Month: February 2016

Life lessons- Each horse has a new lesson

And the life lessons from the grey horse are becoming clear- Cal’s life lessons for me are that I must learn to enjoy the journey and not focus on the pursuit of  the goal.

This February is The Full Snow Moon – “It is a time to release that which no longer serves you, what you no longer need in your life or an aspect of yourself that you have outgrown. What are you ready to release?”

He was to be my project horse, my doer upper. I had done my first few seasons of eventing on Paddy, but he was getting on a bit and getting a bit stiff and unreliable. My riding had improved no end and I felt ready to progress further up the levels, albeit on a shiny new horse. I took advice from my trainers and friends and we came up with a plan. I was to start with a low mileage horse, a nice sort suitable for riding club amateurs,  bring him on and then sell it for a profit and the profit would buy the next horse which would be the really posh one.

So my brief was to buy a nice Irish bay gelding, that would be an easy resell once it had done reasonably well at a few affiliated local events. So I went to a recommended dealer and listened to all that wise counsel and got my friend the vet to ride it as well as vet it and I finally came home with….. a pink pony!!!

Well, steel grey that definitely looked pink in some lights, but with the most amazing silver tail.

Can you hear all those people in your heads who say I would never buy a grey??? I was one of those….why on earth would you buy one as a doer upper??

Steel grey/ pink
Steel grey/ pink- the life lesson professor
He is a gorgeous person, very quiet and affectionate, easy to do, stands like a rock, loves a fuss, is pretty food orientated so easy to bribe. When he first arrived we could tie him up to groom and he wouldn’t move a muscle: I do think some of these Irish horses have a tough time of it when they get started, and I also think the journey / upheaval takes more out of them than we realise.

He was pretty green, he could barely canter, couldn’t trot a circle, was really weak behind the saddle and had to inspect his fences carefully at a halt before cat leaping them.

We worked on that and by the end of the first summer he had done a BE 80 and was doing really well at Riding Club dressage. The cunning plan was going beautifully.

Disaster struck that first winter. One day he came in from the field lame. Vet came, started with feet, dug out a bit of gravel, diagnosed white line disease, shoes off, bit of rest, shoes back on. He was a bit better, slow work, then lame again on one circle on a surface. So the vet came again, found heat in his knee,  took mobile Xrays and found a bone chip in his carpal joint. A trip to Leahurst ensued and the MRI showed a comminuted fracture of his second carpal bone, as well as ligament damage to the joint.

Much discussion and agonising later and we opted for 8 weeks box rest in a splint. We discussed all options including PTS but he was insured for loss of use at that time and Ellen Singer thought the splint was worth a go.

I jumped him again at 11 months post injury. If the ligaments in the knee were not going to stand up to work we needed to know for the loss of use claim. I was determined I couldn’t have a horse that wouldn’t jump. There is a whole other story in the rehab, bit of barefoot, bit of Natural Balance shoeing, poor initial shoeing, flat feet and long toes obviously being contributing factors to the original injury and a lot of soul searching about belief systems, horses’ purpose,  life lessons learned from horses etc etc.

The leg stood up to work. My doer upper would probably pass a five stage vetting now but essentially I have a greying horse who broke a carpal bone and sprained his knee, is barefoot to minimise concussion and delay arthritis but is also grass sensitive.

Be careful what you wish for.

He is really bomb proof, carries a side saddle beautifully, would jump the moon now and might even make the time Novice eventing with enough fast work: his price tag should be £15K if I could ever sell him.

During his rehab we were doing really well at Riding Club dressage but he was getting more and more grumpy and turning his back on me when I brought the saddle to the stable door. I was stuck at a stage in his schooling that I couldn’t get past and I couldn’t find anyone that would help me go back to basics. I knew my position could be better but nobody would or could unpick it, despite me asking for very specific help. Then Sarah Barefoot nagged me to have a lesson with Patrice Edwards of Equestrian Journey, and I finally found the instructor I had been looking for.

http://www.equestrianjourney.com

The long version of that life lesson is another day’s story. I am sure, had I not changed my schooling methods, that Cal would have joined the recent epidemic of leisure horses requiring Kissing Spine intervention.

Cal offers Piaffe occasionally now. He cannot quite believe that he can move to the right in right flexion through his ribcage-once he twigs that this is possible we will have  a full set of lateral movements, a basic piaffe and possibly the airs that he has learned whilst finding alternatives and processing!!

He also jumps for fun, skinnies and big things, in a neat, workmanlike manner from a good canter.

I have done this- with help, but I have trained this horse, rehabbed him from a serious injury to be the amazing all round poppet he is. I am allowed a tiny bt of credit for that. I’ll take more when he has rock crunching hooves as well 😉

But I can’t sell him now- he’s both worthless and totally priceless.

Cal has also rehabbed me- he has changed me from a rider into an equestrian, and many more horses will teach me many more valuable life lessons as a result of that change in mindset. That is the most precious gift the grey horse could have given me- freedom from goals and a lifetime of further learning from the most noble of animals.

I am now the facilitator for monthly classical riding clinics with Patrice Edwards at the amazing facilities at Delamere Manor.

http://www.delameremanor.co.uk

Do come and join us if you would like to learn more- next one is this weekend 26-28th Feb.

 

 

Arena XC

The season has started ? first XC school of the year, albeit on a surface and Cal was a total dude. He was neat and workmanlike and jumped everything including the skinny barrel first time. We also ended up jumping a bit bigger than I was planning too as it was first proper do. 

Now we just need to get those feet toughened up and fitness sorted for a few weeks and we will be good to go. 

First event we have planned is 90cm at Lands eventing on Easter weekend- it will be here before we know it. 

Bring on the light nights ??? 

Barefoot is best…..but it ain’t always easy

For humans or for horses. Paddy is the horse that started us on our barefoot journey, and the accelerated learning that ensued: feeding horses naturally, the prevalence and effects of gastric ulcers in horses, natural husbandry, paddock paradise, track systems…and ultimately all these factors were drivers that led us to the purchase of our beautiful forest cottage.

Traditionally horses wear metal shoes, unless they really don’t need them. I remember ponies at riding school with no shoes, and later my German sister’s Arab horse regularly doing miles through the forest with no shoes. In fact there were quite a few horses in my sister’s village with no shoes at all doing lots of work and looking very well. But I live in Britain, and I always wanted to go eventing, and eventers need studs to go cross country, and so we needed shoes.

Paddy was cheap to buy and came with a reputation. Part of the reputation was that he hated the farrier. We cold shod him for a bit with a bucket of feed to keep him occupied but when I started eventing him, he “needed” studs, hot shoeing was required and the problem gradually escalated. We got sacked by one farrier, then the farrier cum horse whisperer started asking for him to be sedated until one day the shoes came off but the horse whisperer couldn’t get them back on. We had two events looming so I got the vet out, we formally sedated him, shod him  for the last two events of the season and I tried to make a sensible plan. Call out and sedation put the cost of shoes to £100 a pair. His feet were weak, crumbly, looked terrible, barely held nails and we were on a 5 week shoeing cycle. I started to ask myself if we needed shoes? Did I really need to event? Could he find another job? Did I need to sell him?

We had a climbing friend who was married to a barefoot trimmer, Sarah then from Performance Barefoot, later known as Forageplus.

https://forageplus.co.uk/

A vaguely remembered conversation got me thinking about barefoot horses in Germany, managing without shoes, hacking and jumping and galloping. I started reading, started asking lots of questions, re-examined what I knew about shoes and horses, spoke to Sarah at length, changed his diet, started buying white powdered magnesium oxide by the kilo and six weeks later we pulled his shoes off. He was 12 years old.

He was obviously lame on stones, as you would be if we took your shoes off and sent you out running,  but we were surrounded by super smooth tarmac- suddenly, with no shoes, all the steep, narrow, country roads felt much safer. We had Little Budworth Common with a sand track to canter on, so Paddy never missed any work. He tottered down the gravel drive, zoomed down the smooth tarmac and pulled like a train around the common. After about 2 months he zoomed down the gravel drive too, then down the hard core. Paddy is not a ploddy horse! We started jumping barefoot and he actually felt better: he adjusted his balance automatically and stopped rushing his fences. Grip just didn’t seem to be an issue. His feet got stronger and stronger. He had a couple of amazing seasons eventing; he has never been the most consistent horse but we got to the Riding Club National Championships for Horse Trials, Hunter Trials and moved up to BE100, the third level of affiliated competition. He was a cross country machine on his good days.

paddy profile

In retrospect it is so obvious: the hate of the farrier was pain from thin soles, poor hoof quality due to poor nutrition (although it was a reputable feed brand, just not the right food for a sensitive horse), and from repetitive hot shoeing. From having the worst feet in Cheshire he now has the best, toughest, most functional feet you could wish for.

This January my 20 year old barefoot machine went charging around the hills above Colwyn Bay with the Flint and Denbigh. We had a great day, he galloped up the hills, trotted up the steep lanes, jumped most things and kept right up with the thrusters. Best of all he had fun.

When I bought Paddy, I was on a great livery yard with a crowd of really good friends and we all bought new horses around the same time. Paddy is the only one of our horses from those times still in work, although he does now choose his days. The rest of the cohort is dead or retired now, most have been PTS. Commonest problem/ cause of euthanasia; forelimb lameness due to arthritis.

So for him barefoot was the answer.

However the reason the old boy got dragged up the hill that day was because Cal, my good horse, is not quite such a barefoot legend. He bruised his soles on Boxing Day racing around Rivington Pike on really stoney paths with the Holcombe Harriers. Paddy would have been OK up there but for Cal it was all a bit too much and he was still ouchy. And for my poor husband Gary, who sorted out the invite, did a lot of the prep and got us to Wales, his horse was also a bit footsore from Boxing Day and so he turned around early and had to wait in the lorry for the happy crew to return. Pretty galling.

Why are Cal and Con not rock crunching barefoot horses? I’m not sure yet, we are still working that one out. Cal I’m sure has an underlying metabolic condition. He tested borderline high for Cushings, has had severe RAO this summer and always looks a bit fat. When I work him enough (20-30 miles a week) his feet are tolerable. We are not doing that this winter. Con is just getting fit; he arrived quite obese after two years of being nanny to a yard full of youngsters. His wind and muscle tone are improving, I think his  under performing barefoot hooves are probably acting as a protecting limiting factor while the rest of his physiology tones up. Very frustrating for a relatively newly horse obsessed husband who loves the idea of hunting!