Hope you are all ok, and Warm sunny days

I hope you are all ok over there! I heard on the news about a terrible snowstorm. Power cut, freezing temperatures. So hope you all are staying warm and so are all your fluffy pals!

Down under is starting to warm up. Our day time temps are starting to rise and so are our nights. Winter rugs have been put away, sent to the cleaners or are in the washing pile. Coats are falling out and you can see hair floating on the breeze!

Flies are starting to buzz lazily around, mosquitoes buzz in a frenzy in the early evenings. Horses and ponies stand lazily under trees during the middle of the day, swishing tails, stamping hooves, shaking the head occasionally.

Cut pasture aroma hangs in the warm air and the faint hum of tractors can be heard all day.

Sam and I are doing well when I get the time to ride. Last weekend we floated the hour to my instructors place and had a lesson. Sam worked really well as usual, I need a lot of improvement but we will get there. We even dabbled at shoulder in.

This is poor Sam not impressed that I am setting up markers that will make us ride our corners!

We had the sheep at our place again for about 3 weeks. Meet "mum" she is pretty old and follows you around every where...........even though she was very noisy, she was still my favorite!


The great horse search continues and I am glad that I am requesting video footage before making the trek, I haven't physically seen a lot of horses due to such poor work shown on videos.
I am considering on making the trek to meet Arky though, I really like his rhythmical trot. He is not a show stopper but looks honest and sounds lovely.

Sam's First Show

Sam and I attended our local show this morning - The Rock show! There was stiff competition, Sam didn't place in his led class but it was more about getting us both out there and showing Sam what a competition atmosphere is like. He handled it all like a pro. We arrived around 7.30am - for a 9am start.

I took him for a walk around when we first arrived. He grew about 2 hands but stayed in control. He then stood happily at the float and started to eat his hay. He let me finish prepping him even though he was starting to bet bored, chewing on the spare tyre, running his teeth along the float!

They were running late starting so we were on around 9.30am. Sam walked around the ring happily and trotted out nicely, listening to me the whole way. He wasn't too impressed by having to stand still for the judge but eventually we got there. The other horses in his class were very beautiful and very will prepared. I was just happy that we came and conquered!!!!

I then rode him over to the side of all the rings. I lunged him first and he was good on the lunge so on I hopped. He was good under saddle, a little preoccupied but still listened. He walked, trotted and cantered without too much trouble. I think we rode for about 15min. I could feel myself starting to get a little worried so Sam was starting to get tense through his back so i decided to call it a day. I was proud of myself for riding in a competition atmosphere and VERY proud of Sam dealing with the morning!

Now for some photos!

This is what we started with, a very dirty pony!

Not very impressed with being bathed!
Standing quietly by the float waiting for his turn!
All ready for the show ring! With his dapples glowing and all!A very relaxed pony happily munching!

Home again with a curly mane!
Yesterday at the back door waiting for carrots please!
NUM NUM carrots!!!!!!I love my carrots!!!!

Sorted out my account and back riding!

I have finally sorted my account out and can be back to blogging!

So much has been happening!

Sam has now been officially bought back into work. Day one I had to lunge first. I mounted and tried to walk around our back paddock but Sam soon told me that he was full of beans and that there are monsters hiding under all the trees. I popped him on the lunge until he had shown me just how acrobatic he can be and until he was ready to slow down, breath and to start thinking again. I don't mind Sam being silly on the lunge as when I need to use it as a training tool and working tool he does listen and work properly - I'm lucky that way. We have been doing a lot of fitness work mainly. The back paddock is about 3 acres and we walk around it twice, trot twice and canter twice and change the rein and do it all over again. He his starting to really get his breathing sorted in the trot work.

I am now wondering about the diagnosis of pedal osteitis for Sam as he seems to be warming up out of the lameness. It is not totally gone but he does get better throughout the work out. I am considering when I have time to take him to a different vet clinic that is about 3 hours away but their reputation is remarkable for lameness issues.

So Sam is working well, accepting a contact, holding a nice prelim frame in trot. Canter is still very stiff. Any ideas for suppling exercises for the canter? I really need to be able to loosening up his back.

Sam got new shoes all round on Thursday and on Friday he was a little touchy so I gave him yesterday off and will see how he is today, if no improvement I will call the farrier.

Little Poppy is doing well. Fat! She has a sore eye at the moment that seems light sensitive. I have been bathing it with warm salty water and I have given her some bute (an anti inflammatory and pain killer). This has been helping but if I stop for about two days the eye becomes sore again so I will take her to the vet this week. I can't see anything and it isn't really weeping, maybe she has bumped it but I would prefer to be sure.

Little Poppy excelled her self when my niece and nephew came to stay. We have never known if she has been broken to saddle. She accepts a lunge roller with no issues and has been long reining really well. We decided to put my nephew on her. I made sure he had a helmet on and he wore his gumboots - better than thongs - my OH was also holding onto him just in case Poppy showed us that she wasn't ready for it or happy about it. SHE WAS QUIETER BEING RIDDEN!!!!


She is a little super star!

I am heading off again next weekend on another road trip to look at a horse. Only 6.5hrs away this time!
Harvest Arbitrator He is a 16.1hh 14yo Warmblood Gelding. Trained to medium level dressage, currently competing Elementary level. He is meant to be very quiet and schoolmaster like. You have to press the right buttons or he won't do it! If you nag him too much with your spur than he will cow kick at your leg - I thought this was a good thing, makes sure you keep your leg still and quiet and only use it when required. He has the same Sire as my old instructors horse in Sydney and her horse swishes his tail a lot as well - I will presume it comes from the Sire. I thought he looked happy and willing and very patient in the video. These are his official placings.
Thoughts?

The Darcy Saga

Well my OH and I have just returned from travelling a round trip of 1900kms (1186 miles) to see Darcy. It was a very interesting drive as we hadn't seen this part of Australia before so the landscape was interesting, very flat and not hugely fertile through the middle of the trip.

We arrived 30min early and the owner was already there. I was introduced to a dirty, paddock condition, wet, nervous horse. Darcy was tied up in a stable and could not stand still. He appeared quite on edge and nervous. The farrier was due that morning and still had not shown up. We were just starting to have a look and chat about him when the farrier turned up so we waited while two new shoes were fitted and the back hooves trimmed. His hooves were so long and the farrier commented that it had been 3 months since he was last shod!!!! His heels were very under slung, I wasn't impressed. He kept moving his leg that was being worked on for the farrier and certainly wasn't relaxed about the whole process.

Finally we were ready to saddle him up and see him move. When the tatty rug was taken off he certainly was in paddock condition. Not skinny just no muscle tone. The story had been changing a lot about how much work he was in and on Saturday afternoon they story was that the owner hadn't actually seen the horse for 3 weeks (he agists) though on the phone the weekend before he couldn't talk as he was taking the horse to Pony Club? I am not quick enough with my thought process to pick up on these things at the time so I couldn't question this.

Darcy was not impressed about having a bridle put on, threw his head a lot and once on kept chomping the bit. His teeth were badly over due and looked quite long. We headed out to the grass arena, the indoor was being used for a clinic. The weather was terrible. It was very, very cold, windy, raining and the chill factor I am guessing was about 3 degrees. The owner proceeded to lunge Darcy (I had been told that you could get straight on anytime, no working down required), he showed some acrobatics but nothing too bad and he showed me a lovely trot. I was finally starting to like what I was seeing.

I was asked to hold Darcy as the owner needed to go back to the stables to get his helmet. Darcy could not stand still. I kept backing him back away from me every time he stepped towards me but he was so on edge he wouldn't really listen to me and just could not stand still. The owner came back and somehow climbed on board. Off they walked around the arena. Darcy had a very high head carriage and took about a circuit to finally listen and drop his head carriage. He couldn't keep walking and started to jig jog so the owner let him trot on. The trot was tense but I still liked it. Rhythmical and even. You could see that Darcy wanted to speed up at times and was finding it hard to control himself. He finally let go, shied, ,lept and reared sideways. The owner bought him back to walk, walked around the arena and came up to me and said it was my turn! I was already very disappointed at how tense Darcy was and pretty sure he wouldn't be the horse for me but I didn't travel this far not to have a ride. I did question the owner on his temperament. One of the main reasons I came was because he was advertised as a Schoolmaster. The owner commented that he had never been like this before.

We adjusted the stirrup length and the owner held him still for him. I mounted, lasted all of about 10 seconds and dismounted. I felt like I was about to pelted to the ground. He terrified me! We thanked the owner and left. We started to head back on the 9 hour trip drive home. We hadn't even made it down the drive way and I burst into tears. I think from shear disappointment (I was sure he was going to be the one for me) and from the fear.

I have gone through a range of emotions, fear, sadness, questioning where I had gone wrong, whatever and anger. I have now moved on, I have a new list of questions to ask about the next horse before I even set my bottom down in my car!!!!! I guess it just wasn't meant to be!

On a good note I rode Sam today. He has had 2.5months off and went quite well. We even went over the road into the reserve where he showed me his acrobatics, but really he worked well considering it was cold, windy, a little rain and 2.5 months off!!!!! He was stiff and didn't stride out well but that will all improve with suppling exercises and work. I am looking forward to bringing him back into work. He seemed to hold up reasonably well with his lameness issue - it felt the same as before he was turned out so I guess that is a good sign!

Sam's Home!

I received no phone calls last night from the vet so I took that as a good sign. The vet phoned me at 8.20am to let me know that Sam did well through the night and showed no more upset signs. He did want to take bloods to check his kidney and liver. I was happy for them to do any test that they thought necessary. I confirmed that Sam could stay the day and I would pick him up at 4.30pm.

Sam was sleeping when I arrived. He had eaten his breakfast but hadn't really touched his dinner. The vet was a little concerned and offered to keep him for another night. I said that he will more than likely be fine as Sam can be picky with his feed and I wasn't too concerned about this. His blood work was basically clear but his white cell count was slightly low which meant that he had a very slight infection somewhere in his gut. They still have no idea what or why this happened. I am just happy that it was all caught early. Once again I was told he was a star patient, very body loves him!

Sam seemed ever so slightly down when I lead him out but then he probably hadn't been walked out at all so he was probably a little stiff after being stabled for over 24hours. He loaded well and we headed home. About 10km's from home the car decided to loose power. I had forgotten to change the fuel tanks over! I called my OH and he came out and rescued us!. I was impressed with Sam as he stayed reasonably calm while we waited. Trucks and cars were flying past and he didn't batter an eyelid as long as I was standing with him. He called out a few times when I had to try and start the car but he settled again.

When we got home I let me out in the native pasture paddock with Poppy. He had a good walk around, didn't want to play even though Poppy tried to engage him. He started to pick at the grass and I watched him have a drink. I went back out 2.5hrs later to bring them in and feed up. He tucked into his hard feed nicely. I rugged him up as the temperature has dropped and I have left the gate open tonight so he can graze at his will. I will probably check on him through the night but I think we were lucky!

Sam is having sleep over's

Poor little Sam is having sleep overs at the vet's tonight.

This morning I went out to put a rug on him as the rain started, he trotted back into his stable - precious can't get wet!!!! I rugged him up and offered him some hay - No Thank's Mum, so I made him his breakfast - No Thank's Mum. I wasn't hugely concerned at this stage as this isn't totally out of the norm for Sam. He is becoming picky with his feed. I left him and started cleaning the stables and yards but kept my eye on him. Over the next hour he sat down, lay down and stretched out 4 times. On the 4th sit down he started to look at his belly.

I rang the vet's and organised to take him straight in. They were ready and waiting for us when we arrived. Sam was a little bloated, with very little gut sounds. After an internal examination the vet found that his large intestine was sitting slightly lower than normal and had a very small twist. They put the tube up his nose and down into his stomach and poured some water in there. This was to help move anything if there was something blocking the way up further.

The vet wanted to keep him over night, just to observe him as he said Sam was at the point where it could all settle down or tip over the other way and twist further. I was more than happy to leave him there in their capable hands. It could also be a build up of gas! So we settled Sam into his stable. He has a friend next door to keep him company.

They will call if anything happens, otherwise I will hear from them in the morning and hopefully be able to pick him up after work tomorrow afternoon.

Poor little Sam but hopefully he will feel a lot better soon!

Go Little Poppy!

Tonight I put a roller on Poppy for the first time. She didn't even flinch just watched me tighten the girth. I think she has been broken to harness before.

Firstly I lunged her with it on so she would hear the rings on it cling and clang, also to get her listening to my voice commands.

I then attached a lunge line to each side. I ran them through the rings on the roller and attached them to her bit. She was brilliant. Stopping is still a little issue, just takes her a while and she is leaning into the bit. I just asked verbally and put light pressure on the bit in a give and take motion.

It wasn't long until we were trotting figure of 8's and even trotting over trot poles! Sam decided to join in by cantering around, rearing and kicking out - just trying to get us to play with him really and she ignored him and kept focused on her job!

What a good little pony!

Sam looked a little left out so I took him out to give him a quick lunge and to see how lame he is. I see a few strides every now and again of him either stepping short or actually limping when he is carrying on out in the paddock. We did some ground work, moving off pressure, which he did very well, he was excited to get out on the lunge and showed me just how acrobatic he can be. Such a clever boy. The left was his bad rein before being turned out and he wasn't showing signs of being 'worse' with his pedal osteitis so I think he will be able to come back into work quite well. Arena work will be kept to a minimum but it was good to see.

I have been looking into transport companies for if I buy Darcy. So far I like the look of Southern Cross Horse Transport. I have asked for a quote, just so I know what I would be up for. I have also started to look at different equine vets located near him so I can organise a vet check quickly. I really hope Darcy is the one.