12 Awesome Things About Spring Only Horse People Understand

Spring has sprung! With it comes a whole host of awesomeness that every horse person can relate to…

1. Horses in fly masks

Next to foals galavanting in the paddock, few sights are as sweetly endearing as a pair of pricked ears in a fly mask. It's like a blindfold that let's you see happiness. Kind of silly. Entirely awesome.

2. Muddy boots

Mud is the worst. The way it clings to your boots only to come off in large dried chunks in your car and home. The more aggressive varieties will suck a Welly right off your foot and devour it in one yawing gulp. But the sound of mud squishing under your boots? Awesome. The sparkle on your rainboots now that you've been forced to clean them? Awesomer! The satisfaction of emerging from a wet paddock with dry feet? AWESOME-EST.

3. A good curry session

Horsehair up your nose is the definition of awful. But nothing beats the perverse satisfaction you feel when you've curried a mountain of hair off a shedding horse. It’s awesome you can't even put into words.

4. Killing flies

Flies are a nuisance for you, your horse, and every sunny windowsill their carcasses end up on. It’s probably why killing flies feels so oddly therapeutic. Maybe it's the zap of your electronic fly deterrent. Or you caught one with a well-timed spritz of UltraShield. There's something deeply satisfying about taking down a fly—particularly the ones with the gall to land on your horse.

5. Storing winter blankets

If you blanket your horse in the winter, it’s claimed a good chunk of your time and mental capacity these past few months. The endless folding. The perpetual brushing off of shavings and dirt. The constant agonizing over the warmth-to-comfort ratio of blanketing combinations. Finally storing your cleaned blankets for the summer? A drier sheet scented sigh of awesome relief.

6. Mud baths

Few things are as disappointing as arriving at the barn for a ride only to discover your horse has died his hair—with mud. You're probably going to spend more time with a bucket of Showsheen 2in1 than in the saddle. But the before and after Instagram photos you're going to take of your horse's Pigpen impression? Social. media. gold.

7. Spring hacks

The first warm days of spring are meant for riding outside. Whether it’s the first spin around the outdoor arena or your first hack down the driveway, nothing puts the "spring" back in your horse’s step quicker than the outdoors after a winter of ring riding. If you manage to come back on your horse—doubly awesome.

8. Regular baths

Hosing off a sweaty horse after your ride is a luxury never felt more acutely than after the spring thaw. So convenient! So clean! It’s awesome you’ll forget to appreciate in a month or so, so savor the moment now.

9. The smell of liniment

The fresh scent of menthol on your horse is second only to the comfort of relieving his sore muscles. Liniment is the scent of awesome and it makes its resurgence in the spring.

10. Catching up with barn friends

Who’s at the barn when the weather takes a turn for the better? Only everyone! Warm and sunny days are meant to be spent leisurely mucking around the barn with your horse friends.

11. Barn dogs

The only one happier than you to be at the barn in spring? BARN DOGS. The panting smile of a dirt covered barn dog is the physical manifestation of happiness. Awesome incarnate.

12. Spring cleaning

Sure, the monsoon season that is spring is going to claim a riding day or 10. Those are the days you clean out your locker, whiten your horse's socks, or tackle the rat's nest you call his tail with patient combing and a generous dose of Showsheen Detangler. You know, all the little tasks you plan to do but never seem to find the time for. Awesomesauce.

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