Lame!

Old photo from when I was riding Butch as a 7yo- look how little the jumps are!

Cursed cursed bad luck! Butch is still lame, I still have no idea why. The farrier went over his princess foot with a fine tooth comb and couldn't find anything. It's a mystery lameness and those are the worst kind because they are expensive. But he is way lame, like my boss said even a moron could tell he is lame.

The thing is he has a strong pulse running down to his foot which indicates a foot issue, but he doesn't respond to the testers at all, anywhere. He has no heat, no swelling and it doesn't behave like a soft tissue injury. So he jumped the weekend at Manfield. The next day he was a little lame and his shoe had twisted on his bad foot a little bit. That was the foot that had been poorly shod making him not want to jump and leading to his arrival back here and into my ownership. He is a little thin soled on his front feet and there is some bruising, but he doesn't have a reaction to the testers on his bruises at all. Apparently his foot landing is fine too. So I whipped the shoe off and he improved though after his shoes were reset he was still a little off but improving. Had a short schooling ride and he was a little sore so mostly did walk work and stretches.

He continued to improve, took him for a walk hack around the roads about 800m mostly on the verges and the next day he was very lame and has stayed that way/worsened ever since. I just don't know whats going on with him and it sucks not having one of my own horses going. I will need to sell some old gear to pay for the vet. :( Nevermind. Horses man, such bringer downers. The really good master farrier is going to have a look on Friday and then I imagine he will be mystified and I'll take him over to the good vets. Boo.

Chief Shit Mover

I'm lucky in my job here that I get to do a lot of riding. Lots of jumping, lots of hacking and with less enthusiasm I seem to have inherited on of the breakers because he likes me better. But lets be honest if you are a working pupil your main job is moving around poo. I don't mind moving poo though, I have always been a fan of manual labour. What has sucked at the moment has been the rain, the cold and creeping arrival of Winter. Which sucks because Winter and horses have long been a terrible combination. Here we have currently only got 8 and half (one satanic weanling) on about 3 acres of grazing so the horse density is high and to preserve pasture the horses come in when it's wet. Its dragged on for about a week now. They had been going out for the days but now it's two wet for that, so I have seven bored bored bored horses in boxes.

When it's been pouring like yesterday I turn them out two at a time in a big paddock so they don't do too much damage while I do those two stablesand then bring them in and so on and so forth. Today I had had a gutsful of them. Butch has pulled up lame and the weather is miserable and they all had ants in their pants so I turned everything out for two hours and they grazed and played and only got rained on really hard once. Still by the time I had mucked out and fed and watered they were all at the gate mugging to be brought back in.

It's interesting two how the girls are so much neater than the boys. And Erl is disgusting. Just gross. I found out early on when I was washing him he has a leaky bum which is why he is impossible to keep clean (of course he is grey) but today when I was pushing to clean the boxes up I realised with horror that has was just pee and poo and sawdust soup so I have had to strip his stable and resawdust it, though tomorrow I'm sure it will be soup again just not as bad. He is just gross. I feel like he is my karmic punishment for being bad at some stage in my life. Needless to say that ended up being a lot of work in the rain. Really makes you appreciate the tractor you used to have when you are back to doing everything with a wheelbarrow.

Still it's satisfying once it is done and I really love the horse. It just blows me away just how much feacal matter they can produce. My boss got kicked the other day too, by the breaker I don't want but likes me because I'm the lunch lady. So it's just been me looking after a lovely team of horse with the exception of the foal (cue music from the omen) and the breaker that kicks. Good times!

Kim Rules

My little sister (left), currently in Australia, must be getting a little annoyed with my lack of posting, so she sent me this message about stories I could tell of my ponies: I will add some reply in bold.

ok ok ok... this could be long. Well there was the time mum jumped on Marcus and galloped away on him.. much to my horror.. but now looking back it must have been fun jumping on a 14hh pony and galloping the shit out of him (He was a little bastard and deserved it, to be fair Mum did this to Bob the first time we rode to pony club because I was scared). The time when you told mum to shoot bob after she reared over on you.. and dumped you 3 times (I still feel this was a fair point even if she did go on to be the best horse ever, I landed on a rock. The horror on the girl who was visiting to see the ponies face though). Off subject kind of.. i had a hilarious dream last night that Sam rode Connie and she bolted on him.. haha we were both yelling don't bail! haha hilarious. Anything happen at Greytown pony club with you and Bob? (We ruled Greytown Pony club! What a horse for a pony club kid to have!) There was the time I jumped the fence without Prue but still firmly had her rains. The time you came off Kopa when you shouldn't have been riding him! bareback i think it was (Sneaky farm gallops on my little sisters pony! Oh yeeaaa!). The time every time when we would try ride past the donkeys.. carnage. I don't remember Duke doing anything wrong? (I used to fall off him all the time because I was so little on him, but he was pretty much the mans. We made it to pony club in eleven minutes flat once. We flew up the verges all the way there. Lost turnout points for the hot puffing mess I pulled up on though.) do you? I found some pictures of me jumping Kopa at Greytown.. i jumped kinda big! I can see why I fell off all the time.. horrible sliding lower leg. Prue fixed that I guess. All the times Connie tries to buck and scare the life out of you as she doesn't like going down hill. Which is awesome since you had so recently snapped your hand in half getting bucked off downhill (Still hate going down hill, I sing now when I'm hunting downhill and think to myself how they don't want to fall either. I will never enjoy galloping down hill ever). You had many fights (I had heaps of fights with Bob, because she was an opinionated mare and I was a know it all kid. Such an amazing horse once I learnt to stay out of her way) I remember with Bob on x country.. like jumping that hay rack thing at solway, and you got eliminated.. then you came out after it was done and she jumped it first time. Bitch. Manny even scaring grant with his bucks. You winding Bob up so bad that I would have to ride her home to try stop her jigging (Kim has a cool seat and I have a hot seat. I make horses hot and she makes them chill. I'm not even sure why it has always been that way). I preferred her over Kruise anyway. He used to dig holes like a charmer. Getting kicked over by Prue, ha the bitch (Kims pony Prue kicked me one night when I was feeding and I had a shoe mark on my hip for a year. The next day I rode her at a sports meeting and was first equal clearing 1.27m, and taking 1.35m despite it being the third time I ever jumped her. An amazing talented scop[ey powerful and intimidating pony). Me bloody endlessly lifting Bills feet up onto the ramp.. christ. Her topline is gone, but she looks good hey. Anyway enough for now.. getting all nostalgic.. i better come back and ride. Il see if I can think of more stuff. Ha there was the time cruise jumped off a track onto a sheep track.. i think mum might of been on him.. horrifying.

I have always been a spoilt spoilt kid. 1. Because my parents gave me ponies- the greatest gift ever, and 2. because I had a little sister who rode too. Kim and I have logged so many hours in the saddle together and even now if we need to talk we go hacking and that gives us the freedom to discuss anything and everything. I miss her so much, because she is like my super coach and my biggest fan.

I used to make her cry constantly too, because I wanted to canter up and down hills and go fast and she wanted to go slow, and her smaller ponies struggled to keep up with mine. And then as we went on and I was on green horses and she was on the trained horse and I'm going 'slow down kim, please slow down,' in a complete turn around! I think Kim probably got nicer ponies than me, or perhaps just easier ones, though Prue wasn't easy just insanely athletic and she did an amazing job on her. She is probably even a better more correct rider than me, unfortunately we both have issues with nerves and courage in front of a fence. I have had more time to learn to cope with it because I forged the path, but Kims time to shine is still to come. We will get her over some really big jumps.

Anyway, here are the crew that got mentioned in the post above

Marcus:

Kopa:

Bob:

Duke:

Prue:

Kruise:

 

I'm not even at all sure what my point is. haha I guess thanks Kim,  hopefully we can be riding together again soon. Miss you babes. x

Current Adventures

I'm really sorry to have not been updating much. To be honest I have been very very busy. The grape harvest is on in the vineyards and I'm working for one of the crews to make money for next season, we have three breakers on the go and we have had two hunts. Butch has been a master on the hunt field though possibly too scopey and sure of himself. Last weekend he left a stride out across a laneway and jumped out over the post. Hunting is for maniacs which must be why I love it.

The breakers are all coming along nicely. One is hacking walk and trot, the other is walk trot in the open and the third was properly backed for the first time today. I'm mostly riding one called Brigadoon who is very nicely bred and should be a nice horse one day. He tries really hard and thinks things through so we should be ok.

Grape picking is no where near as awesome as drinking wine. It's murder on your back but only 10 days left, though the worst is to come because the Kupe you pick on your hands and knees. Still needs must. Hope everyone is well and that. Butch is insanely awesome, hacked him bareback today with one of the breakers and he was as cool as can be. I however need to practice my bareback.