Play time

This week - and next - The New Forest Carriage Driving for the Disabled team are running two fun days for their guests. In the dry and dusty conditions at least it wasn't too hot. This was a practice run for the competition next week and the drivers undertook a dressage test followed by a timed round of cones. The latter woke the ponies up and there was some avid trotting and a canter from Mollie.

My friend, Wendy, was very accurate and put in a good time; those balls fall off the cones if they are jolted.

This lady, L, did a very good round too and cantered across the finishing line. 

It was good to have Daisy back this week and she and her team did a great job of keeping H safe and happy.

For some bizarre reason, I won nearly all the raffle prizes and had to work hard to pass the cakes around before I ate them all. I did go home with a wonderful sea trout!

Happy Feet

Good news that Prince has redeemed himself since the great escape. That day he came home and met the farrier for the first time. They spent a little time getting to know each other and the scene was set for s future meeting. 

Last week Prince had all four feet trimmed and was very relaxed about the whole thing. Not bad for a pony that was only taught to have his legs and hooves handles when he was already a teenager. 

Panic buying

Anyone who says, "It's summer, just summer!" can have no connection with the countryside and with the source of their food. Cereal crops and grass are producing just one tenth of their usual yield and farmers are already having to supplement their animals' food as if it were winter. Although food prices might rise, farmers will have to compete with imported goods and won't be able to recoup their losses. 

Horse owners are now panicking with their fields looking like overworn lawns, trying to secure hay for the autumn and winter. I am pleased that I have kept the same hay supplier for almost twenty years - he hasn't changed much - despite the fact that his hay has been at the top end of the price range at times. It has always been good quality. This time he has gone beyond the call of duty, buying in large bales of hay from Devon where they seem to have avoided the drought. These big bales are equivalent to more than 10 old-fashioned bales of hay, difficult and heavy to manoeuvre, but once cut, the hay can be divided up and distributed in a wheelbarrow. I am very pleased with the texture and quality of it and it is always good for the horses to have vitamin and minerals which are different from their own grass (if they can remember that far back).

I am using this and scatterable hard feed to keep them amused and healthy, but they are still bad-tempered about the lack of roughage in the field. A raindance is required.

Nothing to do with Horses

For a few weeks I have been watching a friend of mine, James, make his way through the various rounds of the Kenyan Taste Off, their version of Masterchef. Out of 450 hopefuls, I am glad to say that James was the victor, winning 1 million Kenyan shillings and lots of other prizes including a stay in a top hotel for him and his family.

Hongera sana rafiki yangu.

From the Teeth of a Disaster

I had a very stressful telephone call from Ruth last week to say that Prince had gone missing from his field, leaving his two companions behind. At 6 a.m. he had been there but at some time during the morning he had done a bunk. I gave my usual advice in this situation which was to alert the police to a possible stray horse and then to check the ditches of his own field and those nearby first. Prince had been more adventurous than that and fortunately turned up in a completely locked sheep field in Whiteparish. What had begun as a disaster ended with Ruth catching him and bringing him home triumphantly although she did have a blister on her foot!

Proof that the grass is not always greener...

You will all remember the horrible events in London last year where a handful of Cavalry horses went galloping through Central London after being spooked by some construction workers. The grey in particular looked badly injured with blood all over his chest and legs. People wondered if he might have to be put to sleep.

I met a man last week who had met the horse, who is called Vigo, when he was running a camp at Longmoor, near Portsmouth. They had coincided with the Household Cavalry's visit and were taking the horses down to Hayling Island to go swimming in the sea. Lo and behold Vigo was there.

Another reunion

It must be about twenty years since I last saw Christian. We met again today at Driving for the Disabled. I started his Mum's pony, Horace, under saddle - well actually bareback to begin with - and he went on to win a rosette in a local show for best riding pony for the disabled with Christian on board. 

We has such a lovely chat. He is still the decent, polite and kind young man that he always was. 

Reunion

 

Another really pleasant afternoon with the New Forest Carriage Driving for the Disabled group and their three horses Daisy, Jerry and Mollie. Today I learned the importance of having a shaft-holder when people are mounting and alighting from the vehicle. Other than that I was photographer and litter-picker and general chatterer. 

I recognised one of the cyclist who goes out with the horses who told me that after the one occasion I had been out to help load her pony, the pony has never refused to load again. I remembered the visit well as we had to park the side-loading lorry on the pavement as there was nowhere else to load and just as we had got to the critica point of loading, the congregation from the nearby church had come out after a service and weren't very pleased that they couldn't use this side of the road. Luckily Molly was never a problem after that.

I also recognised a man I knew from Mopley Riding Club who I had always thought was gentle and kind to his horses. Sadly he has no horses anymore and now comes to the group to get his weekly horse fix.

Shade

There's an old oak tree on Woodgreen Common which has seen more congregations than any church. For hundreds of years, it has provide shade for the New Forest animals during the hottest days. Fortunately there is a trough near by but there is absolutely no grass to be had.

Drought

 

Most horse owners will be having the same dilemma at the moment. Do I use the last of my summer fields - and even then the grass is more like hay - or do I hold onto it until the horses start to lose weight. All of my other fields look like lawns, grass eaten back to the roots and all of it a drab beige. I have been feeding the last of my hay for fibre, and scattering barley rings around to give them some protein and vitamins and something to do for half an hour. They are all surprisingly round despite spending most of the day in the barn to keep out of the heat and away from the insects.

Jack is wearing a summer bonnet for the first time in his life. He has always objected to net curtains before now but now realises the advantages. 

Nelly decided that Pie shouldn't be allowed to have any of the one patch of green grass but he soon crept back again and she had her come-uppance later when I put her and the other rounder ones back on the tennis court grass. 

Theoden likes to stand in the barn until it's a lot cooler. 

Henry likes to keep him company.

Normality

The easy answer to the question "Why does my horse...." has always been, "Because he can." Yesterday I accompanied Jacqui to see her friend's horse, Maverick, a four year old bright chestnut German Warmblood. For a while now, and particularly after Maverick had some serious surgery on his hock, Jo has been seeking a new path with her horse, wanting to make sure that he has the best life possible. Rather than spoil him though, she was seeking my guidance as to which behaviours that he expresses are acceptable and unacceptable, and how to address the latter. All of his behaviours are of course normal for a horse of his age and situation, it's just that some are more inconvenient than others.

I should say that he has met with a Recommended Trainer of Intelligent Horsemanship previously and a lot of her work was evident in the way that he behaved and how well he led and could be manouvred around. Some of it just needed tightening up or revising in a small way.

Since his operation, Maverick has had six weeks of box rest with only fifteen minutes or so out in the school, and by necessity, at the end of a lunge line. It's hoped that he will be able to go out loose for a couple of hours each day by the end of this week. Considering his situation and pent up energy and emotions, he was an angel but sometimes an angel with an edge!

First of all, he has a long term - pre-house arrest - habit of pulling ghastly faces with his ears right back over the stable door. Fortunately these don't escalate to anything more and don't really seem to represent the way that he is feeling or what he is after but the face is intimidating. His mother, just a stable along to keep him company, does the same thing. I was insistent that he should smile - ears either forward or neutral - before I would give him my attention and a lovely rub. He seemed to work this out to some extent and it will need to be practiced consistently for the penny to completely drop. 

Similarly, in the stable, he is fne about being approached but pulls a horrible face as you go to touch him. Some of this may relate to when vets were giving him painful injections but it is something he's always had a tendency to do. Once again, I waited until he was more relaxed and then gave him the lovely rubs that he really likes. Over time, he began to put his ears into neutral much more quickly, and Jo, Jacqui and I took it in turns to walk up to him, wait for the right ears and then give him some lovely attention. This slight pause also addresses any ambivalence he might be feeling about who is approaching him and why. It made a big difference and the nice thing about this lovely young horse is that he can be touched anywhere and he doesn't mind. There's no defensiveness around his back end at all.

I was astonished when he allowed Jo to put his headcollar on slowly and carefully with the door wide open. Considering his energy is effectively 'on charge' whenever he is confined, his age and his breeding, he was a star.

In the little sand school, Jo anticipated that he would explode at some stage and this usually followed a good roll. Having rolled, he stayed calm but as she led him around the school with the open field in his rear-view mirror, he did take off and kick out, but was polite enough to make sure he was well away from Jo. This occurred a few times and it always seem to be triggered by having his back to the open field next door. At least there was one element of predictability. On each occasion he took himself out of kicking distance from Jo. Even though her adrenaline went up, she was clearly not frightened of him.

After this we did some nice in-hand ground work, asking him to go forwards and backwards and tidied up a few aspects such as the position of Jo's hand, left and right turns, and how to ask him not to overtake. Much as we don't want a horse to dictate everything that happens, I do think that it is unfair to ask a big athletic horse, or indeed any horse, to entirely match the owner's walking pace - it is fun to see what they will do if you slow down and then to a funereal pace, but the rest of the time you do need to walk smartly so that they are set up for success and don't automatically overtake you. Of course, Maverick has long lanky legs and Jo not so much!

This pair are already so well-connected that there was not much to do and once he is settled in the field, we may work on his understandable fear of needles. Meantime, Jo can trust herself to do the right thing by her horse.

On the way home we popped in to see Chancer and then to check my own horses. When I got home I was absolutely exhausted. 

Daisy, Daisy, give me you answer do

Another warm and pleasant afternoon on the Forest, this time in the company of Wendy and the New Forest Carriage Driving for the Disabled Group. The assistants, and in particular the horse owners, are to be highly commended for preparing and transporting their horses and carriages to various venues on the Forest and to be congratulated for owning so calm and cooperative creatures. Each horse has an entourage of at least 5 people, all ready to support the person with a disability (disabilities) by adapting the equipment for their particular needs, making sure the horse has the right harness and reins on, head-holding, and then escorting the horse through the Forest in bicycles and with a sign-written car. Needless to say the horses are loved by everyone involved and I was particularly pleased to meet Daisy face-to-face as I have seen her many times being driven along Roger Penny Way with her owner Felicity. 

I became Daisy's head-holder at three change-overs and apart from tryng to rub me (my fault) she stood like a rock while everything went on around her. 

Wendy was allocated Jerry to drive and like of all of the disabled visitors, she was given the opportunity to take over the reins if she would like to. Some people have more severe disabilities which prevent them from doing so but the joy is being in the presence of horses and people who love and care about them. 

Jerry wears a fly-rug to protect him from the insects

These good and honest ponies were quite hot when they got back and they were washed down before they went home. We all know that horses are addictive - and Wendy misses her two Highland ponies very badly - and I have no doubt we will be back. 

Moss, the whippetosaurus

This group needs the following if anyone can help: funds, other drivers and quiet steeds, light-weight safety steps.

Molly with her team of helpers

It's a S**t Job.

Such a beautiful, beautiful day today, warm, blue sky, pretty clouds and a light breeze. The perfect day to sit and watch the horses enjoying some new grass and swaying through their ballet of interactions: nose to nose, or synchronised, seeking each other out for different reasons. I could just sit on my garden chair with my back to the barn door and wait, and wait, and apparently wait for them to poo. 

Normally, I split them up for the purpose of taking samples for their faecal worm counts. This enables me to do other jobs,but I thought that I would have a nice, relaxing afternoon instead. This is how it went.

Theoden: "What's in the cardboard box? No, really, what's in the cardboard box? Hit me with the cardboard box because I've got a blasted fly on me. I don't care if you can't see the other horses, scratch my ears."

I peer under his belly trying to keep an eye on the others for any er, productions. 

Theoden: "Right, if you are not going to eliminate all of these insects, I am leaving. I am going to stand in the field shelter." Exits stage left and now I am down to 6 horses and 6 samples.

Nelly: "Have you noticed there's no water in the trough? I don't care if you can't see the other horses, I need some water and I need it now."

I stand up and go into the yard to connect the hosepipe and turn the tap on. Bearing in mind that it only takes 3 seconds for a pony to poo, I wonder if any of the have 'gone' without me and execute a complete Poo Patrol before sitting back down.

Theoden: "I'm back, no one else came with me and I got lonely." Okay, you can stay here with me - only could you move out of the way?

Horses tend to poo once every two hours and now there is only an hour left. It could get very busy. Horses are normally inspired by the smell of poo and they are all grazing close to the poo pile. Not today.

A gust picks up the cardboard box, shakes open the top, and discards all of my plastic bags in the vicinity. I go round collecting them up and hope that no-one has done anything surreptitious. Second Poo Patrol commences. Sit back down.

Water trough overflows. Run into the yard to turn the tap off and disconnect the hose. Was I gone too long? Third Poo Patrol. Sit back down. 

Horses are all standing in a line like can-can dancers, some facing towards me and others away. What with the breeze and the insects, their tails are continuously moving and Pie, in particular, has a high tail carriage - could that be? Was it? Patsy stands and looks pensive, or could she have COLIC? 

Jack takes a long, long drink and should pee for England. It's Patsy that wins the race to go first. I pick up three little bags, in case anyone else gets inspired, and go and collect a nugget, shall we say, of her poo. The bags are small and the nugget was big and I am now being pestered by seven equines, all wanting to know what I am doing. Dave goes next and now I've got one plastic bag in my left hand, that's Patsy, and his in the right, fingers covered in muck and Henry decides to go but I can't find it. Ah, clever mule is always worried about leaving clues as to her whereabouts, so she has park it on top of Patsy's. Patsy left hand leftest, Dave left hand rightest, Henry right hand. Back to the barn, put the right form in the right post bag with the right small bag and there's poo all over the forms and the postage bags are difficult to open without licking you fingers. I've had to write the horse's names on with a thick marker pen and I haven't got anything else to fill in the other details. 

Sit back down. Relax again. And now the unpleasant Fritham dog chorus starts. This field used to be my haven but now there are several demented collies, one of which barks incessantly when she is let outside and that is most of the time. One of the other set along the road howls relentlessly when the other, younger, dogs are taken out. 

The Fallow deer stream across the fields, all fifty of them, and sit in the Circle to watch proceedings. In the sky, a Red Kite is searching for carrion and a diminutive Kestrel is looking for mice. There's a little Lapwing that keeps going in and out of the barn so I move my chair along a bit so that he has a clear flight path.

The sun coming out from behind the clouds activates a large fly and Theoden gallops about pretending to be a friend when really he is trying to pass it off. I have shut the far field gate because no one is leaving here until they've taken a s**t!

Nelly: "Are my hooves okay? Could you rub my ears please?" Nelly, do go away.

With 3 down and 4 to go, the equines divide themselves up into couples, one who has been and one who has not. My eyes are like a kaleidoscope, and they feel as if they are being stretched as I try to observe all of them at the same time. 

At long last, Theoden and Nelly do their duty. More bag packing. More investigations. I decide to pack up as much as I can and sit in the shade of the oak tree to wait for Jack and Pie. I discover an undiscovered new poo and have to wait for one of them to go in order to work out who was in fact my poo champion. And of course, it was Jack.

I sit in the car with the nub of an ancient pencil to fill in the rest of the forms and wonder what the vets will make of my childish handwriting and my childish implements, and then I chuck them in the postbox at Godshill and hope that I have not jammed the letterbox and that none of the packages will leak.

So there's no photos of my beautiful horses in their rich summer coats because I left my phone in the car and didn't dare go and get it in case it led to any further identification problems. 

Facewash

 

After a lovely drive, we thought we would let Kalina watch Kelly being bathed with the hose at much closer proximity. It was Kalina who chose to go forwards into the yard and to engage with what was happening. 

Although the plan had been to see what she would make of being washed with the hose, this was such a positive move that Claire felt that we should not go any further on this occasion. I agreed. Kalina did take a good look at the hosepipe being taken back to the tap, so as well as washing her, we must do some more work on getting her used to the hosepipe moving around. 

Eco-wash

Kalina with Karioka before she took exception to being washed with a hose. 

The best way to prepare a horse to accept water on its body, is to get the horse quite hot in the first place. This morning Kalina was driven with Bali, Karioka, and Kelly.

The farm location for these horses ia absolutely perfect for access to good wide tracks. 

After their drive, the other three horses were washed within sight of Kalina, and Kalina herself accepted a sponge bath with cold water. Progress! Darn it, I wasn't there myself but I have got a video...

Happy Birthday to You

 My neighbour's pony, Fleur, has just reached her 20th birthday, and to celebrate, her owner made her this gorgeous cake!

Of course it disappeared faster than you could say, "Congratulations Fleur".

It's good to see her looking so well considering she almost died from strangles and the subsequent treatments for it. Her recovery took well over a year. 

Pre-wash!

 

Once again small changes for Kalina - the hose pipe is now about 8 foot long and Claire is imitating the movements needed for bathing her. This is a horse that reacted so badly to being washed at a show that Claire was worried that people might think she had beaten her! Ever since the initial incident with the hose pipe on the floor, she has been terrified of them. This is the first time she has been back in the pen since that event too.

Claire and I agree on which step to take next and often catch ourselves saying the same thing at the same time. Claire has a marvellous attitude to the horses, despite being a very competitive woman, and she is willing to go back to the very very beginning where it is necessary. The horses have a great deal of trust in her and always try to do their best. The only instruction I have had to give has been to not reinforce any slight nervousness by saying 'ooh what's that!' or 'Good Girl' in a slightly high pitched voice. We all do it, and people with children tend to do it more. There has been a lot of yawning going on and if the children are bored watching then we know we have got the pace about right.

Snake Pass

What I like about clicker training, is that it is possible to take a circuitous route which avoids the horse's original reaction to the stimulus. Nevertheless, it's a fine line to tread, knowing which direction to take next - introduce a longer piece of hosepipe, lay it on the floor, touch the horse with it or wiggle it on the ground, let the horse touch it on her own, change the colour, introduce water, and so on. All the time, we are trying to build up so slowly that we don't trigger a strong reaction.

Yesterday, we made four changes - Claire took over from me, we rewarded Kalina with cleavers rather than grass, we slightly increased the length of the hose pipe, went back to a shorter length and repeated all of the work on Kalina's left hand side. There was the occasional slight snort but nothing more and at times she came forward to touch and mouth the hose. All a far cry from her extreme reaction to a moving hose pipe, when she crouched and shook, and tried to breast the bars of the pen in the yard, and her subsequent reactions to anyone trying to bath her. Claire, who spends most of the summer showing her heavy horses has had to take Kalina out of the team.

Asked whether Kalina is generally nervous, Claire explained that at the Yorkshire Show the heavy horses were stabled in the Heavy Horse Village which was reached through a passageway between massive farm machinery and fluttering banners and flags; Kalina didn't turn a hair. 

The whole session was uneventful and afterwards Claire's daughter wanted to practise too. Ordinarily these horses NEVER receive hand treats because they are petted by all kinds of people, young and old, at the shows that they go to. 

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

Just like her owner, Kalina has an innate fear of snakes: any sensible horse would have. Unfortunately, a little while ago she was badly shaken up by the hosepipe moving about under the pressure of water and now needs some reassurance that it will not bite her. 

I have worked with Claire a number of times and she is always prepared to take things slowly, so today we introduced Kalina to clicker training and a very small 'snake'; only one problem, she doesn't really like or understand about food from the hand. We packed away all the herbal treats, carrots, and cubes of bread as they were not to her taste and instead presented her with tiny bouquets of clover and grass. Soon she was moving about, backwards and forwards for treats, politely listening for the clicks and waiting until the treat was offered.

 To make them last longer I held the grass tightly so that she had to break it off. 

Next, I introduced a short length of hosepipe that was a mere 12" long to which she had no reaction at all. She was prepared to touch it and happy to let me touch her with it. She reacted to the longer section, about a yard long, by snorting at it and taking a couple of steps back, but in time she was prepared to stand and look at it more closely, even when Rowena, Claire's Mum, was making it wiggle on the ground. As you can see in the picture, she still has a 'running foot', left hind, but she has her head lowered and she is looking at it with both eyes. After this we were happy - okay, I was extremely happy - to lead her out to the fields with her companion Karioka. Tomorrow, I shall not be so selfish and I will let Claire carry on the good work.