Totally-awesome Tuesday

Perfect hack with the boy this evening. We took a friend out for her first hack with her share pony somewhere other than the yard, and she loved it! 

Had to get a photo with the "Bridleway" sign as we don't have any near our yard...

This hill is awesome. You can't appreciate it with all the ferns at the moment but it's just awesome. It's not huge, but it's pretty steep, and the power from behind you can feel when you canter up it. Just (you guessed it!) AWESOME! If you watch it through, you'll see us take out a fern on a sharp bend, and right at the end, I just missed the shot that would have been great to get - Franks leapt up from standstill and Sarah's matrix style somehow meant she stayed on. We honestly thought she was a goner! Sadly you can just see Franks' legs come out and me saying OH MY GOD!

Lovely canter after Franks' little episode - have to laugh at my little wobble when I've turned around. Was so great to have my camera on my wrist and be able to get photos and videos. Will definitely do it again until I have the joy of a head cam or Go Pro!

My third attempt at a running plait - I think I'm getting the hang of these things! This was taken two thirds of the way into our ride, and still all in!

Having a munch back home before we went back down to the field. We had a little discussion at both ends about getting into the trailer, but all in all was not too bad. 

Ride / play safe x

Stage Fright

New challenge to work on: getting over people watching me when I ride! 

My cousin's new baby is going to be on our yard for a bit whilst she waits for a stable to come up at her place. We've put up fencing across his paddock ready for his arrival on Saturday, so it's all rather exciting! She's got him to bring on ready to event him. He's just come off the track, and is a springy 4 year old chestnut. 

So I brought Rio up (he was a little bugger and kept stopping walking up the field - cheers for showing me up buddy!) luckily he was okay once him and Franks crossed paths and he got going. He has a small scab on his right hind which looks like it could be mud fever, so I faffed about a little and groomed him. I sponged it down again with warm hibiscrub and managed to pick off the last bit of the scab, and was busy making excuses not to ride. You see, I don't school very often at the moment, so when it comes to schooling, I get very self conscious. 

I'm pleased to say that once I got going, I really enjoyed it. I even felt much more secure in the saddle, Rio had a spook sideways and I don't believe I flinched - that's a first! After we warmed up a bit and got going in the trot, he felt like he was going well enough to try and ask for canter. The first attempt was a bit of a sham, I didn't have hold of the outside rein, so I ended up having a very wonky canter across the school ending up on the opposite rein. I learned my lesson, and when I tried the second time, we managed a canter up the long side on the left rein. He dropped out of it back into trot.

On the right rein, we trotted up and did some circling and squeezed him on into the canter, he went up the long side, I cut him across the school a little before the end (our school is a bit wonky) and continued the canter right back down the long side before I asked him back to trot! We trotted off and then walked out after that - we could only have schooled for 20 minutes or so, but I was already feeling it. Plus I wanted to end it on a positive note. 

Ride / play safe x

This cat's got THUMBS!

Meet Murph, Sarah's feline friend. He actually has thumbs! Check those bad boys out. He's a total dude, and very cuddly. We're not talking at the moment though, because mid cuddle he decided to try and attack me last night. (Attack is a strong word... He got a bit carried away though!) Anyone got some Cravendale? He's coming for it!

We had an early start this morning and had a super long canter across the fields, Rio took the lead to start with, and whilst we were trotting he offered up canter a couple of times so I decided to sit in and go for it. Despite offering it up, and Franks being right behind us, it wasn't long before I was having to work hard to keep him up a gear, and inevitably we dropped back into trot. Franks took the lead, and we trotted a little further before I asked him back up, and we had a wonderful long canter, with only a little encouragement needed. We'll get there eventually! He was a bit more springy today, and felt like he was pushing through from behind a little more. 

The boys spent a bit of time in Rio's field today (they've been sharing Franks' mostly!) after Sarah and I had a further prune of the nettles and thistles. We're steadily working across the field, and thought the boys might like a change of scenery and a good opportunity to self medicate some nettles/thistles if they so chose. They had a few hours of munching the long grass, whilst we popped out to have a nose at a show. 

When we moved the boys back, I noticed Rio had caught himself on his right hind (again!) and it looked pretty fresh. He keeps grazing himself and getting little scrapes just in front of his chestnut, I've still not figured out how, but today's looks a little deeper than normal. I walked back up to the barn to get some hibiscrub and hypocare, and he was actually very forthcoming. He walked off after I'd washed it out with the hibiscrub, and when I got to him with the hypocare bottle we had a minute or so of pirouetting whilst he turned his bum away from me until I moved him over sideways and he stood nicely. He stood perfectly whilst I tried to reveal the cut and spray it.

He had a good look and sniff at my glove - I was speaking to a friend not so long ago about what colours horses see, and I'm convinced Rio must be able to see blue. He doesn't fuss over Franks' feed when Sarah comes down in the morning (black bucket) but he ALWAYS knows if he's got feed, and his feed bucket is baby blue. Interestingly, I came across a great blog post about this, and as it turns out, it looks like blue is one of the colours they can differentiate! You can read the blog post here, I'd recommend a look. 

Ride / play safe x

P.S - updated the blog header as I now have so many more photos to choose from :) what do you reckon?

Poo and nettles

The boys standing watching Sarah fill up the water bucket. Bless them. 

Rio went out on a solo mission around the village with Sarah today. My leg is still feeling a little twingey so I decided it would be best that I give it another day to recover as it was pretty immobile at times yesterday. Happy to report that it's much better today! 

So it turns out Rio's freak-out on Wednesday night probably was down to a pile of poo. That pile of poo that he spooked at on the Thursday night hack got another look today when Sarah took him past, but his reactions are getting less each time. Today he had a good look, then calmly walked around it. Apparently he did a poo of his own which he also had to have a proper look at on his way back. What a silly boy. Other than that, he was very good. He wasn't even very sweaty. 

I took some cutters down to Rio's paddock today to attack the army of nettles and thistles. It's just a small dent but it's a start! I had to give up when my arms started feeling numb, so will carry on tomorrow.

This is after my attack on the foliage. Should have taken a before and after shot! Plenty still to be done, but it's actually looking much better already. 

Rio's new bit needs to be replaced as we tried it and it was a little too small so I'm sending it back to get the next size up to try. He was happy enough hacking in it today, but for schooling, it's just not quite wide enough to be a permanent solution. Little bit gutted, but I'll have plenty of parcels to look forward to this week as I had a little shopping spree this week for first aid and fencing supplies, and obviously the new bit will have to come!

Ride / play safe x

Assessing the damage

Well this was the impact spot on the field last night! Sarah insisted we hacked back via the scene of the crime despite my attempt to sneakily ride back across the other side of the field. Amusingly Rio spooked at a pile of poo just about where he threw me off yesterday, just another one of the "maybe it was ... **insert random possibility here** ". However, today he opted for a much more manageable side step instead of hopping around like a numpty. 

So as you can see, I got back in the saddle tonight, and went for a ride out with Sarah and Franks. Rio was up front for almost the whole ride (Franks was a very good boy and only tried to sneak ahead a handful of times) I just about managed to swing my leg over and get on! He had a couple of spooks, which just consisted of a quick sidestep but other than that it was pretty good. 

I ordered a new bit for Rio last week - I've got it on a 30 day trial to see how he likes it, which is great. It's essentially the same as the bit he has now, except with the Salox metal which is meant to heat up to the same temperature as the horse's mouth in a fractions of a second. It's also a nickel free alloy, with a bit of a sweet taste, so should encourage acceptance of the contact. He's not too resistant to taking up a contact when asked, but I'm not very good at asking, so I'm hoping this will be a good piece to the jigsaw puzzle for us. It had to be done as the eggbutt link on the left of Rio's current bit keeps seizing. This time I'm going for a keeper instead of a cheaper!

So here's the assessment from head to toe:

• Neck - tender on both sides, probable whiplash effect from head hitting the ground
• Tummy/core muscles very tense today, feel like I've done the plank for an hour!
• Right fore arm - pulled a muscle maybe, trying to hold onto the reins as I went down
• Inside of right hip - sore! Difficult to hold my leg up for a length of time, and driving is a little uncomfortable (also why I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get on tonight!)
• Pelvis/lower back - bruise is starting to come out already, sore but thanks to my anti inflammatories, no swelling as yet and manageable

Think that's about it! We clearly have a lot of work to do on hacking alone, but only time and effort will help us with that. Here's to the learning curve! I'm just glad I was able to get straight back on last night and not let this push me back to where I was a few weeks ago. Onwards and upwards. Oh - and speaking of upwards, I could swear that Rio is a bit bum high again! He's already gone up from 15hh to 15.2h since I got him, and I think he may be growing a little more. Bless him!

Ride/play safe x

Whatwasthat Wednesday

It all started out as a normal day. Except for the fact that I woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep so decided to head down to the yard early. I did my usual routine, poo picking, filling up the water, watching the boys for a bit because I had time to kill. 

Sarah brought Rio up for the farrier for me to save me dashing down to the field. He was a bit naughty and tried to refuse coming through the metal gate, which he doesn't usually fuss about. We learned a nifty trick from Wendy, and when he does this, the trick is to lean away from him, thereby putting a bit of poll pressure on - nothing nasty, just enough to make him want to move forward to release the pressure. He seems to be giving in much easier doing this now, so fingers crossed we may be able to make a breakthrough of some description. 

My poor farrier eventually got to the yard at 5.30 (still with one other visit to make!) and did my friend's pony first as he was just having a trim. Rio was a bit of a sod... He tried snatching his feet, and went to rear up twice. Luckily my farrier is very good with situations like this and took control - he has free rein with him as far as I'm concerned; he needs to be as safe as possible doing his job, and I know he's not going to beat him, just hopefully instil some manners. He did eventually settle, and we've stuck with just fronts for now although we will be monitoring how his back feet fare with the increased workload as there wasn't anything to be taken off the bottoms of them this time.

As we've had a couple of days off after our big adventure on Sunday, today was the day for getting back in the saddle again. Sarah and Franks had already been out around the village so I dutifully tacked Rio up, hopped on and headed straight out down the drive out onto the field. We haven't done much work on our own, but I was in the right frame of mind, and just got on with it. He was jittery down the long side that runs along the road, and we had a little fight so I let him trot it out for a bit as that's his favourite gait, and it can help him chill out some. We made it just fine past the scary corner where he reared up the last time we were alone, and where he bolted in hand. Just as he had started to relax his neck and drop his head, and steady to a nice walking pace, I was suddenly up in the air with him. 

I've no idea what happened to make him jump with all four feet off the ground, but I knew straight away there was no saving this one. I tried to hold onto the reins so he wouldn't bolt, but he was gone, so all I could do was roll so I landed as evenly as possible. That field is HARD. After a brief moment of panicking about where he was and whether I was about to be trampled, I saw him bronc a couple more times up the field before he turned and cantered down to the bottom corner where he took refuge after he spooked in hand.

I went and collected him, walked back to the track, and got back on. Rio stood nicely, let me get settled, and walked back to the driveway steadily. He had a little look at something in the hedge, but walked on when I asked him forward. We went into the outdoor school, had a moment of jittering which passed quickly, and then I set him to work in trot. I only worked him for around ten minutes but I knew I had to show myself that I wasn't afraid of riding him after I just got over my last confidence crisis! 

So now I just feel guilty because I got mad at him, but he was being a bit of a bugger this evening in general. To make it up to me, he was super well behaved when I took him back to the field, and yielded sideways and back when asked, and even took an extra step back to give me my space too. 

Fingers crossed my back isn't too sore tomorrow to hack out with Sarah and Franks - I am hoping to carry on as normal and forget about this incident! However - unplanned dismount count HAS been updated, we are now at 2! 

Ride / play safe! x

Dentistry and Ancestry

Rio did some beautiful side stepping this morning. Coming out of his field at 6am wasn't at the top of his to-do list. I stayed calm and jovial and moved him away from me before inviting him to follow me, and he did without question. He had to come up to the starvation paddock to wait for the vet so I had a shorter trip to get him! It was the first dental visit since I got him, and the receipt for his last one in August said "dentistry under sedation". Needless to say, I was a little anxious as to how he would be. 

As you can see, he was a little star. No sedation, and he did fidget a little, but didn't really run away at all. He was fine with the head gear when he had it on (sorry no beautiful photos of that gadget!) and was an absolute gent having the edges rasped. He's got wolf teeth through, but as they are not causing him any issues at the moment we won't be touching those. He did his mumma proud again today, love this little man so much!

I was also talking to my friend about Rio's ancestry yesterday so thought I'd do a quick Google search. This is Rio's mum! Glenalla Ffion. She's actually for sale at the moment - and I never realised she was only 14hh! If only I could afford to keep a second horse, I might consider buying her and reuniting her with her boy  - she's only 8 now, and is being brought on under saddle. Sadly there is no further information on Rio's dad except that he's a UK stallion named Finley. I've not got any further than that - Google has failed me! I'd love to know what breed his dad was. There are a few on allbreedpedigree.com but I've no idea if any of them may be his daddy. Here's Rio's lineage: click here

Ride / play safe x