First - the bad bits....
This goes on forever - don't expect you to read it. BUT
I need this diary. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it or not, but I find I run through things in my mind to write as an update – and then don’t. It was meant to be a record of progress in 2013, but we are already rushing towards April and I meant to write remains unwritten. So I’m going to backtrack and start at the beginning, with some good and some bad. Doing and thinking horsey connected things in my head is NOT the same as actually doing them, and things I thought happened a couple of weeks ago were much longer ago than that. So the 2013 diary/blog needs to become an actual diary…
Start with the less good. Once again a ‘new year, new attitude’ state of mind found me over facing myself. Lovely 12 yo gelding 14.2 Welsh D Bobby (think flashy, powerful ex-show pony turned happy hacker) offered to me for a week in September for riding and as much daily care as I wanted when his kindly owner was on holiday. Great potential experience for me, as someone who is an RS rider only and not an owner. Having arrived as a fit and forward going lad he then adjusted to becoming a gentle happy hacker, and proceeded to stuff his face in the gelding field all summer.
A fortnight or so before the holiday he took off with his owner across the moor. Not too far, and she managed to pull him up, but he scared her witless as he had never put a foot wrong previously. He then wouldn’t let her back on. Cue session with the back lady and yes, he has some discomfort and areas of soreness. Likeliest causes are playing too rough in the field combined with a change of body shape due to his lower workload. Saddle fitter confirms his change of shape and gives advice for when he’s ready to work again. So, no riding for me this time. Never mind, it was an interesting and rewarding week. It was a pleasure to go up, muck out, groom and take him for potters in hand.
Another chance arose, however, when his owner and her partner decided to have another unexpected break. She is still struggling to get her confidence back riding him, and I was hopeful I could help by doing some pottering on him too, so she didn’t feel all the pressure was on her. If someone else was getting out and about on him, and keeping safe it should reassure her that her worries were unfounded. Once again I am offered the chance to be Bobby’s foster mum for another week.
The week started well, with another morning of horse care. Although he wasn’t fully fit exercise wise he was being ridden again. Bobby is a steady and reliable hacker out on the roads, but his ex-showing background meant that being in the school meant serious work to him, and he tended to be very forward going, keen and energetic in the arena. I hadn’t ridden him in the school before, just hacked him out, so I decided to start with a lesson with RI. Very interesting – he was not as forward going as I expected, although compliant. We did 15 minutes or so steady work in walk and trot, and then RI decided that some canter work might help loosen him up. (Looking back on it I should have seen what now seems obvious – that Bobby was having difficulty with truly active movement, and that he was keeping his paces reduced and conservative.) He was showing reluctance to move forward – which I did remark on to RI several times. I do have a cooling effect on horses, and in all honesty we both just thought he was being a bit lazy after his time off.
The canter idea was a mistake. He wouldn’t go into canter on the first 3 corners, and then finally struck off on the straight side, a bit too fast. As I asked him to steady coming into the first short side it all went a bit pair shaped. He came off the track and began to power round, running through in an ugly unbalanced way. It took 3-4 circuits to actually stop him, every time he felt like he was steadying when he got to the corner he would plough on wildly, faster and faster. I stayed calm, and stuck on, but only just. Eventually I managed to stop him by resorting to the ‘Pony Club’ halt i.e. weight back, heels jammed down and throw the anchors on full power. I hate doing that, and haven’t done it for a decade or more, but he just wouldn’t stop otherwise, and nothing else I tried had worked. We decided he wasn’t working right, and after a very brief walk round I hopped off. He was really blowing…
Next day RI checked him over thoroughly again, gave him a good massage all over, and lunged him. He seemed OK. On the following day I tacked him up after his usual stable and personal care seeing to, and had a quiet hack up the road for 30 minutes or so. He seemed chirpier, and moved better, but I really began to feel something was going on. He hesitated at the top of inclines, and picked his ground carefully. He trotted happily enough, but had lost his usual suspension – the elastic ‘double bounce’ of a big free mover. I don’t think anyone else would have noticed anything much, but I was sensitive to every little thing. We pottered back. Next day I went out with another rider and suspicions were confirmed. He was clearly not right, and I turned him round and took him back before we even got to the end of the drive.
No one could quite put a finger on what was going on. He wasn’t lame, his saddle wasn’t hurting him, but he was increasingly reluctant to go forward and withdrawing into himself. His owner came back, the vet came out three times over 2 weeks and couldn’t find anything. He was eating, peeing, pooing and his temperature was within the normal range. Turns out he was brewing a really nasty virus/infection, which attacked his boy bits and the whole area blew up like a balloon. No wonder the poor lad was getting more and more reluctant to move, trot, jiggle downhill and canter round. He was so uncomfortable.
It was 2-3 months before he began to return to his old self. By that time his owner had lost even more confidence and was struggling to make herself ride him. She was keen for me to ride him whenever I wanted, and I was eager to help. But it turned out Bobby had changed (not surprisingly) during his winter of discontent. He had lost confidence himself, and become tenser. I hacked him out briefly, and he was steady, but he was looking at things he never used to, and I could feel him getting wired the longer we were out. Next time I was up his owner was there, not quite able to gain confidence to go out, so we agreed to do a half and half hack, where I rode him out and she rode him back. Each would act as foot soldier for the other. We set off with one of the other liveries to accompany us, but she turned back when she saw a string a sheep traipsing up the road in the direction we were going. Her lad can be spooky.
We carried on, riding as far as the gate and back. And he was really, really tense, getting very looky at a quad that was coming down the field to feed the sheep. I made light of it – he didn’t actually do anything of course, he was trying so hard to behave because he’s so genuine. L got on board and we made our way back, with me close by, just in case. He was fine, but not the same. I am never a confident hacker, although I manage to bluff it out. I could feel days of feeling utterly safe on him beginning to slip away.
L was not able to get up to the yard that weekend, so I went up and had another go at riding him in the school. It almost went OK. He had a small spook, no problem – we worked on. He began to work as he was renowned to – big and fluid and mobile – starting to breathe with his work and snort lightly with every trot stride. Then came an enormous spook, taking him half way across the school sideways. I was losing confidence. A few more circuits and he felt like a UXB. He skidded to a halt by the yard gate, distracted and rooted to the spot – something had his full attention. It wasn’t me. I’d never felt anything quite like it. He felt totally ‘electric’, from the tips of his alerted ears to the bottom of his hooves. I managed to steel myself and get him to walk a couple of 20m circles at that end of the arena, but to be honest I was scared and felt anything could have happened.
I did have some excuses. Something had upset all the horses the day before (either overnight or sometime during the day – no one knows what). My lesson had to be abandoned when neither of the mounts I was offered would do anything sensible. One of the school cobs had dislodged her very capable rider twice with her ‘spin & flee’ star turn. I was so disgusted at my sudden lack of confidence in that lesson that I had made myself come up and ride Bobby the next day. I shouldn’t have done. There’s a lot of power there, and didn’t know him well enough to have risked riding him on a bad day when I’m not used to riding him on a good day. Lesson learnt.
So that’s where we are now. I tried to get involved and found myself not up to the job of buddying a nervous owner when my own confidence level is not high enough. I am still riding him – more of this later in the diary, but have taken a step back from getting into a share arrangement. I believe I am capable of it, but need to demonstrate that more fully first.
On reflection I think it will all come right in a short while when they get turn out. Now they are stabled all the time apart from a short ‘run & roll’ session in the school during mucking out each day, or when being ridden. They are all getting a bit stir crazy. The chance to socialise, play, wander at will and get some of the green grass inside them will make all the difference.
I just wish I wasn’t such a wuss.
