Wounds, Swellings and Abscesses, Oh my!

It always seems to be that I don't have good luck with keeping horses sound. I do wonder if I'm doing something wrong, but in the latest run of bad luck there hasn't been much I can do. No wonder I have so many horses, I need them to have a singular sound horse to ride.

So the bad luck started with Bill when she had a swollen front leg to go with her big back leg. The back leg is however healing incredibly well. I couldn't be more happy with it. It really is hardly going to scar. Anyway, I dragged her back to the house and cleaned her foreleg in hopes of discovering what the problem was. I went over her sole with a hoof knife and was happy to see that her sole was unmarked, because abscesses have been bad this year I am told by the vet. Eventually I found a tiny puncture wound in the front of her fetlock, that was the apparent cause of her huge leg. So some huge doses of antibiotics for her and an animalintex which was changed for a couple of days and she is looking good. Still a little residual swelling around her fetlock which I'm keeping a close eye on but she is moving soundly and appears to be on the mend.

Next to go down was Kate. Sound on Monday and then dead lame on Wednesday. I tubbed her foot in epsom salts. Incidently the smallest bag I could find of epsom salts was 25kg so I'm good for the next few abscesses no doubt! I was lucky enough that the farrier came out today and had a look at her foot. So her shoe is off, and after much searching and pondering he found a track in the bar of her foot and followed that down to the worldest smallest, but also very deep abscess. Kate is obviously a huge wuss, but at least I got it early. I still have some hope of making my clinic in a weeks time now that I have found the cause of her lameness. She walked away much sounder, after having her foot packed with epsom salts and covered in two nappies, a pink vetwrap and some lovely red tape. My friend who is visiting from England says she thinks Kate is embarrassed by the colour clash but I'm sure Kate finds it invigorating. Fingers crossed it holds for 24 hours in the mud.

Finally Rascal came in on the Wednesday with some swelling on the outside of her leg, but she was sound so I rode her anyway and that reduced the swelling somewhat so I think it's probably just a knock. I am meant to be riding three horses in each of the clinic days so I need for them to all get sound for that. Calving starts soon and so this will be the last clinic I will get to for a while.

Counting down to the season start again.

I feel so much more optimistic about this season than the previous two, so hopefully that feeling will lead to something good. The horses feel good and fit and happy. I may have finally got my saddle issues sorted. I'm still not sure the county is the best fit for Connie, but my goodness that is a comfortable saddle. I love it to ride in and I'm looking forward to jumping in it next weekend at the Showjumping practice day at Tielcey Park. Hopefully this time they have all their lines rideable hey!

Since the clinic I have been working really hard on my flatwork, schooling every time I get the opportunity though this is dependent on ground conditions. Thankfully the ground is soft enough that it's ok. I don't want to sour the horses but seeing as they only really have to do what I want for an hour a day 3 days a week I'm probably ok. Kate especially is starting to figure out what I want and be a lot kinder and softer to ride. I have even had to add spurs! Which she protests about sometimes but if she isn't going to listen thats her problem. They are only roller ball spurs so it's not like they are sharp.

I have been working really hard on Rascal but progress is slow with her. I have realised one thing though, in an epiphany I achieved riding her up from the paddock bareback in a halter, is that she feels like a little wee pony that I am a bit perched on. I don't know why she is a solid 16hh though a little short necked. Kate though is a solid 16.2hh and a huge mover and Connie is much the same. It's better if I ride Rascal first to avoid more direct comparisons because going from Kate to Rascal is like going from a sports car to a little old Honda City. Poor Rascal. Though I'm sure as she gets stronger and stronger that will only improve.

Bills leg had gotten very swollen but has come down again for no real reason. The Vet gave her antibiotics but she didn't really respond to those. I guess it was swelling due to the soft tissue injury. Regardless, she looks really good and I'm tempted to chuck her on the truck and let her have a look around at the practice day. I probably wouldn't ride her but it would be great for her to see everything that her future will entail. Better teach her to load on the truck first :) She hasn't been on since she was a two year old. Ahh grand, I guess if I can get riding her again I might be able to take her along to the clinic at the end of the month and have a ride on her then.

Tomorrow morning it will probably be -5 degrees celcius. So please think of me shivering my butt off milking the cows just on dawn while you Northern Hemisphere dwellers have summer. Brrr! Still at least if it's a frost it will be a nice day and I can get more riding done.

Jumping

Had a little bit of a jump around today. Nothing over 80cm but it was the first day of my new strategy of jumping only fences with scary fill. This is mostly because I know Kate is a looky loo and I need to learn to cope with that better. With Kate it's mostly about learning to ride her so smoothly so she keeps her canter all the way to the fence, and making sure she adds that stride s she gets right to the base, instead of letting her run and drop a stride out. My word she gave me some funny jumps. Lots of really round ones, where she looked down at the fence between her knees.

By the end of the session she was jumping really nicely and quietly and I was able to just sit quietly and maintain and then give her lots of leg at the base of the fences and the whole thing was a lot more relaxed. Love the new saddle to jump in so much. I'm sure the old saddle not fitting didn't help her jumping. Rascal was having a muley day. She started off ok but she is still so weak. I have so much work to do on her canter it's almost a little daunting. We paid a fair sum of money for her, and to sell her and get that back I really need to get her going more, and that adds some pressure. She just doesn't jump off of her back end very much, she is just throwing herself over the fences, which she didn't used to do a couple of years ago, so I'm going to assume it's a product of the lack of strength. I also need to watch that my body stays tall even when I see the longer spot and ride up some.


Not the sort of picture I would usually put up because she looks crap, but you see all the mud down my pants! And well the good with the bad hey.

Well anyway, we had a plain little gate that Kim put in the angles of a cross bar and Rascal came round and stopped, but then at the last minute jumped and threw me into the air. I landed mostly on the saddle and started to pull her up and try get my balance but then she took off and as I tried even harder to pull her up she did some very small bucks and removed me before I got my balance back. I really did think I was going to be ok and get back into the saddle but it was not to be. Still after that she jumped everything just fine even though I was feeling a bit chicken. Still that is riding, you have to take the downs with the ups. And bruises are cool.



Halfway through the session I changed Rascals bit from a mullen mouth egg butt snaffle to the rubber mullen mouth pelham, because she was just blowing off my half halt. That helped a lot because she couldn't just piss off with me. Still it feels like a step backwards especially when her flatwork is coming on really well. Hopefully I only need to use it a couple of times and then I wont need to again.

Sunshine!

A Kim and Bill lovefest.

I took Bill and Rascal over to Valley View Stables to work on their arena. This is Bills first work session since her injury and she seems very sound on her sore leg and she coped pretty well seeing as it's her first time on a surface and her first time in a new place.



She was most shocked to see that other horses exist in the world, having never been away from the farm before. Kim lunged her while I rode Rascal. Lucky for me Valley View is just across the farm so I ride over and ponied Bill.


Her leg is healing so well!



Rascal was also really good, she is really starting to get there in the walk and trot but her canter is still very weak, especially to the left so it's hillwork tomorrow. Still she is making very definite progress in the right direction.




I can't resist a Cavaletti! Even in a flatwork session


Heading home

Winter doldrums

The rain we have been having this year has been unreal. It just doesn't stop. The few (four maybe??) Actually sunny days we have had in the last five weeks have been amazing. There is something about the sunshine that just makes you feel good. It's nearly July, so the season starts in 11 weeks which is actually not a lot of time. Not that I ever make the first show of the year anyway, due to the fact we are calving.

This year I'm trying to have everything in work and ticking over before the cows start calving, because calving is a desperately busy, soul destroying, exhausting time of year. I'm going to have to work really hard, to school Kate and Rascal up to what I want, to get Connie super fit and to start re-habbing Bill and hopefully getting Bill ready to compete at a few things. I don't know how long she will take though. Her leg is really healing amazing. I hope to start working with her again in a couple more weeks.

I really want to Amateur classes this year with Kate and hopefully Connie as well. Connie is old enough now that I can push her more, she knows her job, but I really have to get her incredibly fit. Connie needs to be hunting fit otherwise she runs out of steam. One thing about hunting was over the fences, Connie always felt good, giving me big round jumps over everything but then at the jumping at Tielcey the other day, she felt really average. Maybe she isn't a showjumper? Though she does seem to enjoy it. I'm still waiting for her new saddle and I'm keen to see what sort of a difference that makes.

Rascal is as always a difficult child. She is capable of such beautiful work and her flatwork is pretty solid, but my goodness she is a button pusher. Mostly, because she is a bit spooky and spooky horses drive me nuts, but at the same time spooky horses tend to be careful jumpers so I need to get used to spooky horses. I hate that little jolty spook that makes you feel like you have been zapped with an electric shock. Yesterday a pig trotted up to the fence and stood there looking at us unmoving and she was completely unhinged by it. Still, she is mostly good and with the hard work I have been putting in she is really starting to get back the beautiful canter she had when I first brought her, before she got injured a couple of years ago.

Kate, I really need to work on her flatwork because she just doesn't know it, but I also need to jump her enough so we get confident in each other. It's so much easier in the Prestige than it was because my leg is a lot more secure and I feel like I'm sitting into her more than perching on top of her like I was in the Pessoa. I'm going to have to set some more specific goals soon.Hopefully, it wont be too long until we have another clinic.

Practice Day at Teilcey Park.

Once a month Teilcey Park in Palmerston holds a practice day, followed the next day by a combined training and showjumping day. The practice day is far far cheaper than competing. And it means you can avoid some of the more ridiculous course building. To be fair it was much better than normal with only one funky distance. A genuine two and a half strides to a tightish one stride double of oxers. Blerk! Anyway, at the start of the day my friend rode her really green OTTB and he was super cute coped with the atmosphere and is really quite classy over the fences. Then I nagged her until she let me ride on her new horse who was really only over for a trip and a look around. Still how any opportunities will I get to ride a horse by Corland. Not many, thats how many! She was really good too.



Then I rode her hunter, Fido because she was bored with him. He was really fun. He pushes your buttons a little, but as soon as he realises you aren't going to take any crap, he folds like a deck of cards and he is really really cool. He doesn't even really do anything, he is a big faker. Incidentally, he is by the same as our Rascal is. So had a canter round and a jump on him and that was fun.



Then I dragged Connie out and fanged around some small fences. I thought she would be hot from all the hunting but apparently, taking out the hard feed has taken care of that and she was a very placid old mule. In fact I wish she had been a bit hotter, so I could have had something to work on. Though dd have a monumental miss to the first fence when I thought she would chip and she didn't. Oops! I am RUUUSSSTTYY!



Kate was as per usual, a little hot and a little spooky. She leaps and bounds at the fences because she gets a bit worried about jumping. It means I need to be very careful about giving her a very smooth contact and resisting the urge to grab when she shoots off.



Still by the time I was finished we had jumped around a small course (It looked huge at the time) quietly for Kate and quite smoothly and I felt really confident and happy. Love my new saddle over fences, I'm so much more stable and don't feel jumped around at all. I didn't bother putting Kate down the line, because it just wasn't worth it. It was ok on Connie and Fido because it was tiny and I could just crawl in and make sure I got the three strides, whereas at this point in time it would have been a bit much for the Kate I think.



Of course it was a Mecca day for top riding. There was a monumental crash over the green oxer when it was about 1.20m after this lady had fried her horses brains and put him at the oxer, which he then collected bringing them both down in a hell of a crash. She was fine though, as people like that always seem to be. Kate might have started a bit nuts but she finished quietly and thats more than I can say about that horse. Poor pony.

Cashmore clinic- The Kate

Doing this clinic on Kate actually amounted to the first lessons I have had on this horse in the year I have owned her, which is probably pretty poor when you think about it. No wonder I still don't have her number really. The new saddle makes a big difference because I love being able to get my knee in to those knee rolls. Initially she was short behind but as she worked she did start over tracking. Grant believes it's just because she has never been asked to work correctly and never really traveled straight, so the muscles on that side are somewhat shorter. I have noticed this before myself out hacking but it's always something she works out of.



Anyway, Kate was also too sharp off of the leg, which is fair enough because to Kate, the idea of leg meaning moving sideways as opposed to faster was only introduced a year ago and lately she has had no schooling. She is very sensitive and very spooky and I couldn't get any inside bend on the right rein because when I opened my inside hand, my right leg wasn't strong enough to hold her out on the circle and get her to soften.



Grant rode her and got her working really nicely. With her you have to keep her soft to maintain the relaxation. He did say she was cute and he seemed to think she was quite fun. My homework on her is lots of walk and trot circles, getting the inside bend and keeping her soft.



The next day the weather was very very rainy and rubbish for Kates lesson which wasn't great. Anyway, she was a lot softer the second day and a bit more settled because she is learning what flatwork is all about. We did some cantering work and I can get her really good on the circles, but as soon as I go straight she switches out and I have to work on maintaining some inside bend rather than going straight to keep her on the right lead. I think at one point he just wanted to get her worn down a little bit, so she would relax more, but shes a TB and she just kept humming along despite the fact after I got off she was one tired looking pony. One thing I found particularly interesting, is that all my horses fall out the right shoulder because my right hand is weaker (odd in a right hander).



But with Kate when she falls out, she feels unbalanced and freaks out (we did lots of bounding around the arena- combination of she didn't like being told how to work, and how hard, with the unbalanced thing). So at least with a horse this sensitive I really have to work on maintaining the straightness and it will filter down to the others as well.