Thank you so much.................I've lurked here for a while.......eeewwwwww I hate that description, though, don't a-wads go to jail for that???????? hahaha.....
I have gotten many, many useful tips and links from you all, as I told Frog, my horse came straight off the track - T-Bred - and there were some "issues" that came up, a hidden abscess, which had been left untreated, strained suspensory, which I had shock waved and seemed to have helped...............BUT, after not having horses for about 25 years (just random, "good will" rides with friends, on vacation, etc) and being baptised by FIRE, by getting one off the track, I had to wait a little while for my "horse sense" to kick in after I got him home and started messing with him. But I do have to give myself credit, a good horse is a good horse, and he's turning into that. He'll always be a work in progress, though, the OTTB's are kind of like Greyhounds - they have no clue what it is to be a "normal" horse and you have to have the patience to teach them and allow them to be that. He's not for a beginner, that's for sure, but that was always one of my assets and my flaws when it came to horses, was that I never was "scared", really. My dad always MADE us get right back on. We knew we had to, he'd tell us "We can't have these horses hanging around doing nothing and if you're too gun shy from a fall to ride, well then, we'll have to sell them..........." So needless to say, we never even let him finish the sentence, we got back on, cleaned the barn extra-good, cleaned tack without being told...........STUPID, maybe but never scared. And even folks that pay $100,000 for horses (not me!!!!) can have them go lame, so when I got him, I was prepared to suck it up and work through any stuff that came up and he's turning out OK. It just takes time, consistency, decent care, etc. AND it sure helps to hear others give up some good ideas, too!! When I grew up with my horses at home, if you had your horses teeth floated once a year and had a bottle of the purple stuff with the cotton ball on the wire handy (for wounds and it stained really, really bad)- gentian??- man you were really "doctoring". Now, HOLY jeez, the Dover catalog sometimes is 5 lbs!!! Times have changed, that's for sure...........but, as we all know, blind, crippled or crazy, this horse stuff just doesn't wash out of your system, even with "old age" - hahaha..................
Nope, it doesn't, no matter how hard our spouses wish otherwise. ;o)