Mississippi Mud

Mississippi winters are no fun. My northern friends will probably roll their eyes and curse me for what I'm about to say, but I'd almost rather be in New England. I know it is brutally cold and there is snow, but at least the ground freezes and most places have indoors. Down here it's just soggy so we're just SOL.


The rain starts in November and doesn't end until sometime in May. The ground gets saturated. Worse yet, the soil is mostly clay so you don't just get muddy, you get caked in clay. It's like you and your horses are wearing concrete boots. It's no joke; neither Elliot nor I find it amusing. He gets cranky and tired of slipping and sliding. I get tired of pushing a wheelbarrow through six inches of mud.


There isn't really a good place to gallop or jump so conditioning is tricky. We do a lot of trotting down the road, which keeps the horses relatively fit, but is a little like playing Russian roulette. We go over a couple bridges and often drivers don't slow down much. Even the school bus tries to engage us in a good game of chicken. I forfeit every time.

I cannot wait to go to Ocala. We are counting down the days! Just under two weeks.

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Living the Dream, part II

Elliot also works hard. Those 6 or 7 hour work weeks are really rough on a guy...


But seriously, Elliot is like any other professional athlete: He works hard, gets treated very well, and is completely adored.

There are different theories on how to condition an event horse. I buy into Jimmy Wofford's theory of riding them pretty much every day (Jimmy has a number of interesting articles on his fitness in Practical Horseman, here's a link to his most recent which in turn links to the earlier). He does not need to get ridden hard everyday, but he goes out and does something each day. It keeps the dust off and also is good for his body to keep loose and moving. The only day Elliot gets completely off is after an event (unless there's an injury or the weather is particularly bad or I have some terrible illness that leaves me hospitalized).

Elliot gallops every fourth day working backwards from cross country day of his next event. Running and jumping is easy for him. He gets fit quickly and stays fit easily so my gallops on him do not need to be as long as some of my other horses (even some competing at lower levels). Currently, Elliot is doing three 7 minute gallops proceeded by a trot. Gallops do not mean fast. These are more or less slow canters. As he moves up the levels he will do more sprint work and more hill work. The trots will also get longer. I worry less about Elliot not being fit enough than I do about Elliot being too fit. He can feel like lit dynamite sometimes.

The days that he doesn't gallop are divided between long walks, long trots, dressage, and show jumping. He works about an hour every day.

We want to make the hard days at home so that when we get to the event he is fit and well. As they say, 'a fit horse is a sound horse'!

Elliot's days, like mine, follow the same basic routine:

In the summers he stays out at night because it's brutally hot in during the day. After the three board fence fiasco, he has been going out by himself. I feel a little bad about that because horses are herd animals, but another injury would also be bad news so we have to weigh the pros and cons. Plus he's got a little bird friend. They hang out.


He comes into his stall in the morning. He gets free choice hay because he is burning so many calories, and we want him to stay round. For the same reason, he gets fed three or four small meals a day versus two large ones. Horses are grazing animals and not designed to digest large amounts of grain. As a result, large meals are not good for their stomach. In an effort to avoid gastric ulcers, especially because of Elliot's history of colic, we do what we can to keep his tummy happy (this also includes daily feed through supplements meant to improve digestive health in horses and GastroGuard when he travels).

Smellie hangs out until about 3pm, when I get there. I groom him, do his stretches, and ride him then he gets dinner and goes back out.

Somedays I also to do extra things like putting 'the lights' on him to help with muscle soreness.


An upper level horse also requires a lot of maintenance. We are lucky to have such a great team keeping Elliot feeling good. Mississippi is not the mecca of English riding let alone eventing so we have spent a long time finding professionals we trust to work on our horses. Elliot gets his teeth done every six months; he gets a chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture every month; he gets his feet shod every five weeks.

You cannot expect them to perform at their best unless you take care of them. All the extras are totally worth it.

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