 |
| Heated blanked - sadly now discontinued by the company |
A dark but productive day. Evie appears to be recovering from her gastric ulcers and is going very well for her owner, Lorraine. When I arrived she was asleep in her (get this!) heated blanket. Today she went on her first hack out and I had the pleasure of riding Zack, Lorraine's super New Forest pony.
Yvonne had left me with a rainy day list for Kestrel starting off with getting him used to boots. He's not sure about having them on his front legs at first.
Having put them on and taken them off several times he soon got used to them and he was fine about the backs.
Next it was putting the bridle on. I have my own style for doing this in a way that is as gentle as possible. I 'post' the ears between the brow band and the crown piece rather than dragging the bridle over his ears or scrunching the ear up to fit underneath the crown piece.
I did some work with the bit. We're looking for softness rather than lightness, a relaxed and happy mouth and therefore head. I've been reading 'Baucher and the Ordinary Horseman' by Tom Widdecombe and trying to put his words into action (1)
I finished off the session getting him accustomed to the massage mitt (2). He really loved this and liked it on the high or low settings. This would be useful for getting a horse used to the noise of quiet clippers.
(1) Tom Widdicombe
(2) Equilibrium Mitt
