Tristan’s Very First Clip

Confession time. I had decided some time ago to clip Tristan; thanks to the excellent advice I got from everyone, I’d been swayed by the pro arguments, and had decided on a bib clip. Then I ran out of time on the day I had intended to do it, and put it off. And put it off.

Yesterday, it was in the 50s during the day. I had the day off, and thus all the time in the world. And I still drove to the barn with my stomach roiling, worrying, fussing. I even had this blog post half-composed: why I am terrified to clip my horse. I pictured everything that could possibly go wrong going wrong. Most of all, I couldn’t stop thinking about the winter to come, and the two horses in the barn that colicked last week (two totally different kinds of colic, both freak occurrences; one horse pulled through fine at the barn, the second is still at the clinic after surgery).

I rode for about 30 minutes, and after 6 minutes of trot Tristan was puffing like a steam engine and almost a bit damp. I was so frustrated with myself for letting him get into that situation because I was afraid, so I put him in his stall and assembled my tools.

Today it’s warm again, and then winter will set in for good. He’s got his full range of blankets ready, and hopefully now he’ll cool off faster and easier.

I’m really glad I went through with it. Soon after I clipped the first hair (not going to lie, there were some hesitation cuts there with little fluffy bits of hair in the air and my stomach doing flip flops), I immediately set in to the job at hand and felt fine about doing it. None of the angst I thought I might have.

I’ll report back on how we’re handling it going forward.