Soooo pleased with Lisselan Amazon today, for a horse that has never left the ground before she was very honest in her first jump schooling session. Rolled a few poles but never stopped at anything and built up to about 2'9" parallel poles to finish. I am sure Simon thought we were lying when we said she had never left the ground before, but both John and I asked Jenny Bidgood (her previous trainer) when we bought her and she said she hadn't. John double checked with her today to make sure, she was so good. She is such a brave and bold girl, Luke, her rider for the session reckoned the higher it went the better shape she made, he also mentioned the word 'chasing', we can but hope.
Shilpa, with Hannah on top had the benefit of a similar session which both horse and rider enjoyed. I really love to see both girls working together, they hacked up to the larger outdoor school which is a 10-15 minute ride away from Simon's yard both horses relaxed and riders chatting walking on the buckle, had a similar walk back home by which time the girls were nice and cool and ready to enjoy the rest of their day. Amazon, although the younger of the two gives Shilpa lots of confidence on the road, Shilps has really only worked in a string before coming to Simon's so all this hacking is quite new to her especially on her own. Simon uses the facilities of yards at either end of the village to him and often gets the horses hacking up on their own to warm up before they get to the gallops or the large outdoor school. The other morning they were going past people stopping at the village shop, children playing in the school playground and the general hurly burly of busy village life, without a care in the world, lots of people shouting hello to them as they went past.
John was in charge of the camera, hence the lack of good quality pictures for this post, he claims he was so entranced with what was going on he forgot to take any although he did get a few, we will put them up on epds-racing.co.uk shortly.
Monday, 12 December 2011
Friday, 11 November 2011
New Pete Ramey Book - It's Arrived
My copy of the new Pete Ramey book arrived yesterday, it looks really good, it is a large hard back with 31 chapters in it and includes contributions from people like Bowker, Kellon and Hilary Clayton. It was really expensive (£130 including shipping I think) but it looks like the sort of book you can dip in and out of and use as a resource for many years.
It's called Care and Rehabilitation of the Equine Foot, I would describe it as more of a medical text book however it is written in Pete's easy to understand style, even the bits not written by him are ok to follow whilst still covering quite heavy subjects eg Chaper 5 by Robert Bowker which is "The horses foot as a nuerosensory organ: How the horse perceives its environment".
My excuse for buying it (apart from the fact that I wanted it) is a birthday present for my other half, he is a bit of a slow reader so it may be a while before I get it back again. Unfortunately it was his birthday last Monday so I don't even get a couple of days before I have to wrap it, there is a temptation to buy him something else but I stupidly told him all about it .....
I will do a review of it once I have read it but first impressions are very good.
It's called Care and Rehabilitation of the Equine Foot, I would describe it as more of a medical text book however it is written in Pete's easy to understand style, even the bits not written by him are ok to follow whilst still covering quite heavy subjects eg Chaper 5 by Robert Bowker which is "The horses foot as a nuerosensory organ: How the horse perceives its environment".
My excuse for buying it (apart from the fact that I wanted it) is a birthday present for my other half, he is a bit of a slow reader so it may be a while before I get it back again. Unfortunately it was his birthday last Monday so I don't even get a couple of days before I have to wrap it, there is a temptation to buy him something else but I stupidly told him all about it .....
I will do a review of it once I have read it but first impressions are very good.
Monday, 3 October 2011
Well It's Been A While
Been a while since I have blogged and in that time we have had one break in at the yard, one mild choke and a vet who refused to come out because he had not been out to see me in two years, a slightly fat leg meaning a couple of weeks off work and some confused horses who have been busy growing winter coats and now think they have moved to Australia and it is summer again.
Big news however is that a friend and I are currently exploring the possibility of setting up a racehorse partnership (www.epds-racing.co.uk). JTB is a keen race goer and sponsor and asked me to be involved in as he knew I was horsey. He hadn't quite expected my 'I don't know what I think about racing, I don't like the conditions they are kept in or the way they get chucked on the scrap heap, often on a one way trip to Exeter' outburst. Once I had told him that Exeter wasn't a favourite holiday destination for retired horses he agreed that the welfare of the horse should come first and that I could create the shortlist of trainers. My shortlist is very short, in fact there is really only one trainer on it, who just happens to train barefoot so exciting times ahead, we could have our very own barefoot race horse running in National Hunt races soon.
It will be a partnership horse so hoping some like minded individuals will join in.
Big news however is that a friend and I are currently exploring the possibility of setting up a racehorse partnership (www.epds-racing.co.uk). JTB is a keen race goer and sponsor and asked me to be involved in as he knew I was horsey. He hadn't quite expected my 'I don't know what I think about racing, I don't like the conditions they are kept in or the way they get chucked on the scrap heap, often on a one way trip to Exeter' outburst. Once I had told him that Exeter wasn't a favourite holiday destination for retired horses he agreed that the welfare of the horse should come first and that I could create the shortlist of trainers. My shortlist is very short, in fact there is really only one trainer on it, who just happens to train barefoot so exciting times ahead, we could have our very own barefoot race horse running in National Hunt races soon.
It will be a partnership horse so hoping some like minded individuals will join in.
Monday, 15 August 2011
Easycare Gloves Wide In Stock In UK
Exciting day today the gloves wides are finally here. Just ordered a fit kit and my first demo pair, there are an awful lot of people waiting for these so can't wait for them to arrive!
Sunday, 24 July 2011
Pee Wee And Passage
After being away last weekend at a Marike De Jong dressage clinic in Somerset I decided this week would be spent pootling about the yard with the horses (after I had recovered from two leaving do's involving a midnight and 2am finish).
The OH decided that as he was up to date with all the trimming that he would ride Max, of course he tells me that at the yard when all his tack was at home, so we cobbled together a treeless saddle, pony length non-dressage girth and Jamie's bridle that is cob sized with a pee-wee bit. We thought it may go either way as horses either love or hate the pee wee, Max wasn't quite in the hate category, confused probably is the best description of it. Jamie goes very well in it, he has a shallow smile, very small tongue and low palette, typical TB mouth. Rosey loves it, she has thick lips and a large tongue and can be a bit gobby in her baucher French link. Max has a similar mouth confirmation to Rosey but he wasn't very responsive in it, this was demonstrated when Charlie cantered home in front of him and Max decided he wanted to go too. N got a lovely passage from him, lots of sit and power, he felt he would have pinged if he had taken more of a hold though so don't think we will try that experiment again.
Fitted hoof boots to a customer whose farrier has told her to remove the front shoes due to the hoof quality. Nice mare and owner I hope it works out for her. Farrier had removed the shoes but not trimmed at all which meant it was impossible to fit a boot, we ended up taking a rasp to them ourselves but really needed nippers. Farrier came back out to tidy up, still not quite as good as a barefoot trim but good enough I think to get going. Fittted Gloves and the horse moved quite nicely in my demo pair even though they were a size too big, discussed the financial benefit to using Gloves at £108 per pair and lasting around a year plus, to a half a set of shoes at £40 or so every 6-8 weeks, she may consider taking the hinds off as well. Could be another horse and owner going barefoot without really realising it .......
The OH decided that as he was up to date with all the trimming that he would ride Max, of course he tells me that at the yard when all his tack was at home, so we cobbled together a treeless saddle, pony length non-dressage girth and Jamie's bridle that is cob sized with a pee-wee bit. We thought it may go either way as horses either love or hate the pee wee, Max wasn't quite in the hate category, confused probably is the best description of it. Jamie goes very well in it, he has a shallow smile, very small tongue and low palette, typical TB mouth. Rosey loves it, she has thick lips and a large tongue and can be a bit gobby in her baucher French link. Max has a similar mouth confirmation to Rosey but he wasn't very responsive in it, this was demonstrated when Charlie cantered home in front of him and Max decided he wanted to go too. N got a lovely passage from him, lots of sit and power, he felt he would have pinged if he had taken more of a hold though so don't think we will try that experiment again.
Fitted hoof boots to a customer whose farrier has told her to remove the front shoes due to the hoof quality. Nice mare and owner I hope it works out for her. Farrier had removed the shoes but not trimmed at all which meant it was impossible to fit a boot, we ended up taking a rasp to them ourselves but really needed nippers. Farrier came back out to tidy up, still not quite as good as a barefoot trim but good enough I think to get going. Fittted Gloves and the horse moved quite nicely in my demo pair even though they were a size too big, discussed the financial benefit to using Gloves at £108 per pair and lasting around a year plus, to a half a set of shoes at £40 or so every 6-8 weeks, she may consider taking the hinds off as well. Could be another horse and owner going barefoot without really realising it .......
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Sigh - Feed Annoyances Again
So, I spoke to Charnwood yesterday about their Brewers Yeast as I want to make sure I can get some more in that horses will actually eat. They said they currently have German and out of the batch they have had over the last month or so they have ~only~ had a couple of people report that their horses won't eat it. That still seems quite a lot to me particularly if those are people that regularly feed Brewers Yeast which they probably would be as they are buying it in 25Kg sacks. He said they had had awful trouble with the Czech stuff and it almost sounded like it wasn't actually Brewers Yeast as he called it something different to Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Whatever it was the horses obviously didn't like it. The good news is is that they are getting Polish stuff back in stock in 10 working days and that is the stuff the horses like. Don't think they will be messing around with suppliers any more judging from the feed back they have got.
Second call to a feed company was to Top Spec to tell them that so far three sacks of their ~molasses free~ Top Spec Top Chop Lite contained large (about 2 inch by 2 inch) lumps of molasses in it. They were understandably concerned about this and took it much more seriously than Marksway did when I reported the same problem with one of their feeds. My suspicion is that both companies have their feed made by the same mill and if this is the case then unfortunately this time I am reporting it to trading standards as they really couldn't see why I was bothered last time I complained. Last time it resulted in three horses getting laminitis and their feet have only just started to recover from it. We shall see what happens.
Second call to a feed company was to Top Spec to tell them that so far three sacks of their ~molasses free~ Top Spec Top Chop Lite contained large (about 2 inch by 2 inch) lumps of molasses in it. They were understandably concerned about this and took it much more seriously than Marksway did when I reported the same problem with one of their feeds. My suspicion is that both companies have their feed made by the same mill and if this is the case then unfortunately this time I am reporting it to trading standards as they really couldn't see why I was bothered last time I complained. Last time it resulted in three horses getting laminitis and their feet have only just started to recover from it. We shall see what happens.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Phew glad that's over
Last weekend was fantastic, worked with T's pony Minnie and C rode her, the first time the pony has been worked for three months and the first time C had ridden anything else in almost a year. It was fantastic to see how her riding has come on.
We used my failed MOT car to move a load of horse food as it's last job before it went to the great scrap heap in the sky, took the opportunity to give C a couple of driving lessons around the fields. She is only 15 but I think it is never to early to learn how to handle a car safetly particularly as we may need her driving skills for hay making .......
So pretty good really up until we got the horses in on Sunday evening to find Jamie had four filled legs. One leg I can cope with but four is never a good sign. He seemed well enough in himself so we cold hosed, then walked, then cold hosed, then walked again and put him to bed for the night, he has thick rubber in his stable and he tucked in to his dinner so didn't seem bothered by it. The following morning they were down a bit but still up, Neil turned him out and I got down about 7am to check him. Working on the assumption of 'it was something he ate - poison' or 'something he ate - loads of grass after the rain' we muzzled him and put boots all round. Monday evening the front legs were down completely and by Wednesday the hinds were completely down. He was still cantering around the place and in good spirits so not sure what that was. He went out with no muzzle for the first time today and came in fine.
Definitely something in the grass after the weather we have been having, Max came in like a space cadet yesterday and Charlie had faint pulses today although they disappeared after work. If we could get fence posts in we would cut the paddock in half we can't though so will have to cut down the bucket feed, up the exercise and reduce the turnout time a bit. The paddock looks completely bare but it is coming through and they are eating it as soon as it appears.
The feed experiment to remove all alfalfa from the ponies diets is going well, the fast fibre and unmollassed sugar beet looks really boring but they are eating it well and are out for about 6 hours a day in the paddock with muzzles with a filter in. Feet are getting back in to shape after their blip and Neil has perfected walking all three of them at the same time. We have told C that after seeing her ride a 12.2 last weekend there is no reason why she shouldn't start riding Magic and Charlie once we are sure they are 100% ready for it, I think in a couple of weeks so just in time for the school holidays.
Major pain of the weekend was finding huge lumps of molasses in my Top Spec Top Chop Lite guaranteed molasses free chaff. This is the second time this has happened last time was Markway stuff. I will be on the phone complaining to Top Spec tomorrow, really not happy but at least the vulnerable horses weren't being fed it.
Had a huge amount of orders for Brewers Yeast, apparently the most recent Charnwood stuff was so unpalatable that most horses refused to eat it. I order my stuff from them 50 sacks at a time so I had plenty of Polish stuff in stock which they will eat. Unfortunately due to the demand I am now out myself apart from my own personal stuff so will need to see if I can get some more from somewhere. I bet Simple System's aren't happy if they have been supplying them with nasty stuff as well, it is the Czech stuff apparently, Polish and German is fine.
All in all I will be glad to get to work tomorrow even if most of it will be spent on the phone to feed companies.
We used my failed MOT car to move a load of horse food as it's last job before it went to the great scrap heap in the sky, took the opportunity to give C a couple of driving lessons around the fields. She is only 15 but I think it is never to early to learn how to handle a car safetly particularly as we may need her driving skills for hay making .......
So pretty good really up until we got the horses in on Sunday evening to find Jamie had four filled legs. One leg I can cope with but four is never a good sign. He seemed well enough in himself so we cold hosed, then walked, then cold hosed, then walked again and put him to bed for the night, he has thick rubber in his stable and he tucked in to his dinner so didn't seem bothered by it. The following morning they were down a bit but still up, Neil turned him out and I got down about 7am to check him. Working on the assumption of 'it was something he ate - poison' or 'something he ate - loads of grass after the rain' we muzzled him and put boots all round. Monday evening the front legs were down completely and by Wednesday the hinds were completely down. He was still cantering around the place and in good spirits so not sure what that was. He went out with no muzzle for the first time today and came in fine.
Definitely something in the grass after the weather we have been having, Max came in like a space cadet yesterday and Charlie had faint pulses today although they disappeared after work. If we could get fence posts in we would cut the paddock in half we can't though so will have to cut down the bucket feed, up the exercise and reduce the turnout time a bit. The paddock looks completely bare but it is coming through and they are eating it as soon as it appears.
The feed experiment to remove all alfalfa from the ponies diets is going well, the fast fibre and unmollassed sugar beet looks really boring but they are eating it well and are out for about 6 hours a day in the paddock with muzzles with a filter in. Feet are getting back in to shape after their blip and Neil has perfected walking all three of them at the same time. We have told C that after seeing her ride a 12.2 last weekend there is no reason why she shouldn't start riding Magic and Charlie once we are sure they are 100% ready for it, I think in a couple of weeks so just in time for the school holidays.
Major pain of the weekend was finding huge lumps of molasses in my Top Spec Top Chop Lite guaranteed molasses free chaff. This is the second time this has happened last time was Markway stuff. I will be on the phone complaining to Top Spec tomorrow, really not happy but at least the vulnerable horses weren't being fed it.
Had a huge amount of orders for Brewers Yeast, apparently the most recent Charnwood stuff was so unpalatable that most horses refused to eat it. I order my stuff from them 50 sacks at a time so I had plenty of Polish stuff in stock which they will eat. Unfortunately due to the demand I am now out myself apart from my own personal stuff so will need to see if I can get some more from somewhere. I bet Simple System's aren't happy if they have been supplying them with nasty stuff as well, it is the Czech stuff apparently, Polish and German is fine.
All in all I will be glad to get to work tomorrow even if most of it will be spent on the phone to feed companies.
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