Days like today...

.... are the reason I love this horse so much!
It was one of those you had to be there kind of days but here's how it went.
Leroy has been on stall rest recovering from mud fever and we let him out for the day in the upper field which isn't muddy and locked the other 4 up there with him. So I did the evening feeding before the horses could come back down to their stalls and my plan was to walk up the aisle way, catch Leroy and open the gate to the main field and they would all run back to the barn, and Leroy and I would sneak through the aisle to get to the barn to avoid mud.
As I got to the gate the horses were all going crazy, running and leaping, total chaos. And by now he is feeling good enough that he could have been gallivanting with him. But he wasn't Instead he stood calmly at the gate waiting. So I got into the pasture and all the horses were running up to me and running away and being very aggressive. And it's pretty dark out by now so I was a little worried that they weren't paying enough attention to me. so I'm dodging their attacks. Leroy walks up right next to me as if to block them from coming at me. So I put his halter on and everyone is going crazy still. One of the them chased another down the fence line and almost into the gate. By now Leroy is pinning his ears at them and actually moving as needed to make sure they aren't able to come at me. So I walk him to the gate that I'm going to open for the other and the starts nipping at the horses coming up to me. I opened the gate and as expected everyone when running and bucking towards the barn, and Leroy looks at me as if to say, "alright, it's all clear, let's go".

He was my protector, and I love him!

Mud Fever Cabin Fever

Leroy has mud fever!!! It looks like he's also getting cabin fever!

Luckily my mother is a shaman and has whipped up some magic potion for him.

Day 1:

Day 6:

After only 6 days it's less irritated, less pink, less sore, and there is already hair growing back!

Leroy - professor of blanket demolition

I know it has been forever and a day since my last post, but Samantha reminded me and i need to be blogging and I though I would vent .... I mean blog about my dearest Leroy.

Leroy is now the professor of blanket demolition. Not because he has managed to destroy $200 in blankets in the last 3 weeks. But because he is now working on teaching the other horses how to do the same. I keep a light waterproof sheet over his blanket to discourage him from making blanket death threats because he likes to tug at the front of his blanket with his teeth and he always rips the stitching/piping along the bottom usually he will then just grab at it and play with it without much further damage. Until a couple weeks ago that is, when my mom took it off and said "he doesn't like it because it makes him look like a girl" (it's polka dotted) I explain to her that he likes to eat his blanket and that's the only thing that keeps it safe. 3 days later he has ripped the piping along the entire right side of the blanket along with tearing across the butt and some other rips... You would think the horse got attacked by a lion. But I assure you... No lions.

So with that blanket shredded I thought it was kind of crummy but at least it lasted all of last winter with only 2 repairs needed. So I borrow a blanket from a friend, put the polka dots on top and tell my mom not to mess with it because I will buy him a new sheet but he has to not rip the borrowed blanket. 2 days later I have bought a new blanket and he has done his typical chest to shoulder rip on the borrowed blanket.

I then give him his new blanket (which is not waterproof) and the polka dotted sheet and assure him I'm working on a "less girly" sheet. A week goes by... No damage. Woo hoo!
New sheet arrives while I am out of town for 4 days but my mom puts it on him and tells me it looks really nice.
2 days later she tells me he is naked... I haven't yet seen the damage but I was told it happened in stages. First the new sheet was dragging on he ground somehow (shredded maybe?) them the blanket underneath was dragging on the ground at some other point while I was gone.
Tomorrow I will asses the damage and update anyone reading this.

I am told that some of his pasture mates blankets have similar battle wounds and that it appears he is either helping others to remove their blankets or teaching them to do it themselves.

Now I must decide between slathering the blankets in Tobasco sauce or making him ride out the winter with no clothes. I think the deciding factor will be my anger level when I see the damage to the new blankets.

The other man

This was supposed to post on August 17th, but apparently my phone decided against it...

Well I hate to post about another man but I am.
As I sit in the Sacramento airport my heart aches. I came down here for the Northern California Yearling Sale since Thoroughbred breeding is something that our family does. I go down this time each year to help my grandmother and I have never gotten attached in the past but this time was different. Even though I knew he would leave, my heart was stollen by this beautiful chestnut colt by Old Topper. After a long and extremely screwed up situation with his sale that I won't go into detail on for fear of breaking down in the airport I said goodbye to this extremely special horse this morning.
I must cut this short as the tears are forming but he was so special to me I felt he should have a tribute on Leroy's blog, seeing as they were also friends for the last couple months (they shared a fence line). Even though I think Leroy may be a little upset that this post isn't really about him at all.

I'm going to open this bag and put it in my belly

No grain is to ever be left unattended near Le Roy. I have witnessed many times this attempt to outsmart the human who created the grain bag.
In fact once at an old barn of ours where the fronts of the stalls were completely open, I turned my back to him to look at another horse when I heard the sound of a bag scraping against wood. I turn back to look at him and he had grabbed the open, half full bag with his teeth and was dragging it up the side of the stall while backing up. I didn't even say a word, he saw me looking at him and dropped it immediately. Then I got the "what are you lookin at?" look.

The "You let her brush him barefoot?!" Day

My little cousin came out and she loved Leroy. So I told her we could brush him, or course, to a 5 year old his means use ever brush you can find and brush all the same spots over and over.

After taking some photos my mom's reaction to seeing them was of course, "Oh my god Stefanie, you let her brush him without any shoes on?! I'm terrified just seeing these"

PSH, like he is going to move any of those feet while grain is in front of him.

I was so proud of my boy until the second the grain was gone and he gave her what I will commonly refer to as the "Leroy Eye".
This is a look where one or both eyes get a little too big, where you can see the whites, and you can tell that there is a few possible thoughts going through his head.
"Oh my, you look interesting"
"Oh my, that looks fun"
Among others
Although a true "Leroy Eye" has never been successfully documented, here is the closest anyone has ever come to catching one on camera.

1 Whole Year

Our 1 year anniversary was August 2nd 2011.
So to celebrate I thought a photo shoot would be fun. Self directed of course, anything else would be too fancy for me.

So knowing how much he doesn't really like photos I decided to ambush him during his evening grain feeding. So while he was eating off the ground I knelt down positioned my phone in front of us and squeezed my head close to his. And what does he do? Flops his big ol' ears around and shoves one of his giant fuzzy ears into my eyeball.
I think it goes without saying he was not so pleased with my photo shoot idea.

And the aftermath was captured here: