So Dustry seems to have recovered from his illness enough to begin working again, but to be on the safe side he is getting more days off than usual during a week just to make sure he doesn’t get too pooped by being worked again (judging from the divots I found all across his field the other day he has plenty of energy!)

Today I took him for a lesson to help get us back on track and re-focused. We planned to have a fairly short lesson to make sure he wasn’t overworked, and spent the time running through a prelim test. With homework under our belts we boxed back up, and set off home with instructions to ‘enter a couple of prelims in the next few weeks’ So I am now on the hunt for a suitable competition in the near future….

Pics are courtesy of the mother-ship who was trusted with my SLR and did a pretty good job too!

Oh and in other news GHE now has its own FACEBOOK page which you can find if you click here

On Monday morning when I arrived at the yard Dustry was suspiciously quiet and subdued, I instantly knew something was wrong! After a visit from the farrier to rule out an abscess (he was recently shod, seemed to have a hot foot, and find moving hard, and was favouring the verge on the way to his paddock) the vet was called.

It seems he has some sort of infection (bacterial or viral) and it was causing him to have a high temperature, lose his appetite, and just generally feel uncomfortable and sorry for himself. He was given antibiotics and painkiller, but after a day it was clear the intramuscular antibiotics weren’t strong enough so he was changed onto a 3 day course of intravenous drugs. His legs swelled up as a result of the infection too, but thankfully are coming down little by little every day with him walking it off.

As a result of this I have become an OCD temperature taker, and these were stats over the last few days…

Monday
morning – 40
afternoon – 37.6

Tuesday
mornign – 40.7
midday – 37.6

Wednesday
morning – 40
midday – 38.6
afternoon – 37

Thursday
morning – 38.6
midday – 37.6
afternoon – 37.6

Friday
morning – 38

Thursday morning was his lowest morning measurment which then remained low, which was a good sign that he was over the worst, phew! He now has a 5 day powder antibiotic course to finish and a ‘blood tonic’ to help address his low iron levels. He is MUCH perkier in himself and apart from his remaining puffy legs he is now pretty much 100%

It’s scary when things like this happen as there is no answer as to where/when he might have got this infection, and no telling really what/where he was infected. So the vet treated it like it was similar to a case of human flu, generally affecting the whole body, and debilitating him. Thankfully his blood tests came back clear of anything nasty, and once he has finished his drugs he will have a secondary set of bloods taken to see if any more conclusions can be drawn from this.

I am so pleased that I swapped over my insurers for Dustry after the nightmare of dealing with Soap’s treatment and destruction, and KBIS have been brilliant so far. Thank goodness as I hate to think what the final total will come to!!! Yikes!

I recommend to anyone to buy themselves a thermometer, and practise how to take a horse’s temperature as it’s such a quick and easy way to see if there is a strong indication of illness. They can’t tell you they are poorly so having such a simple and quick method for answering this question is priceless.

Once he has finished his treatment I can then play it by ear about when to begin working him again, but hopefully it won’t be long till he bounces back. He’s certainly very bouncy today as the yard have all been confined to barracks to avoid this terrible weather and Dustry is making his objections known by whirling his head around like a banshee…..something tells me he’s feeling MUCH better already

There is some good info on a healthy horse’s vital signs here, but as an indicator a healthy horse’s temperature should be in the range of 99-101F or 37-38C, and a digital thermometer costs around £8-£10 well worth the investment!

Neck strap, check. Kan back protector, check….this can mean only one thing CROSS COUNTRY!!!!!!!

Today Dustry jumped his first EVER xc jumps, and I mean ever he hasn’t even popped a twig out hacking so this was going to be a true litmus test! When we arrived he was very lit up, and seemed to have forgotten all his ‘don’t barge the 2 legger, and walk all over her’ manners. Once a little more settled, I tacked up and lead him round the outdoor arena which settled him more. He likes to know what’s going on, and tack on means work, and work means a direction to focus his energy in, and he finds that reassuring. I hopped on and despite never have been in an arena filled with jumps, fillers, piles of poles etc he was ‘Mr Chill’, and didn’t put a single hoof wrong, warming up like a total pro, doing his canter poles and popping some little x-poles really sweetly. We then picked the 1st and last jump from a triple and came in on an angle popping the little planks and fillers. No more than 1ft high but these are the first fillers he has seen, and he didn’t give them a second thought. He is such a brave little horse.

We went out in the XC paddock after our little warm up and this is when things got more exciting for D-Bobs!!! I knew this would be a big test for him, out in a big grassy area, with other horses cantering and jumping, and YES it did prove VERY exciting. Let’s just say thank goodness for my ‘grabby strap’ as it got some serious use today!!! He was so brave though and went positively towards every new fence I rode him at. He did have a few stops after he had jumped the odd fence a little awkwardly he stopped the next time, unsure about it, but presented again he popped it and then went from strength to strength. I need to keep working on getting him to lower his neck and look at what he’s doing, but he’s getting better at ignoring his old racing habit of getting excited, tense and going rigid and upright in his neck. After jumping a range of little fences we had a play on some little steps and through the water which he was very good at (we go through puddles not round them at home ) and he enjoyed a good splash about, pawing with his front legs.

I’m so pleased with how brave he is, and how nonplussed he is by new experiences such as rustic fences and fillers. I’m sure the next time we go things will be less exciting for him, and his ‘outbursts’ will gradually become less and less, and in the mean time we can work on improving his jumping style and flexibility in the neck at home.

If you are looking for a nice venue with lots of small ‘baby fences’ to jump then I recommend Rabson Manor it was just ideal for what we wanted to do today

Firstly apologies for the delay in getting these videos live I have been plagued by pathetic upload speed for the last few weeks, waaah!

So this is what I’ve been up to with Dustry in my last few lessons…

we have been working on an essential flat work skill, crucial for when it comes to stringing a course of fences together, and that is cantering over poles on a circle. Sounds easy right?…well it’s not!!!

Since I began reschooling Dustry my instructor Amanda Brewer has always emphasised the importance of training a balanced and supple horse, that works equally on both reins. One exercise she uses to judge evenness is to trot on a 20m circle and at each 1/4 point on the circle change leg, so that for 2x 1/4′s of the circle you are trotting on the wrong leg. The aim of this is to highlight the difference between both reins, and which one needs more work. In an ideal horse you shouldn’t be able to tell the trots apart wrong leg or not.

On the circle in canter another good way to highlight a stiffness/weakness/area that needs more work in the canter is to try and canter over poles on each 1/4 of a 20m circle. We started with just the one pole, and built up to 3. On the left rein it was fairly easy once into the exercise to spot a good stride to each pole and meet them on a nice quality canter.

On the right rein however…..our right rein inadequacies really showed up! It was MUCH harder to ‘get him in the neck’ which impacted on the quality of the canter and in turn made it MUCH harder to see a good stride. As my instructor says ‘it’s not a stride you need to look for it’s the quality canter that’s essential, after that the strides will come’  and as always she was right!

So off we went with our homework, and this is the result after a week of practising, can you spot the difference?…

The next week in our lesson things were a little more exciting!!!!! Spring grass fever seemed to have taken hold of Dustry and he spent a large majority of the early part of the lesson on his back legs. Now whilst I admire a nice birds eye view of the countryside as much as the next person, I do prefer to ride at a slightly lower altitude, and thankfully he was easily convinced this might be a better plan too He did however have a bit of a relapse when we began jumping, and this was the result…..less bascule more jumping goat impression! (watch the vid to the end to hear the lols!)

So again back home we went with more homework, this time it was just to pop a little fence a few times during the week just to get him familiar with it, and jumping in a more relaxed, calm manner. I’m pleased to say he was fab at home, and managed to keep a lid on it in his next lesson, see video.

Because he’s not a natural jumper, and when stressed/excited/tense can revert to a rather disappointing style we are just keeping things small for now, and when he has a little more experience behind him we can then begin to build things up, and test his scope!

…to spot this whilst snooping about on the internet

thank you very much Cape Horse Link!

I just popped into Trotters on my way home to pick up Dustry’s new feed, and look what else I came out with!

Trotters know me too well, but this lovely gift really isn’t helping my already unhealthy addiction to socks!

They say the first stage to overcome your problem is to admit you have one……..*twiddles thumbs and whistles*………dumm dee dum…..

When I bought Dustry he was malnourished and lacking muscle mass, over the last few years he’s really filled out and put on condition but…..I just want him BIGGER! In particular I want this year to make a considerable improvement to his naturally long and slim neck, and additional top line elsewhere is always welcome on such a slinky tb. So on a mission to ‘super-size’ my pony I asked around about conditioning but non heating feed sutible for such a task, and the name that seemed to pop up over and over again was Equi-Jewel from Saracen Horse Feeds so….I bought a bag!

Equi-Jewel is supposed to be fed initially at 500 grams a day, and so I used my fool proof  ’get an old mug and hope it roughly measures 500 grams’ technique (this will turn out to be not quite as fool proof as I had originally thought!). Last week whilst clicking around on facebook I came across a post about Saracen’s new ‘feeding your ex-racehorse’ page and on it they offer to send our specific measuring scoops for the feed I had just bought, bingo! Today the scoop arrived and I measured it against the mug I had previously been using. It seems my guess work isn’t too hot as I had actually only been feeding approx 250 grams of feed not the recommended inital 500 grams, durrr!

Also thanks to my ever supportive sponsor Trotters Tack Shop I now have on order a couple of bags of Saracen’s ‘Show Improver Pencils’ which I will be replacing my previous conditioning cubes with….so we will see if they work better than the previous brand that I have used for the past few years…

Armed with some accurate measuring devices, and some very helpful feeding advice from the lovely Clare at Saracen I can now being my ‘feeding offensive’

Watch this space for a super-sized Dustry coming to a warm up near you!

So after last weeks eureka moment I was very keen to get cracking on today’s lesson as I knew jumping would be involved!
We started on the flat, and all week I have been working on his canter, and in all paces the need to ‘keep my hands active’ to encourage him to stay soft and supple in his jaw. On the flat he still needs to work in a more uphill shorter frame in the canter but it’s coming, and in the trot I need to remember to keep those hands active (not huge gestures just little and often to move the bit in his mouth and keep his jaw soft). On his right rein canter, I need to concentrate on keeping him working over his body, and not let him drift to the outside a little, and also to try and ‘sit him back on his hocks, and bring him up in the shoulder’. On the left rein I need to work on give and retaking the inside rein to soften off his neck, and not to encourage him to lean by ‘holding onto him’

We then progressed to some trot poles prior to jumping a small cross pole, and a cross pole spread from both directions. At home this week we need to work on trot poles, with the aim to have his neck nice and long and low and stretching over the poles. Over a fence he shows promise, but atm he’s not using his neck as much as we would like so poles will help with this. I’m so pleased at his attitude to fences, he seems keen, brave, and careful and long may it continue! Below is a vid, some flat work and then each fence the first time he jumped it.

…and YES the eagle eyed few will have spotted that IS a new saddle cloth and it IS GHE green! I couldn’t resist!

apparently fog is the new ‘high winds’ and caused much excitment in the field this morning. Dustry just couldn’t resist a few rolly leapy squeaky moments!

Dustry’s jumping education has been frustratingly slow due to a variety of irritating issues (bad weather missing lessons, Christmas, illness, work commitments, riding after dark etc) but primarily we have been delayed by his dental issues. These are well and truly sorted now, and it was with baited breath that yesterday we attempted his first ‘post wolf teeth jump’. We began the lesson working on all paces, making it my main priority to ‘get him in the neck’, every time he goes to slightly hollow or come up in his neck I need to be really proactive about stopping it before it even happens. He’s a grown up now and needs to leave baby habits behind (that goes for me too!) He’s becoming much softer and rounder now, and his neck muscle is really starting to develop well, but he does find it physically tiring to work correctly because his natural neck confirmation is not great.

Warmed in and working nicely we attempted a cross pole. I’m pretty sure that Amanda (my instructor), my mother (head groom, and chief picnic packer) and myself were all holding our breath as Dustry trotted towards the cross pole. He popped it so sweetly, and cantered off after nice and soft, straight, and ride-able, no hollowing, no rushing, no inverted jumping, no ears in my face……just perfect!

click images to enlarge

From the smile on my face you would have thought I ‘d just won Badminton not jumped a 2ft-nothing cross pole! We did a few more jumps on each rein, building up to a little double cross pole spread. I was over the moon, because this means his mouth is sorted, and most importantly he hasn’t picked up any ‘baggage’ from the last time we attempted jumping when we didn’t realise his wolf teeth had dropped. It’s like permission has been granted, and now we can crack on with his jumping education – Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

As a treat and because the weather was so nice the next day I boxed him 10mins to a lovely local bit of Salisbury Plain, parked up, and took him for a canter. The ground was lovely and springy, and as sheep had recently been moved off that particular patch it was like cantering about on a mowed lawn! He was a total dude, cool, calm, and collected, and only got a little excited about being allowed to canter about in such a nice big wide open space at first but soon settled – and all in just a snaffle!

It’s great training for him to do stuff like this and out in the open it highlights what we need to work on, straightness, lifting his shoulders, and keeping him ‘up and together’ When we got back to the yard it was 11 degrees so much to his disgust I gave him a warm wash off, then turned him out rug-less in the field…..you can guess what happended next! I don’t mind the odd marathon grooming sesh, and it does him good to get the sun on his back, he’s moulting already!

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