1st october, 2009 Good as Gold

Jack gave me a real fright yesterday. I was halfway through my lesson on Chancer (who incidentally was a star) when Jack starting rolling with increasing frequency. Fortunately we were the only ones on the emergency call out list so Tim was with us within half an hour. Whether through feeling lousy or because the clicker really does work, Jack coped extremely well with Tim being close up and personal. He had injections and a rectal examination no less and just accepted everything. I stayed up at the farm last night to keep an eye on him and had a cuddle with him every couple of hours. He was turned out this morning once I knew that things that were going in the front end were also coming out of the back end.

I have never worried about acorns up at the yard. There are so many deer and regular visits from the pannage pigs that there don't seem to be many around. However, there is a chance that Jack had eaten too many so he's now in a different field where he can't get to any. So from laminitis watch to acorn watch. It could also have been a stress reaction because despite being a New Forest pony, he hasn't encountered pigs before now and finds them very scary.

Point of interest, I did use the click while Jack was standing for the vet even though he wasn't in the least bit interested in a treat. Tim reported that Jack's heart rate went down every time I clicked.

I was cheered up this morning by this e-mail from Vicky Spearpoint who is an Equine Liaison Officer with Hampshire Police.

"Misty is good and Sampson I took him to the last Cadnum show at the weekend, I left him in his normal headcollar to start and he really played up rearing and bucking out, (good job no one was in the firing line) so I took him back to the trailer and put the Dually on him and did a bit of ground work - stopping changing direction like you showed me, sending him back etc then took him back in to the thick of it, he really switched off and took it all in his stride. Then just before I went in the ring I put his white halter on and we did 2 classes. The NF bred class and we came 6th out of 8 and then we did the under 3 NF class and we came 4th out of 8. He was superb in the ring. Could not fault him even on the trot round at the end.

Totally made up and the best 60 quid birthday money I have ever spent."