All The Kings' Horses

From Danielle: Gia’s Blog February 24th - March 20th Well, clearly, I got a bit behind in writing Gia’s blog for the past few weeks. To say it has been a bit busy around here is an understatement! Heather was in the hospital for surgery and I was trying to keep things afloat, we got in a new (super cute) horse for training, and we even had a brand-new addition to the Castle Farm family born on St. Patrick’s Day. With Heather being out of commission, I have slowed my goals for Gia. Prior to Heather’s injury, I felt a need to get Gia back and ready to ride. However, since Heather will be out of the saddle for a while and I haven’t been able to clone myself, riding is still a while off. I decided to really focus on letting the grooms work with Gia WITHOUT me supervising. There have been ups and downs, but overall, I think everyone is feeling more confident and comfortable. (Both horse and humans) Soon, I will reintroduce the saddling process with Gia, but thanks to everyone’s hard work, I...

Monday, February 16th-Ashley and I worked together with Gia again. The grooming went well so I asked Ashley to go ahead and pick out Gia’s feet. I am still watching over the process with her feet, but she has been more agreeable to having them touched lately so I figured it was time to move onto something new. Gia was very well behaved for having her feet picked. However, Ashley noted to me that her feet smelled terrible. Horses’ feet never smell great, but we all become accustomed to that “normal” smell. I have no sense of smell any longer, but I still knew immediately what Ashley was talking about: thrush. As I mentioned last week, Dr Jim had noted Gia had thrush in one foot. We had been treating that one, but not her others. It is not surprising that thrush popped up in her other feet and I was able to quickly get on top of treating them. Thrush is one of the smells that is imbedded in my brain and while I can’t physically smell it any longer, I sure can trigger that memory. It’s al...

 Monday Feb 9th-On Monday, we split the time grooming Gia. She was probably happier with her time being groomed by Ashley than me, for once. It’s past time I tackled Gia’s very thick, large mane. Having her mane pulled has never been a preferred activity of Gia’s. The goal is for her to stand still and allow me to pull it neatly. She prefers to throw her head up. This isn’t an uncommon reaction, but with Gia, when she throws her head up, she hits the roof of the barn…we will continue to work on this with Gia and hopefully soon, get her mane washed, as well. Stay tuned… **Tuesday and Wednesday-I (Danielle) was out of town. I know Gia saw our favorite chiropractor, Dr Jim, while I was gone. He confirmed she was sensitive to her feet, but due to a condition called thrush. This is very common especially with weather conditions as weird as we’ve had lately. Despite being in a drought, we had a lot of “moisture” (frozen) sitting on the ground for quite a while. We should be able to treat...

This was another shortened week due to yet another storm. At least we finally got some snow, not ice! We started our training horses on Wednesday this week due to the conditions on Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday, February 4- I opted on Wednesday to have Ashley jump right in with working with Gia while I watched. Gia has been making big strides (she’s good at that under saddle too) lately with her patience and tolerance. I actually asked Ashley to send me how she felt the work went. Here is what Ashley had to say: "I got to work with Gia on Wednesday and it was so needed. I miss working with Gia on my regular grooming days. With Danielle near by, I started by taking off Gia’s blanket. She was a little frustrated that it was me working with her instead of Danielle and when I approached her to take off her blanket, she lifted up her back left leg. Previously, Gia would not listen to me when I told her to put her leg down but this time, I told her once and she put it down for me. I wa...

Winter has officially arrived here in NC. Typically, we don’t receive much snow or ice and when we do, we are able to work around it. However, last weekend, we got a decent amount of ice. Temperatures remained cold enough to leave much of the property as an icy mess. On Monday and Tuesday, I (Danielle) was working on catching up on the regular chores around the barn and did not work horses. This (blog) week will start on Wednesday. Wednesday Jan 28, 2026 - This one will be a little bit of a multiple part as I ended up doing a bit of work with Gia a couple times in the day. In the morning, I decided to jump right in with a “new person.” Ashley is our groom on Wednesday mornings, and it has been a bit since she has groomed Gia. I opted to explain from a distance the processes of having Gia put her foot down and when to pause (not stop) grooming, etc. I chose to stay a little bit further back while Ashley was doing Gia. Lately, when the grooms have been working with Gia, I have been stayi...

This has been an eventful week here in Knightdale! We are currently in the middle of an ugly winter storm that has brought little snow and lots of ice. This week the farm was a buzz with storm preparations. Some of those even involved Gia… Monday January 19th - On Monday, I worked with Gia at a “new” location. Primarily, Gia has been working in our main crosstie area. However, I would love for her to be able to be groomed in multiple locations. Due to her very large size, we are limited to only a few grooming spots, though. We have a tree with a tie that can be used for large horses to be groomed. I have groomed Gia here many times in the past, but of late, it does seem to be a bit triggering. I opted to try and work with her at the tree and take it very slowly. As it turned out, this was a good plan. For whatever reason, Gia was very anxious standing at the tree. As an added challenge, I cannot easily use the carrot ball at the tree. As soon as I started working with Gia, she was obvi...