not 100% turned off by the bridle yet.

Cliffy drank his psycho juice today so I put him in the roundpen before we killed each other and he decided to show off a bit 😍

Happy retirement, buddy. I'll update this later I guess. Thanks y'all for the support ♡

wait is he actually retiring? if so how come?

<3

Cliffy says retirement life is the best life.

So a little summary of the reason I made the decision to retire him: In February, we re-xrayed his back and found that the KS had gotten a little bit worse. Not bad enough to retire him, but bad enough to consider surgery. So we were considering it- it's actually a pretty cheap procedure, less than 3k, and very much in my budget. But while the xray machine was out we decided to check on his bone chip in his pastern, and found that it had gotten markedly worse.

That is a much more expensive surgery, and he would have to spend a lot longer on stall rest and rehabbing for it, and I'm not sure how well he'd do in a stall for a prolonged amount of time. That, plus the financial considerations, made me finally decide to retire him. And it's been really fucking hard. Riding him was incredible- it was never boring, but he had the best canter in the world, and finding a distance on him when jumping was amazing. I'm really sad that our story ended before we ever got to do anything, either. Never showed him more than once in the 2'3 and once at a dressage show, never accomplished any of the many goals I had set for him, never got to show the world what an incredible athlete he is. But that happens with horses. Sometimes they just get dealt a shitty hand of cards, and it's our job to do the best by them that we can.

So it's been hard, but it's getting easier. He's relaxed a lot. He's barefoot now and fat and happy and gets hosed down every day and taken to the lake for splashies and gets to roll wherever he wants. He's only 13, so he has many many happy years ahead of him to look forward to. I do love my stupid thoroughbred a lot, and I'm glad to be giving him the chance to just be a horse.

You are so knowledgeable and caring about your horses Puck. I am sure retiring him was a tough decision, but I am glad it worked out. I wish you luck in what you decide to do in the future with your horses! I know you will do great!

Little update. Cliffy is still retired and that will not be changing ever, but he's been getting antsy in the paddock lately so today I threw a saddle on him and just walked him around the arena for a few minutes. He was a very good boy, it was cold and misty and he hasn't been handled any more than just grooming and stuff since April, but I got on him and dropped the reins and he moved off my leg and was just very quiet and good. Going to be doing this more often in the future, just to give him a bit of a 'job'. I won't lie, it was really nice to see the space between his ears again. I missed that a lot.

The handsomest boy 🥰

Good news everybody, Cliffy wore a hat today.

Bonus Pogo content:

Ponied Cliff today on a trail ride. It was his first off-property excursion in over two years, and he hopped straight onto the trailer and behaved like an absolute gentleman most of the time... until we got to the pond. He had a very very good time. ♡