Happy birthday!!!

June 5th was Udex's birthday!!! I think he had a great day, and was definitely spoiled!! He got to go outside in the paddock "nakey!" Since he is allergic to bees, I keep a sheet and fly mask on him 24/7 (except for riding) so he has maximum protection! He is not too fond of wearing a sheet, and when I turn him out "naked" he is extremely happy and always gallops away to his palls faster then usual. Towards the evening though he was being spoiled and the little flies were irritating him pretty bad, so then the blankey came back on him, but for most of the day he was totally naked!
     Also, besides being naked, he got two presents! The first, a nice new pair of blue polo wraps to match his other blue tack! Electric blue really compliments his pretty color!! Now, the best gift of all??? A new rabbit fur brush for his face!! Udex is sooo picky about having his face brushed, (from bad past experiences and enlarged jugular veins from rollkur.) Anyways, he really enjoys having his face brushed with a softer brush! It makes me happy to see him so relaxed instead of jerking his head up to resist being brushed. I think he really enjoyed those gifts, possibly even more then I did!!!
    I have a few more gifts coming for him in a few days! I have a nice new, light, electric blue lunge whip! (Well I guess thats more so a gift for me!) The icing on the cake; a beautiful new electric blue crystal brow band!! I can't wait to put that on him, with the matching polos and saddle pad! Ahh, I can already see the beauty to that! I'm so excited! I think he will just love the attention that gift gives him!!!

   Okay, enough about gifts, and more about Udex!! So for his birthday I took him in and groomed him, loved on him, played a game with carrots, and gave him his birthday cake!! I made the most beautiful, tasty, amazing horsey cakes, EVER!! I am so proud of myself!! They were so good he licked the last remaining bits of them off the ground, which is very unlike Udex! He got six little cakies! The recipe for them was super simple too!! The perfect thing to "wow" everyone at the barn and make your horse go wild!! If your horse has a birthday, I definitely recommend those tasty little cakes!
     So now Udex is 14!!! I can't help but think about how fourteen years ago someone had this little foal, and looked at him thinking that he could be the next dressage champion. Breaks my heart about how bad rollkur messed him up, and how he got in such bad condition. (More about that later! I think my next article will be about his rollkur story.)
     Lessons are going great with Udex!! It is still a long road to recovery, but he remains so strong and always is trying his best! What a trooper!! Today we practiced leg yields and haunches and shoulder in's! He did really good, like always! He is such an intelligent horse and you really have to ride him well. You can't just ride him with your legs, or just your reins, or a little bit of both. You really have to sit on him nine hundred and fifty percent perfect before he begins to work. It is the most magical feeling to sit upon such a well trained horses back!!! Once again, the fact they had to use rollkur and ruin him really makes me angry. Anyways, my trainer and I have been working wonders with him. I am so proud of my trainer, Udex, and I! All three of us are a team. We all give our best every time. We are all doing this for the same reason... To help Udex become a horse again. All three of us have a special connection, and everything just works. I think if I didn't have the trainer I have now, that Udex and I would not be improving as much as we are now. The world needs more good people with big hearts out there!

     So, I will post soon about my horses rollkur recovery story!!! My goal is to get a website against rollkur out there, and hope to put an end to this horse abuse! It won't be easy but I know there are other riders like me out there who hate rollkur too! My goal will be to share Udex's story, in hopes that people can open their eyes up to what rollkur does to these horses. -More on that tomorrow.-

picture of Udex when I first got him curling up behind the bit out of fear

The Journey

       Why buy a horse like Udex? I mean, who in their right mind would want to buy an underweight, un-muscular, scrawny, HUGE, energetic warmblood? ("Me! Me! Me!!") An ideal first horse for a thirteen year old girl, would probably be a horse that is calm, sweet, muscular, well fed, and well ridden, that you could take to shows several months after buying, and ride everyday after it arrives at your barn. That's not the case with my Udex though!

   While looking for a rescue horse to fix up, I came across Udex. I almost immediately knew that he was the horse for me.
I am truly lucky to have such an amazing horse. I honestly can say that I am proud that my horse needs work. To me, that means that my horse and I are on a journey together. On our journey, we will both become disappointed, share our happy moments, have many laughs, have our falls, have our times when giving up comes to question, spend lots of time on just working out little flaws, and also become frustrated, but most importantly... We will achieve the one thing that matters most in the horse world... A bond. I know that together, Udex and I can accomplish all of our goals and prove many people wrong. The key to success with a horse is trust, a bond, patience, and love. I know that it will be anything but easy to complete our journey. There will be many days when I will question the goal... But I know, that in the end, we will complete our journey successfully and that the prize is oh, so worth it. So here we are, at the beginning of our very long journey. I know that together, Udex and I, we will do this.