Hoping to help this one home:

Mayito - Black & White Paso Fino STALLION Stolen Henry County, MO 9/16/10

 

There is a possible Kentucky link, but that has not been proven as yet. Please keep your eyes open and help Mayito come home!

Progression

This week marks 13 weeks since I took Seamus on... that's a quarter of a year already gone by. I hadn't planned that he'd be here this long, taking him was one of those spur of the moment, must do sort of things that sometimes I get myself into (see also "Sugar, Paso Fino"). I figured I'd take him and start feeding him and find someone else pretty quickly to take him over. At that point, I don't think that it was evident how far down Seamus was. He still had a little GO if there was food involved, but that was all he had left- he still had that drive and will to survive but his body was going to be shutting down soon at that point if no one stepped in. Enter ME... I'm convinced that I have "SUCKER" tattoo'd on my forehead LOL

I thought that in celebration of Seamus surviving and being with me this long, I'd go back and post a progression of photos, one almost weekly so we can all see where he started and where he is now:

Dec. 27, 2010

Jan. 3, 2011

Jan. 11, 2011

Jan. 18th 2011

Jan. 24, 2011

Feb. 3, 2011

Feb. 10, 2011

Feb. 16, 2011

Mar. 12, 2011

Mar. 17, 2011

March 29, 2011

Taking chances

Today I took a chance and rode Seamus for the first time!

Seamus has stayed out since Sunday evening, only coming in to eat dinner and then he's been going back out in the front field with Uno, another TB gelding. I decided to keep him in tonight as we are expecting some cold rain with maybe a little snow mixed in *ick* What happened to spring??? I took a couple of photos of him in the barn area then brought him in to eat dinner and decided to back him in the stall again since I hadn't been able to work on his training at all over the last month due to his foot issue.

I got the rope reins and jumped on while he was eating, sitting up there the whole time since he is getting strong again and his back is much more filled out. He finished up eating so I asked him to circle the stall a couple times each way. Well, since he did what I wanted so nicely and stopped each time when asked, I then asked him to step up to the door with his head over so I could get to the latch to let us out. He took that just fine so I asked him to walk up and down the barn aisle a time or two... and that went so well I rode him outside and into the riding area! We took a couple meandering circuits around the riding area before he started to even get a little bit ancy with the whole deal. We stopped on a good note and my daughter managed to snap a couple of quick pics of us before the camera battery died. Seamus proves to me once again that he is a class act all the way!

12 weeks post-rescue

He rides!

No hard feelings :)

Turn out, finally.

Today Seamus got a few hours turn-out, the most he's had in almost four weeks! Since he got that good run the other day, he's been quiet when I would put him outside while I did stalls the couple of days after that. He's got a good head on him, let him get his kicks out and he's done with it. Today mostly he just went out, trotted the fence a couple of minutes, picked grass, and had a good roll. A new race filly was out there when I got back so there was a little fun with her, I think, but it was over with quickly.

That's about it, he starts going out during the day regular starting tomorrow :)

Happy Seamus's Bath Day!

 But I don't WANT my face washed!!!

So yesterday was St. Patrick's Day which I normally don't pay a whole lot of attention to, excepting the part about dodging pinches because I don't bother to wear green usually. It was also Lexington's official "First Beautiful Day of the Year" being in the 70's and gorgeously sunny with a bit of a nice, warm breeze. Such a relief after a nasty winter! I've been waiting desperately for a nice day in which I could give Seamus his first bath and not have to worry about freezing the poor boy to death, and yesterday was that day.

I left work and dialed up Cindy so I would have a helping hand and we got to the barn and set things up for bath time. Seamus took it well with only a little dumb racehorse antics, mostly because he had to stand still in the wash rack when he would have rather been eating. Got him all cleaned up pretty and combed out his mane and tail. I'm so very glad to be able to get all the residual dirt and MTG grunge out of Seamus' coat and the roots of his mane and tail! I even scrubbed his white socks up with Castille soap.

After the bath, Seamus stood around on the lead rope wearing a cooler and picking grass until he dried, then we took him in for a little clipper work on his whiskers, bridle path, and even his fuzzy ankle hair! Then we took weekly pics :D

Seamus is turning into One Beautiful Horse! As you can see, he continues to fill out slowly. He's still ribbier than these pics show, but that topline which has been worrying me so much is still coming up. Seamus has been on stall rest for the last three weeks due to his hoof softness and he's been fretting a bit in there. I have noticed a tendency in him to weave when bored so I suspect he is doing that when he's done with eating. He gets enough hay that he usually has some leftover in his hay bag and he has a Jolly Ball and a pool noodle to fiddle with in the stall, but I think now that he's had some turn-out experience, he wants more and is getting tired of this whole "stall rest" thing.

His hooves are toughening up so I am aiming to have Seamus going out in a field during the day starting next week or so. For the last week, while I clean stalls, he's been turned out in the lane to pick some grass and blow off a little steam, but there's not much room for antics in there. Yesterday after the bath and photo time, Cindy and I let him out in one of the big fields for a little playtime and we got a great 10 minute video (please excuse the audio LOL):

 

It's a little shaky at the beginning, but it gets better; Seamus also takes a little bit to get into the whole "freedom" thing. As you can see, he thoroughly undoes all that hard work that Cindy and I put into cleaning him up! Listen for the whinneying when he gallops from behind the tobacco barn- Seamus' sheer joy in running again is evident... and his trot is elevated and extended, naturally. He does take a slip once, but bounces right back and he came in from it fine, no worries. He was finished with his running after the video and he was brought in minutes after. This is the first time he's been in one of the larger fields since I got him almost 12 weeks ago and his natural energy levels have only really started to come back in the last couple of weeks. It's honestly taken him this long to truly start getting back what was lost to him due to his starvation in Chuck's care.

I can't wait until Seamus can be turned out again, he will get fat quick on all the bluegrass we've got coming in and gain muscle back running off his "stall rest" :)

All photos and video by Cindy, thanks pal!

Long time no update!

So it's been a couple plus weeks... I finally got my much needed vacation and married my sweetie while I was at it ;) I'm back this week and have NEW pics of Seamus for your viewing pleasure, as well as a bit of an update on his hooves.

Seamus' front hooves are firm and hardening up nicely and the abscess seems to be dry and healing. While I was gone, he stayed on the front wedge pads, but he's been off of them this week. He is still in pony prison (aka the stall) but he goes out in the barn area for a little while sometimes as long as he's good... which incidentally doesn't last long- he gets the wind up his butt and wants to take off bucking. He is feeling good and is not sore footed at all. Today he was turned out in the lane next to the large fields and got mad when the girls got brought in so he went tearing to the far end of it and then came tearing back! Obviously he came right in after that, but it proves that he is BACK :) And he is a gorgeous runner, btw... wish I had got the camera out for it but I was too busy yelling for his dumb butt to come back LOL

It got into the 60's today so we had a bit of a chance to do some grooming and wiping down, though I can't fully bathe the horses as the water is still way too cold out there at the barn. But he got a bit cleaner, better than he was. Cindy was out helping so she got him to stand up for some better-than-usual pics, but he's still a wiggly worm!

Here are BIG pics :)

Also, all Seamus' bloodwork came back normal, levels on everything are where they need to be. All this horse was lacking was food... imagine that. I am glad that we did them as I was a bit worried since it seemed to take forever for his energy levels to come up. They seem to be fine now judging by the show he put on in the lane today, though! He's been with me almost 11 weeks now, too :)