Well, have given Bella quite some time off to see if her ‘lameness’ has gone. She trotted up to me this morning for her apple slices so decided to see how she goes with a short ride this afternoon.
She is ok walking in a straight line, has a bit of bother turning right, short stepping her left front foot and a bit of a shuffle around. She is also not good in trot shown with a small bob of her head when her right front foot is on the ground. It’s almost unnoticeable but it ‘feels off-ish’ ;(
Another few days off (as I’m off working in Dumfries & Galloway for the weekend) and when I return the vet will be called. It’s a bit of a worry but don’t think it’s anything too bad as it’s so mild, she’s putting weight on all 4 feet/legs and not holding one up or wincing in pain….just got to get an expert in to see if they can figure out what’s going on ;(
After a few days up at the house for S&B today we rode them back to their big field
Nice breezy weather but not chilly so made for a lovely ride
S&B both happy to be going back to the big field, they love it there with lots of space to roam
Went through the field with Highland cows and their calves, luckily none on the track
Bella did an outstanding job going next to gates to allow me off to open them and then to get back on too 😉
Gate open to the field so we were able to just ride in and down the big hill to the shelter
Thurs 4th
Lovely day for some exercise. First worked Stormy, mostly walk, just getting his legs to move faster than when he spends all day grazing 😉
He did very well and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I then did similar patterns but more trot work with Ms Bella. She slowly got into it and understood the patterns of small circls off big circles but looking at the ‘map’ I can see that we need to work on the word ‘circle’, hahaha.
Enjoyed just being out and riding my beautiful girlie. She brings a huge smile on my face, they both do 😉
Stretching before being ridden….2 feet on the pedestal and then 4 feet on the pedestal 😉
Bella ‘parked’ at the mounting block waiting patiently for me to jump on board 😉
Mon 8th
Yeehaa…between the days of rain and wind we have some blue skies and puffy clouds today. Not wanting to miss an opportunity I scoot out and ride Storm then Bella 🙂
Stormy:
Mostly walk with a bit of trot and a short canter at the end this was mainly to help Stormy stretch his legs. He’s 21yrs young now so I try not to tax him with anything fast or intricate.
Bella:
Started big fig 8’s around the field in walk, 2nd set was in trot and after a wee rest we did a 3rd set in trot with nice amounts of canter 😉
So pleased we have started to do some canter AND I am pretty pleased that from the ‘map’ I can see we kept to the same path most of the time 😉
Thurs 11th
Early morning ride to the house today with Storm, Bella and Mark 😉 What a glorious day it is too, lovely to see our shadow as we ride.
Managed to clamber onto a dyke wall today to remount Bella…she is such a supa-star and sidled to it like we’d done it a thousand times 😉
Happy at home for the day now 😉
Sun 14th
S&B stayed at the house for a couple of days but went home to their big field today. It’s not often we ride when it’s raining but it’s just been one of those months. The track is getting very muddy, not mostly from the rain but from the Highland cattle that have been in the field since December through all the bad weather. S&B did very well not slipping. There is one gateway that is always open and recently I have tied the ‘horsey’ sprung gateway back SO today we went through that gap which is mud free compared to the main gateway. S&B did very well going through it and took care not to bang our feet on the gate posts 😉
Tues 16th
Today Mark and I had a few things to do about the field (renew palettes under sheds which hold some bits of agility in and then clearing old hay from their shelter). I noticed Bella laying down near Stormy, who was lovingly watching over her, so I didn’t have the heart to get her up for a ride SO, I took the opportunity to put together our first 2024 agility course 😉
Agility course 2024/1
(the flags and curtain only get put into place when we are playing in the area as it’s still open to S&B and with Stormy being overly curious he is liable to break them or hurt himself on them)
This is the course:
2 front feet in hula hoop 2. weave in walk/trot 3. walk/trot/backup through bunting lane 4. trotting poles 5. flag fig 8’s 6. jump 7. walk/trot/halt/backup tarp 8. curtain 9. stand in box 10. flag familiarisation.
I hope to start working on this online tomorrow, then try some bits at liberty and then riding it 😉
Fri 19th
After spending some time out and about teaching agility to students it was about time I tried my own agility course today. It was pretty windy and we had absolutely no practise around the course but it just felt good to give it a go….here are Bella and Storm’s first Agility play for 2024 😉
Bella…Score 87%
Stormy…..91%
Sat 20th
Lovely day for a ride today so went and had a nice time with Bella. It feels like we’ve started our riding year again as she has lost muscle since Feb (when we did quite a bit of riding) but the grass has started coming up so hoping this continues to build our fitness up again.
We did more walk than trot, hopefully that will change soon to more trot. She was such a good girl and we started riding with the flag again. Walk with the flag fully out and moving around her and then in trot with the flag half open so we can build up familiarisation with the noise of it in the wind 😉
I also trimmed her extensively long jaw line hair as it was getting caught in her bridle (not the whiskers which are very necessary when grazing etc), She looks super sleek now <3
Tues 23rd
Managed to get S&B’s worm count done this morning, took the samples to the postbox then came back to ride S&B.
I rode Stormy first, he was a bit stiff in his legs to start with but with a gentle start in walk and then moved into a faster walk he started to loosen up a bit. He did some nice trot after that and he sprung into canter to finish off 😉
I then tacked Bella up and started her off the same as Storm, some nice gentle walk moving into a faster walk. I then asked her for some trot but she was quite reluctant, this is not like Bella at all, so we went back into walk and I asked a couple of times more for trot. She was reluctant, stiff and felt very ‘off-ish’, she even tried to offer canter as an alternative but I could feel she wasn’t ‘right’ so dismounted and untacked her.
When leaving I asked S&B to follow e and the quad bike for some treats…Bella walked and again very reluctant to go up into trot and when she managed a couple of steps she seemed lame on her front right foot/leg.
I’m going to give her a week off and then try again, if she is still ‘off’ and feeling lame then I’ll get the vet in to have a look at her ;(
So, this morning there was an incident in our field…a young fallow deer was injured, probably got stuck on a wire fence jumping it and hurt it’s back leg getting off it. It’s really sad when this sort of thing happens to wildlife and it was hard to see it struggling in the field, it lay exhausted while I saw to S&B. We do have good gamekeepers on the estate here so I contacted one of them and they said they’d look and see what needed to be done. I sort of knew it was suffering and needed to be put out of its misery but it didn’t make it any easier. On that note I told them that I’d take S&B out of the field and bring them back to the house paddock so that they weren’t in the way nor upset by anything they had to do and that’s what I did…..
Bella and Stormy doing a great job walking past the Highland cows today.
I walked them back rather than riding as they’d just had their breakfast.
Stormy following behind Bella, they like to follow each other but also it puts them on the nice bit of grass verge they like to walk on 😉
S&B in home paddock 😉
Tues 5th
SO it’s been a few days since the horses came home and I asked the estate gamekeeper to help the injured fallow deer. They went to sort it immediately and I’ve known the field is okay to go back to but I wanted to do a ‘smudging’ before the horses went back.
Smudging is where you burn sage (or other things) to help cleanse an area of negative energy and I’ve done it before in the field when one of our horse has passed.
I took some time and walked the field where I’d seen the deer and played some lovely Native American music too. It felt good to take the time to do this ceremony and if nothing else I feel better going back into the field after the memory of the young deer in such sad circumstances.
Thurs 7th
A day later than planned but today we took S&B back to their big field this afternoon.
Called S&B with my ‘horsey whistle’ and they both came over to get haltered for me.
I decided to walk them home rather than ride as I LOVE getting back our relaxed connection through walking step to step together.
Both S&B were so calm and happy to be walking back home. Once back in the field they had a lovely yeehaa run about and Stormy did his usual rolling to get a his normal muddy self 🙂 lol
Muddy boy 😉 lol
Sat 9th
The weather has been wet and windy today with pretty low temperatures ;( But I needed my horsey fix today so went out and had a lovely short fun session 😉
First we did some distance pedestal work. Bella stood on big ped with 2 feet and then all 4 feet while Stormy showed off doing 4 feet at liberty.
Then she did some lovely sidepassing around the pole square, both left and right.
3rd task was some weave on a circle left and right then going straight into doing some fig 8’s using different cones with each turn 😉
The last task on-line was some trot through the narrow gap which was really good.
THEN…I took Bella’s halter off and we did a really lovely session at liberty.
We’ve been practising our liberty at breakfast time since last year and it’s paying off now as she used to move off after her halter came off.
First liberty bit was sidepass over the drainpipe (L&R)
Then she did a great job with fig 8’s around cones…..going through the narrow gap and also a fab jump 😉
Tues 12th
I did S&B’s breakfast and field clearing today and as usual I put in some time to do some Liberty play with Bella…Stormy joined in too which was fun and helped Bella 😉
Asking S&B to draw towards me and then backup together
Then asked them to follow me and place themselves either side of the big pipe
Bella took a rest and watched Stormy come into the narrow gap, halt for 5 seconds and then draw towards me
Bella got close for a good look
Storm then came and played with the tarp, stood on it with a lovely halt and then I asked him to sidepass off the pole he was standing over
Bella then decided she wanted to go for the hulahoop challenge and walked to it from a distance…..
….she’s so clever and loves to put her feet into/onto something 😉
I went down a hillock to empty the wheelbarrow while S&B walked along the ridge….
…then sweet Bella came away from Stormy to be with me <3 what a sweetheart she is <3
Finished the morning with Bella showing off her bestest task…standing on the pedestal 🙂
Sat 16th
Bella trying to catch my attention to play and get treats this morning after I gave her and Storm their breakfast and was cleaning the field 😉
She’s just too smart 😉
Went out with Mark in afternoon, weather nice enough to try a wee ride….
It’s been 17 days since last ride, always seems too long when the weather has been so bad.
I moved all the agility obstacles, put them around the round pens to make it more interesting…
….kept it mostly to walk to just stretch their legs and minds and then Bella and I did some trot work over random poles in my ‘arena’ to help get her mind more focused and pick her feet up a bit better.
Tues 19th
Another nice Spring like day today. Mark and I go to ride S&B and slowly work on our fitness together 😉 I start off by working on checking my body position when riding walk/trot circles/arcs. I sometimes don’t put my inside shoulder back in this move so I work one handed leaving my inside hand loose which helps me really notice what my shoulder is doing.
We also popped a couple of jumps as it’s fun 😉
Then Bella & I stood while Stormy and Mark had a yeehaa canter along a field track. It’s a good test as over Winter S&B get a very close and it’s hard for them to not just follow each other in direction and gait. I held her from cantering off too and she quieted as soon as I asked 😉
All clean before riding…..rolled in mud after riding 🙂 LOL
To be fair they were both a tiny bit sweaty so knew they would roll to dry themselves out.
Am SO glad I have a brown horse, the dirt needs cleaning but doesn’t look so bad when she does it 😉 lol
Sat 23rd
So I’ve not managed to get out and do much with S&B recently due to the awful on/off rain, wind and cold temps we’ve been having BUT I did manage to video a couple of things when out recently to poo pick the field and Bella came over to play…here is one of the vid’s for you now 😉
Sun 24th
Managed to get S&B’s hooves trimmed today, not much energy for anything else so here’s the 2nd video of Bella doing something fab.U.lous last week 😉 Enjoy
Taught her to sidle to anything for mounting when I want to ride, we practise this at liberty in the morning’s when I go to give them their breakfast and clean the field 😉 She’s pretty good at it now 😉
Tue 26th
At last we have a window of decent weather between all the wind, rain and snow we’ve had recently. So I manage to take full advantage of it and go and ride S&B.
First I rode Stormy in a big fig 8 around the field. He was very happy to move his feet and I asked him to stretch his legs by asking for trot on the short sections. He finished by giving me a lovely canter to the finish. We 2 laps which was 12 mins long 😉
I then asked Bella to do the same big fig 8’s, mostly on a loose rein to allow me to correct her when she went off the pattern. This way she learns rather than me micro-managing her.
She did very well and we did 3 laps….about 17 mins of nice exercise 😉
Sat 30th
Today we have our Equine Body worker therapist visiting S&B. She does a nice body work and massage to release any ‘tight’ spots in their bodies after last year and the winter off. It helps them and also gives us a good place to start riding them more during the year.
Bella was more stiff in her lower back and sacral illiac and Stormy was stiffer with his front legs so it was great to be able to get that for them. We usually do it once a year for them and if they needed more we’d do it
While waiting for our therapist it started raining so we practised playing putting them in our garage in case we needed to do that. Stormy was a star, backing in to it nicely. Bella went in twice but was a bit more sceptical about staying in.
Thank goodness the rain stopped and we had blue skies for the therapy sessions 😉
Sun 31st
The end of March already but I’m glad as the signs of Spring are just coming through and April is the beginning of my work year too so exciting times coming up 😉
After S&B’s body work therapy sessions yesterday we didn’t want to ride them back to the field today, good to give them 24hrs to rest up. We decided, instead, to take them for a short walk with grazing benefits near the house. I also did some fun play with Bella too 🙂
