[Crazy4Bays]

Well, at the end of April, Shy got moved to her new barn. At the last barn, she had an indoor stall and a run. Now, she's got a nice shed and paddock. Paddocks are new to her, and she loves that she is able to trot around whenever she wants, lol.

So, at the new barn, there are 4 1/2 other horses. Yes, 1/2. There's a little mini, Dakota, that won't leave Shy alone!! This little mini absolutely adores Shy and vice versa. There's a lot of water in the pics unfortunately, but it had rained pretty good that day. Shy, of course, has enough space in her paddock to walk around the water, but she has to splash through it .




Whenever I take Shy out of her paddock, Dakota comes with. I have to tie her next to Shy because if I leave her in her paddock, she runs herself half to death.

Here's where my stupidity comes into play. I decide I want to longe Shy. The roundpen is in Shy's paddock (you can kind of see it in the first pic), so all I have to do is get her in there and close it. But it doesn't close all the way, making a 4 foot gap, so I decide to put a wheelbarrow full of manure in front of it to close it. Dakota found a way to slip into the roundpen with Shy so I said "what the heck, I'll longe them together." They're doing great, Shy's trotting around with the mini behind her. I look to my left and see the other horses galloping in their paddock and Shy starts getting prancy. I try to keep her mind occupied, but she doesn't listen. So what does she do? She trots up to the wheelbarrow, stops, and jumps over it. She clears it completely. Of course, now Dakota goes crazy because Shy is gone, jumps into the wheelbarrow, and jumps out and gallops to Shy. The first thing I did was check to make sure their legs were ok, and then I laughed myself half to death, lmao.

Now for the notsogood part. I had the farrier that does the other horses' feet look at Shy. He tells me that on a scale from 1-10 she's a -1. He said that her front left heel is 1/2 inch taller than her front right and that she's really stocked up in the back. Her angles are really off. He said that she must be in pain with the shape that her feet are in. I honestly don't know much about hooves or shoeing. He said that she has natural balance shoes in the front and I didn't even know what that was. I trusted our last farrier's opinion and let him do her hooves how he thought it should be done. I'm regretting it now. I wish that I had spent the summer learning more about hooves. But there's nothing I can do about it now but learn more. He's done wonders for the other horses and he said he can make her hooves a lot better in a few shoeings.

Overall, the new place is awesome. After a while, she might be able to go in the larger paddock with the larger horses. But for now, she only gets to be with the mini, lol. There are trails everywhere and an awesome arena down the street. She's only 4 miles from me instead of 26. I get to choose what she gets fed and how much. I have full responsibility now, and it's awesome.