Weird horses are blow-hards

The big man was in a weird mood today.

The farrier was scheduled to do pedicures on everyone, so, I pulled them all out of their mud lots (can't really call them dry lots at this point in the season) so I could wash legs and give them a brushing before he arrived.

Everyone stood nicely and let me dunk their legs into warm buckets of water to rinse most of the sticky gunk off. Teddy freed himself four times (he's a master houdini and can untie just about any kind of knot!) and I had to go chasing after him. Gabe wanted to play face wars with Teddy at the hitching post (he can be an ass about it), Little Lou was completely content with scratching his face on the tie rail and Montana fell asleep at the post.

We had NO thrush in any feet and they all looked great, which surprised me considering the mud they've been standing in for months. I expected at least some thrush, but there was none. Yay!

Each horse (except Gabe, of course) stood beautifully for the farrier, as expected.

Gabe, he was weird. He's usually wiggly, not being bad, but wiggly. He doesn't like to stand still for long. He typically shoves his head against my chest and rests it there while the farrier works or tucks it beneath my armpit and grinds his teeth. He grinds when he stresses or worries, and having his feet done stresses him.

This time, all he wanted to do was shove his head between my arm and body or into my coat pocket and BLOW hard, you know like they do when they see something that gets them excited or worried. The harder he snorted into my arm, the more excited he got, and when I pushed him away, he was extremely insistent on getting his nose back where it was so he could "bugle" again. The more excited he got, the pushier he got, which is unusual. He can be nosy and in your space, but rarely adamantly and rudely pushy. It was weird. He's never behaved like that before and I can't quite decipher it.

But, his feet got done and his frogs are right at the shedding point, so things aren't beautiful, but better than they were. No thrush, no cracks, no worrisome anything.

Tomorrow, he's going on an "exciting" trip. Little does he know he's headed to the horse dentist. Poor guy needs some dental work. He has a cap that never fell all the way out and it's now looking swollen, sore and infected and I know his grinding habit has played hell on his molars and his canines need clipped. His been dribbling his food a bit more than usual and not holding his weight like I'd like to see. He's a normally sloppy eater, but the slop is bigger than usual. Typical Thoroughbred mess mouth, I'm sure. It was a mess the last time he was done, it'll be a mess again.