Fly Masks

I rode Vintage on Saturday, mainly just working on holding two point, and getting her to stop rushing jumps. We made progress on both. Its possible I bored her completely by continuously staying on a circle, doing the same jump over and over. I think eventually she just gave up on life.

Afterward, I gave her some pampering by giving her a bath. She loves baths.

Pictured: Vintage loving a bath.

After a winter of no baths, she was desperately in need of one. Over the winter, and until I give her a bath, her coat looks like this:

I call her a dirt roan.

But under all that filth, she is actually gray roan-ish.

Dang it! I missed a spot on her neck! (and her entire mane.) whoops.

I didn’t do that great of a job, but it was just a bit of nice rubbin’ for her. She’s not trying to impress anyone.

And since she’s not trying to impress anyone, I immediately released her to roll.

Part 2 of why she loves baths.

Notice she is now wearing her fly mask. I decided to finally put them on this year. I wouldn’t have thought anything of this, but somehow it confused the horses.

Berry and Pony Man stared at a moment before doing the equivalent of the bro fist pump. “oh right, it’s you, my bestest friend in the whole world!!”

Then all three got together to sniff at each other. Why are there so many strange horses in the field?!

(yes, she did already get dirt on the coat. But you can see the gray peeking out underneath!)

But Vintage decided she didn’t like any of these strange horses in her field. Typical Vintage. She even did that heinous mare scream that sounds like they got punched in the gut.

“I’ll kill you!!”

They came back together a moment later to reconsider if Vintage liked them or not.

She still hated them.

And this is why Vintage can’t have any friends. I wonder if when I take their fly masks off, she’ll suddenly be be like, “where have you guys been?! There were some real losers out here earlier!”

Has anyone seen behavior like this? I didn’t think putting a fly mask on made a difference at all… they’ve been around each other with fly masks on before. Plus, I wouldn’t think just covering their eyes would make them not look at the entire other horse as a whole.

Sometimes these animals make no sense at all.

On a completely unrelated note, a little bird made a nest on my tack room shelf. It is so incredible cute! I tried to get a photo of her, but this is the best I could get before she flew away.

I don’t really like having animals in my tack room, but I feel like it would be mean to kick her out now. I’ll let her raise her little family, and then be more diligent about removing nests in the future.

It’s been such a beautiful day, I hope tomorrow is just as nice. Enjoy your weekend!