Update Time Again

Well nothing too exciting has been going on here, I have been very busy with work, so not even around a lot.

Fergy is the only current rideable horse I have, so have been riding her everyday that I am home, will start competing her pretty soon.

Some pics from today's schooling

She is going very well, she is sound (yay!) and super consistent. She is also extremely slow!

I am planning on starting jumping her this week, its been simply ages since I have jumped (poor Fergy)

The photos aren't so great, but better than none.

Canter still needs work (much much work!)

In other news, we are going to try some remedial shoeing with Charlie, he has been worse than ever since taking off his back shoes, but other than that is looking better than ever and is happy as larry.

Flash is heading off this week to someone who has more time for him, I had ridden him on a few occasions and he just wasn't at all sound, the swelling on the check ligament came up when he worked too much, some investigation showed this one sucks and is possibly 12 months out, I just cant give him that, but he is going just down the road so I will keep an eye on him. I was bitterly disappointed as he has everything going for him, but cant do it.

Ben Moves on

Well the end of an era has come.

I have had to make the decision to move Ben on, he wasn't really improving, there were small improvements, you know for him, like being able to physically pick up the right canter lead, where previously there had been a couple years of just the left.

Look cantering on the right lead!!

Ben is just such a beautiful horse, and I just tried for so long to get him right, but the damage had been done and there was nothing to reverse it, I could have spent more money, I could have tried another couple of things, but I had to be realistic there had been less improvement in him in 2 years than I could get out of a sound OTT horse in 2 weeks.

Really the final straw for me, was trying a lot of new saddles on him, and working him decently hard for 7 days in a row, creating a resistant, sore, and very uncooperative horse. He ended up coming up lame behind, and I know he will not be able to handle pressure. He will be under no pressure where he has gone, and that's the best thing for him.

I know its very hard to look at these pictures of him, and associate it with a horse that's completely unsound, that's wholly the reason its taken this long to let him go, however he was still at this stage incapable of doing even a training dressage test, he would lose all coordination in the hind end, and I had far too many close calls with him falling.

I have had to take the high road and assume he came to me for me to learn from, rather than to rehab. I have certainly learnt an awful lot about sacro-iliac injuries, and really how poor the prognosis is, especially in a case like this where the initial injury was never treated or allowed to heal.

The physical signs to the eye took awhile to come, but the uncoordination in the hind end was always there, I will never assume a horse disunites due to lack of balance again.

On a more positive note, Charlie has bounced back incredibly well, he is bright and cheerful, lining up when the other horses are being tacked up, I am assuming its the Lybrisyn thats made the biggest affect as I doubt the pentosan could work in 2 days. Whatever is working long may it continue I say, and we have to be on the right track.

I have been dreading posting on here

for more than a month, but leaving it makes it no easier.

Its been a month of total emotional turmoil, and some lows I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Rachel came to see Charlie and Ben and gave me some exercises to help them strengthen their backs, both had multiple issues and Rachel was pretty tight lipped about them.

Ben carried on as usual, but Charlie went downhill in a big way. After trying to get him to lift his back and having him try and kick me, and me having to get Nigel to come and hold him so I could force the issue I felt totally deflated and just awful for him. It was clear he was in a lot of pain and this was aggravating it.

After that day Charlie was a wreck, he couldn't lie down or roll, he wouldn't let me touch anywhere but his face, he associated me with pain and he was so depressed in the paddock even the other horses left him alone. He hadn't been down for around 6-7 days, and wasn't improving when I decided to put him down.

It was the hardest decision of my life, I never ever ever want to have to do that again, the only thing that made me feel like I was doing the right thing was seeing how he was, how much he didn't even want to be here.

This photo was taken the day I took him to the huntsman and is a pretty good picture of exactly what I had to see when I went out there.

Luckily for Charlie, Ang decided maybe a bit of time on the farm would do him some good, so he was rescued from the huntsman (he was actually in the huntsmans pen) and taken to turn out in Rotorua.

Just prior to him going to Rotorua, in the Back on Track rug, this was the first time he had been down in a week.

Anyway by some luck, someone else I knew was having the exact same issues and had isolated it to a hock problem, I was sent an article on Osteo Arthritis in the spavin bone, for the first time Charlie had every single one of the symptoms, it was like reading a story about him. I had wondered if it was his hocks as they aren't all that great, but had felt not enough showed in them for the level of pain he was in.

As you can see here the chestnuts are hot, this isn't usual.

And this picture isnt the best, but it shows the outside of the hock, really about where the spavin bone is.

Charlie has since come back from Rotorua, as I needed to get him onto some treatment, he is on Pentosan and Lubrisyn, he had his first shot of pentosan on Wednesday, and has 3 more to go, one every Wednesday. He started the loading dose of Lybrisyn 2 days ago.

When Charlie came home, he immediately associated me with hurting and pain (still), very disheartening for me, he had never been the sort of horse to throw himself at me in the paddock, but for him to run on every sighting of me was hard to take. I have been brushing and rubbing his back at feed time and he seems to be coming around to this idea quite fine.

I have noted today that he is looking much brighter, called out to me this morning and stood and waited for me to come up, I have been very careful to not be obtrusive to his body, and have avoided the temptation to find exactly where he is still hurting, he seems to find the thought of being touched much worse than the act itself.

I don't know what the outcome will be, I am so very hopeful that this is the answer, but I don't want to be a fool either, I think the look in his eye today is much better then even yesterday, so its just one day at a time really.

Yet again!

Well ups and downs here. Unfortunately Charlie got a sore back again, I knew I should have had Fergy in work as a spare, but I really struggled with just getting the one fit enough.

Just after my trip to Taupo it must have become totally unbearable for him and he made it very clear he didn't want to be ridden. I took him straight to Lynley Moroney, and she didn't have good news, he was out for min 2 weeks, so that put paid to my Taupo plans, I had entered and everything! Story of my life really.

Did a bit of digging into Charlie background and found out he had a big crash in his last race, his old trainer wasn't the least surprised to hear I was having problems, however finding out what happened has actually made him easier to treat, and to cut a long and emotional story short, he has improved a huge amount with the help he has had recently. I completely recommend EMRT, I have never seen a horses back that sore, respond that quickly, and I check out sore backs for a living! Also have Rachel Phillips here tomorrow to check him out, though so far no one can find any permanent unfixable damage, so I am sitting tight fingers X'd.

I decided I had to have a ride on Flash, I knew I wouldn't be happy until I had and one morning when I saw him trot around sound, I decided today was the day. I am not sure how long he hadn't been ridden in, and he is being fed twice a day racehorse feed, so it wasn't the best timing, but I am not renowned for making the most sensible of decisions!

Well what a dude, saddled him up and my saddle was too wide and slid all over the place, and we just walked around the paddock to get a feel for each other. All I wanted to actually achieve was to put my mind at rest that I wasn't rehabilitating a monster (I knew I wasn't, but you have that niggly voice aye) and for Flash to realise he wasn't here for a free ride, he was expected to be ridden.

I was completely stoked that he felt like an old man, but not a crabby one, he was bold as brass and walked with purpose, he didn't care that I was totally crooked, or when I started hassling him to drop his head, when he got confused he just stopped dead. I did get him walking long and low in the end but photographer had enough by that stage! I was only on 5 mins or so, enough to get a feel what he is like and that was it.

Update on the abcess's is that he has 2 under run abcess's, one in each front foot, the farrier took the shoes off and has said its just a time thing, I polticed the worst one, but it didnt seem to do much. Within a couple of days of the shoes coming off he was almost totally sound. I cannot find anything in his tendons for me to think ther is also a problem there. I still dont want to do much with him for a bit just to let it all settle.

He is still turned out, I am expecting until prob Christmas to let those soles come down properly.

New pony on the block

And the next news is that there is a new pony on the block.

'Flash' as he has now been dubbed, came from the Waikato, Phoenix Sport Horses handed over the reins on him after he became injured with suspected tendon problem. I offered to take over his care and rehabilitation, since I have the space, feed and diagnostic tool to be able to diagnose and treat exactly what he has.

I picked him up on Wednesday, he floated like a pro, and settled in well.

Flash is a very pretty boy, has settled in well, is yarded at nights at the moment with Back on Track gear, and out in the day with the cows and strict instructions to NOT RUN!

He is quite lame, but the first thing I have picked up is abscess's in his front feet, there is also filling up the leg, I am pretty sure its related, as I cant pick up anything i the tendon at this stage. I am expecting the farrier in an hour to relieve the abscess's, and then I can move on to checking the tendons out properly, hopefully just a strain and no permanent damage *fingers X'd*

Pictures of under the front feet revealing 2 significant abscess's.

Eeek the season is looming

I was so busy trying desperately to get ready to start Charlie at Taupo, I haven't even updated my blog!

Since I hadn't really jumped in a good year, or XC'd in about 2 years! I decided I might need to do something about that.

I booked in a jump lesson and started some grids at home, the jump lesson was exactly what I needed, Tina showed me how to stop the napping even occurring, which actually was starting to get worse by the day, I had tried all sorts of things, from sitting quiet and riding through it, to taking out a stick and walloping him a couple times for it (which bought about a very quick end to it) and put him around a few grids and jumps just to try get us working together.

I am super stoked with his jump, he jumps anything, and really gets up in front too, some work to be done on general style, but I can hardly pick on him when I am like a sack of spuds on top!

The following day we bundled off to Taupo for a weekends XC schooling, I was feeling much better about this after my lesson, as prior to that was a bit worried about even being able to stick with charlie and some of his big jumps.

Kristal and Flynn, and Ky and about a dozen horses joined us.

We had a fabulous time, there are no pics of me though sorry, we all rode together on the sat, so no pics of any of us, and then Sunday I took Charlie out alone while the others were out to try get him to settle.

He jumped absolutely everything put at, ditches, Trak, Palisade, bank, water etc, and certainly felt very safe really chucking his knees up if anything looked scary (again could see the knees from the front!) the only wee prob I had was at narrow jumps (chevron) as I don't think he 'gets' that, but that's easy fixed, so glad he isn't ditchy!

Well there has been a bit going on, Charlie is in work pending a start at Taupo training trial, admittedly its been really hard to get the work into him, the blinkin weather has not helped at all, and a lot of my work has been done on the stupid driveway!

Charlie has gone up to the arena a couple of times and is always impeccable up there, gets on with his work and works well, so I was pretty happy with how things were going.

Today he had his first competition, a local dressage day, just 2 training tests.

I was a little surprised with how amped up he got down there as he had been so good at the arena, however lots going on there today, lots and lots of horses, and unfortunately 2 bays and a grey grazing the paddock over the back, I am convinced Charlie thought they were his paddock mates and kept screaming out to them, and couldn't understand why they were ignoring him!

I hopped on him and started working him in, he started napping quite a bit in the warm up area, I have always considered him a little bit nappy, but today showed he a nappy horse and I need to take a hard line on it, the softly softly approach I have been using clearly isn't working.

Though sometimes he napped to the gate, then sometimes away from the gate so maybe it was just an outlet for not coping completely?

Basically he was pretty tense which ruined his marks, but really he did pretty well, he was happy to enter the arena, do the test, listen and try do what I wanted, there was just lots going on!

His first test was pretty average marks and work wise, but having even wondered if I would be able to get on him there, I thought it wasn't bad, well below par what he is capable of though.

His second test was a real mixed bag! I could tell warming him up he had, had enough and he was really not wanting to carry on, however I decided its all education and decided to do it anyway, the ring was running about 10 mins late though so he worked in longer than I wanted, when he finally got in there the first half of the test was really lovely, then he packed a bit of a sad in the canter and decided he didn't want to do the rest, tried to nap out of the arena and was very upset and tense for the remainder of the test, again ruining his marks! However we completed it and as you can see from the pic below and the look on his face not a moment too soon!


I had some interesting comments on my tests, mostly about the difficult ride, but some good comments about how nice he is when relaxed.

He settled down in the end, and I was more happy than not with the day, off to jump on Wednesday!