I realized that I don't have too many photos of Nic, even though I spend the majority of my time with this guy. Jarred took this photo while I had Nic up in Idaho this summer. I had grand intentions of giving Nic a summer off from showing to trail ride with my friend Lori. I find trail riding totally unengaging and generally want to fall asleep in the saddle about 1/2 way into the ride. On the other hand, trail riding is great for the horses. It's mentally engaging for them and is a great way to get them in shape. So I committed to a summer of mentally engaging Nic who has spent his entire life doing circles inside an arena.

Not long after I brought Nic to his beautiful vacation home in Sun Valley, he went lame. To make a long story sort, Nic's got bad feet and considering the fact that he's got a big body and small legs, the condition of his feet is important. Since I've owned Nic he's been a tough horse to put shoes on and has had periods of lameness because of his feet. I think these periods of lameness came to fruition when we finally tried to put a new pair of shoes on Nic at the beginning of the summer. The new shoes ended up bruising his feet to the point that they abcessed. Abcesses are amazing because blood and puss actually spew from the foot. In Nic's case, they happened to spew from the top of his hoof.

Luckily, Sun Valley has a plethora of great farriers and good vets. However, Nic's foot problems weren't a quick fix and I spent the summer soaking his feet and making trips to the vet. We did no trail riding so neither of us got the vacation we wanted. As the summer wore on, I began to worry about the potential that Nic would never heal and I woud be stuck with a pasture pet.

Nic is finally sound now though. He's not 100% but I can now ride him and we're doing a lot of trotting, which Nic does not like because it's work. He'd rather continue his vacation time and get fat, eat, sleep and poop.