In between seeing other people’s horses, I had to find time to see my own and continue his recovery work. As written before, he was as good as can be expected the first day. The second took us all by surprise.
Things started very well, Zue was much calmer to mount and walked in the school like he had not had any time off at all! After 10 minutes of being nanny’d around, my helper stood by the gate whilst we attempted to complete two laps of the school on our own. ¾ of the way round our second lap, he launched into one without any warning what so ever! When he came back to earth and I stopped laughing, he launched into another attempt to loosen his rein to effect his infamous capriole movement. Luckily I was riding him in draw reins so that he could not get his head up enough so after putting in a very swift spin he just managed to bounce all over the place! After the 2nd attempt, he stood rigid ready to explode again, I had to call my friend over as there was no way I was able to put my leg on and ask him to step forward!
The next few days saw us being nanny’d the whole time again, luckily without any repeat airs above the ground.
After that the freezing weather hit and has hampered our progress.
Here is a video of a horse doing both levade and capriole for you to enjoy.
Yeah! After months off and quite a while on complete box rest, our vet wanted me to get on and ride Zue in walk so that he would be more controlled than in hand walking - he hoped anyway. Pleased to report we managed 10 minutes!
Zue kept all four feet on the ground and me on his back, could not have asked for much more than that really. He was very fresh when I got on him, almost piaffed the 10 steps from the mounting block to the arena. He went into the arena and was about to explode. Whilst he was trying to decided which way to spin or just simply go up, I called a friend over to walk next to us. With both of us talking to him we managed to get him round the arena safely. I could not put my legs on him at all for the first 8 minutes of that!
Was just settling when a big white horse from the DIY yard other side of the farm headed down toward the school - now white horses are Zue's favourite - I think it has something to do with shades of grey (no not the book!) ie he can see them better. His eyes did pop out of his head and his whole body went tense, I managed to call out and ask if they could please come back in 5 minutes. Luckily the rider understood and disappeared behind the stables for a little jaunt out of sight.
All good fun. Onwards and upwards. Tomorrow will try for 15 minutes.
Happy New Year everyone! I want to say a big thank you to you all for allowing me to work on your horses last year, it is always a privilege that you trust me with your prized possession, and humbling that they let me treat them! I have met some wonderful people and equines and hope have made the lives of many much happier and healthier.
So with holidays now over, time to get on board and start with winter fitness and training regimes so we can get out there in the summer and strut our stuff - be it around the park for a hack, or round Badminton.
The most exciting news from me is that I start riding my own horse at the end of this week! As some of you may know, my own horse has been off for the past 6 months with lameness. I intend to write a weekly blog about how I bring him back into work, schooling and hopefully competition. Many people are unsure about how to bring a horse back into work after extended time off, and whilst everyone and every horse is different, I will write about my experience. It would be nice to have some discussion on how you manage to get on your horse after a prolonged time off, tips etc.
So, first discussion – what tips do you give me for getting on and staying on? To be honest, I am not really worried about day 1, or day 2… but by day 3 he would have woken up!
I arrived at my horse today to find his 2 x 4 post at his stable door was broken! Apart from wondering what had been going on for him to actually break a post that was on the inside of his door, I also wondered what force it would take to do so, and if he was sore. Sure enough, he was very sore at the base of his neck and into his chest. Luckily I was able to relax the whole area and he responded very quickly to the treatment - I used muscle manipulation and massage techniques. In cases like these, the sooner you treat the affected area the better. In cases I have seen some months later, the horse was presenting with very sore trapezius, serratus muscles, neck out of alignment, sore in the chest and pectorals, thus stifling the movement of the horse in front. Clients comment on the horses inability to lift in the canter strike off or not being as ground covering in the trot. It is only when I comment on the horse having possibly run into something that the client remembers that in the past...