Jack the Lad

For those who have been reading my blog for years you will remember that when Jack arrived, at the age of 12, he was completely wild. I'd not seen him before he was brought into me to be halter-trained and when he came out of the trailer he resembled a bull crossed with a fiery dragon. Inevitably he became mine and another twelve years later he is still as characterful as he was then.

He was always terrified of lead reins, and although I did lean over him a few times, I knew he had a strong instinct to bolt and decided that I didn't need a dangerous pony to ride. His talents lay in other directions.

He turned out to be a brilliant meeter-and-greeter of humans and other equines alike and after I had clicker trained him I was able to reunite him with the Forest he had left as a foal, taking him for walks, loose, with friends and guests. He also helped wit the rehabilitation of addicts. 

He was good at cantering...and jumping too.

He has spread so much happiness and all I have ever wanted is for him to be happy. 

Saturday Access

The ponies were back at their favourite hideout today when I saw them. Although they are enduring a lot of flies in this hot weather, they have not made the connection with the relief, if any, provided by the fly cream which they think smells too much. Pie would not let me put any on him nor any sun cream so on my next visit I will have to start teaching them to come into the pound. It's about time anyway as today is their three-weekiversary. 

I got a dab on Nelly's face - well away from her eyes - and some around her chest, tail and back legs.

Patsy doesn't seem to suffer so badly.

The cows get sprayed regularly and don't seem to attract many flies. 

...and there's always yoga if they do

I have to resist the urge to pull out every last stalk of ragwort. There's very little on site, the ponies have plenty of other things to eat, and the cinnabar caterpillars are enjoying a meal.

Absolutely Fabulous

Although I have known Patsy for as long as my other New Forest ponies, she didn't belong to me. She would arrive at my gate in the middle of spring, long after all the other waifs and strays had turned up asking for help for the homeless, and only when she started to lose condition. Although she would stand close to the fence, she wouldn't accept any contact, and I grew to admire her aloofness along with her real beauty. 

Every other year or so, she would have a foal which would always be taken off her at a late stage because she was difficult to find and hardly ever came in on the drift. It didn't matter because she seemed well capable of taking a foal through the winter. As she reached her late teens, however, she struggled to maintain her own weight, giving everything she had to her exquisite foal. Eventually I felt forced to notify the agister and both she and the foal disappeared off the Forest. I was worried that I had signed her death warrant - at that age the owner could have easily accepted the subsidy for taking an older pony off the Forest - and 'sent her on her way.' I was extremely relieved when she turned up just a few weeks later, the foal having been kept in. She was still on the poor side and I decided to see if I could buy her. 

I tracked her owner down through the Verderers and she was only too pleased to let me have her for just over that subsidy price and asked me to promise to keep her on the Forest forever. I brought her in to fatten her up and then turned her out for the following summer, bringing her back in again just as the winter started. This seemed to be a good arrangement for mare that had thrived out for so long but needed a bit of extra help. 

When Juma was killed I felt that I couldn't leave Patsy out when all of the others were in and tried not to think about the promise I had made. Turning her out on the Reserve, now bucket-trained, meant that she could have the perfect life again without the same risk of being run over.  One day I may get round to taming her but there was something about her which meant that I wanted to leave her wild. 

The Reservists

A bit of a BBC repeat of the last time I saw them, the ponies were shading in the same corner but then followed me over to the water trough. As we walked out into the open wild grass meadow, they seemed so surprised by the strong, cool breeze and perhaps wondered whether they should have come out of the trees much earlier. 

The only one I am a little bit worried about is Pie, who with his pink colouring, has always been more susceptible to flies, ticks and sun-burn. Next time I see him I shall give him a liberal coating of Filtabac and fly-repellant but I do wonder about the future of horses with pink extremities, and greys who are far more likely to get melanomas, in this change of climate. 

An Exmoor Affair

One can't help but love the character and tenacity of the Exmoor Pony and today I met three fillies who will form the foundation of the Hampshire and isle of Wight Wildlife Trust's own herd. They belonged to Deborah Davy in Scotland but travelled down at the weekend to start their new life. It will be a couple of years before they are put in foal for the first time. Their names are Flam, Katrin and Doune. 

Although wild, they are very curious and came to see if I had any more thithleth.

Hoof Trimming

Throughout my years as a horse trainer, I always urged people not to marry an idea when it came to their horse's hooves. At the time my horses tended to wear shoes and we covered a lot of miles over gravelly tracks. I have always believed that most if not all horses can be transitioned to being barefoot but recognized that for a lot of people the ideal grazing, feeding, and management routine, especially when the horse was at livery, were not easy to achieve. To my mind it was better to have a horse that was sound in shoes than one that was being made to suffer for a long period during the transition process or even forever. I once rode a horse that felt almost crippled (I nursed him around a very short circuit, keeping to the grass, and led him home) and yet the owner was taking him out like that every day and thought nothing of it - perhaps having forgotten what a comfortable horse should feel like. 

The turning point for me came when Theoden succumbed to a second degenerative disease, substantial arthritis in his hock, when he has previously been diagnosed with navicular in one of his front hooves. These events came very close together and I was being told by the vet and farrier that he would need special remedial shoes forever whereas the barefoot advocates were saying take his shoes off altogether. I knew in my heart that I would not ride him again (so you could argue that I haven't put being barefoot to the test) so decided to take his shoes off altogether and monitor the results very carefully. When I took him off the Bute he was sound and has been ever since except when the ground was particularly hard and frozen. I took Dave's off at the same time and put boots on him to go out riding and he has been sound throughout save for one hoof abscess. 

The changes in their hoof shape and condition has been remarkable. Both have better heels and frogs and their hooves are really hard. I believe that this is not only because they have no shoes on but also because they are trimmed every four to six weeks and rasped in between. Any problems that we see arriving are treated very quickly with Red Horse products which I would recommend to everyone. The donkeys and the semi-feral ponies have also benefitted from this regular attention which is achievable because David is now able to trim our own equines. 

It hasn't saved us much money - trained barefoot trimmers spend a long time with your horse and charge accordingly - and we have our barefoot trimmer out every six months or so. We should be able to limit this to once a year unless we have a real problem but she comes just to make sure that are staying on track.

Would Theoden stay sound ridden? I don't know as I expect I'd want to ride him in boots, but he is absolutely sound in the field. 

Nelly the Noo

Nelly around the same time as Blue and was always the leader out of the two. She was renowned for getting over stable doors and pushing through whatever stood in her way. She's tenacious and sensible and has lots of New Forest nous, just like her sire, Knightsway Billy Boy.

She used to come and go from the farm as she pleased and we never did work out how she got out - or in. 

Most of the time, the two girls stuck together whether they were in or out and Blue was an excellent nanny to Nelly's three foals that she had intermittently out of the Forest.

The first was Sherekhan Cello who went to live with a family that have kept him ever since. 

He is shown in-hand and in ridden classes by his lovely owner, Talitha, who thinks the world of him.

Next she had Sherekhan Cello whose picture featured in the Hampshire Life Magazine. Originally he went to live with a lady who hoped to ride him but when she didn't get around it she let me have him back and he was turned back onto the Forest.

He still loved his Mum and settled back well into the herd. 

His father was Lovely Hill High Jack from whom he took his roan colouring.

He was adorable and adored from the outset. All of the members of the herd doted on him.

But his mother loved him the most and never palmed him off on to anyone else. 

At four Nelly had still not weaned him and my intention was to keep them together, with the rest of the herd, for the rest of their lives. Sadly, both Peechay (colic) and Juma (road traffic collision) were killed in the same year. I miss them so badly. 

Here they are making their way to their usual haunt having been turned out from a different part of the Forest. Like homing pigeons they found the fastest route.

She loved being out on the Forest but knew exactly where the feed shed was when she was home. 

But she could just as easily live out all year round.