grooming

Before and After

/ Ashley Wingert / 6 Comments

It was Pony Bath Day today.

The Before:

I just noticed the tongue sticking out!

I took the worst pictures today.  Seriously, my adorable pony looks like a hippo.  But I wasn’t thinking when I took this first picture…should have stepped further back.

Funny thing, you can’t tell how dirty she actually is.  She is practically day-glow white in pictures even when she’s dirty, so no one actually believes me unless they see her in person and see how much dirt she packs into that coat.  Especially after I curry her.
She got a really thorough bath…fingernail scrubbing down to the roots of her mane and tail, rubber bath mitt all over her whole body, especially getting the scurfy stuff off her legs.  Sprayed her mane and tail with this avocado moisturizer spray stuff I really like (EQyss Avocado Mist) and left her in the washrack to finishing drying while I sized and fit Renegades on one of the barn owner’s horses.  
I really enjoy the whole process of boot fitting and sizing…it always interesting to see static fit versus dynamic fit — just because it looks like it fits at a standstill doesn’t always mean it’s the right fit once they start moving.  But that’s worth a whole other blog post.
Back to the pony, who was cooling her heels and getting cooed over by the two young daughters of a friend of the barn owner.  As a final touch, she got Show-Sheened on her mane and tail, fly sprayed, and this was the end result:
Again, my apologies for the hippo-head quality of this shot.  She kept making a bid for the grass the second I would try to step away far enough to get a decent pic.  So it’s her own fault.  And she really needed to be out in the sunshine for the full day-glow effect.
And I did this to my helmet:
Racing stripes!!!
They’re reflective, too.  I haven’t been using the velcro-on Salamander Beak visor of late, because I’m finding that sunglasses + tiny visor on helmet is really enough coverage, and it doesn’t block my upward vision quite as much.  If Mimi was a head-tosser, I’d be more concerned about not having a stiff visor to block potential upward head movement, but she tried that trick once, years ago, when I wore a Troxel helmet with a longer, stiffer visor.  She smacked her poll into the visor edge, and she hasn’t tossed her head upwards since.
Tomorrow’s supposed to be another triple digit day…I think I might hibernate next to the a/c vent.  Next weekend is supposed to be a reprieve down to the 80s (How you know you live in AZ: When the words “down into the 80s” is considered a reprieve) so the barn owner made some noises about hauling out to ride for one last chance at nice weather.
The one perk of hotter weather: Lees people out on the trail.

My Little Pony

/ Ashley Wingert / 6 Comments

Today was Pony Spa Day, and I took the plunge…

I cut Mimi’s mane.

Please note the “wild pony” eyes. This is the look she
displays pretty much 24/7 through the months of March
and April.  Fun times.

Part of me is crying inside right now.  I know, I know, it’s just hair.  It grows.  But there’s that nagging little, “What have I done?” in the back of my mind.  Sort of the same thought that has gone through my head whenever I’ve decided to chop my own hair really short in the past.  (Never again.  My hair is meant to be long.)

It’s not like I roached it off.  I won’t go that far.  I just cut it to the point that it was at back in our show days.

A large part of me wants that “long, flowing Arabian mane” look.  Unfortunately, the reality is, Mimi got the “crappy Appy” mane/forelock in her POA breeding.

And her mane was three or four different lengths, thanks to the fact she rubs out the middle section of her mane every few months by sticking her head through the bars of her pipe corral stall.  So she had the long, flowing mane…for the first four or five inches of mane.  Then it was the wimpy, rubbed out, really thin middle section.  Finally, the last third of her mane is a different texture (kind of wavy…not unlike my own) and never grew as fast as the front portion.

Cute as she is, the mane was not helping her looks any.  And I can’t get braids to stay in for longer than a day or two.

She still looks cute (she always looks cute) and very much like she could go right back into the show ring.  (If you overlook the metallic rub stains, saddle sweat, mud, manure, and yellow tail.  I wanted to give her a bath…then the clouds came in and she was given a reprieve.  Mostly because I didn’t want to end up cold and soaked.)

I don’t know if I’ll just leave it like this, or if we’ll attempt to grow it out and and see if she can keep it a little more even.