not right...

G rode today, with the bareback pad not the saddle - she loves riding with that and says he goes much better

anyway, after 15 minutes of trot he became unsound on the shoulder that was kicked.  she massaged it, fine in walk,  but then not in trot.

so we're going to keep a close eye on that, of course.   Hopefully its just the remains of bruising, but there's no swelling or heat....G's Charlie broke his shoulder at 3, a small chip, and there was a lot of swelling and heat .. this not like that at all...

mmmmm

and in other bad news, a very good friend lost her OH yesterday, totally unexpectedly - so unexpectedly there'll have to be a post mortem... if I can, i shall go to the funeral ...

cold and dark

and my back hurts

:-(

not assisted by trying to pick feet out in the dark...

M's happy anyway, out through the day, in at night, no calls on his time ATM (until my back mends, and we're sure the wounds fine.. which TBH i think it is but want to be sure all swelling and bruising subsided)

all out again...

thank goodness.... friend turned M out early with hers, apparently they were both quite keen, but polite....

antibiotics finished last night, wound looks good.

raining and very dark tonight. lights not working outside stable so torch out to see feet and couldn't see the mud to get it off (well, not very well!).  the light we used to have very bright last winter died, need a new one.... in hand, apparently.

lucky up north, we haven't had the horror storm they've had down south

worming weekend...

which happens twice a year... horses in for 10 am, wormed, not allowed out until monday morning....no one likes it, the horses least of all and M is somewhat unhappy.  took me 10 mins to get him back into the stable after lunging and mucking out this afternoon, and he was very unsettled tied up with the haynet whilst i mucked out.  can't blame him.

the good news is that the hole in the shoulder is healing really well...and that he's sound.

phew.

sound, anyway

yesterday he was pottery coming back in which we hadn't expected - we'd naturally thought that being out all day would ease the bruising - must have still been coming through, but sound as a pound today... and quite happy to have the hole hosed out.., vet had said turn out, which is good really as he wouldn't have been happy staying in...so so far so good.  antibiotics twice a day...so he gets breakfasts now for a few days...

Hole in shoulder

Vet on way. :-(

cancelled and rearranged

to thursday, which currently is forecast to be dry..

RI got two soakings today.  we decided to cancel as, whilst forecast said it would be drier, we couldn't be convinced and given we were to be mucking about with different saddles as well (she's an agent) wet wasn't called for...

when i rang her, i said "if we cancel it'll dry up, if we don't, it won't" and of course, we cancelled and it stopped raining

still the right decision, though.

very localised weather

it was G's day to ride.. so i assumed she was, as i looked at the sunshine outside my kitchen window.

5 miles away at the yard, she wasn't, due to persistent rain!

bizarre.

roll on tomorrow and fingers crossed for a dry evening, at least...

sunshine!

i was quite surprised, i have to say, even though it was forecast....

got ot yard before he'd overheated, which was good, cleaned him up nicely and rode... in the arena, i wanted to see if i could get movement!  which i could if not consistently.. he'd be walking along nicely, then stop randomly, and not always at the gate end... easily distracted by anything at all but at least i did get him moving.

hopefully it won't rain Monday night, lesson booked and saddles to try....

and more rain..

it had stopped when i got him in ... stopped as i groomed .. then just thinking, shall i tack up? when it started again.....

doh.....

ok, yes, i could have got wet ... but i didn't want to and generally its miserable riding in the rain (especially without wipers for one's specs...)

you'd think we'd want heat..

but horses all rugged for the horrid cold wet we've been having and it was forecast to stay coold today. it didn't, it got to 15C.  so i wasn't at all surprised to find that M had sweated buckets under his rug, and was still wet with.  so couldn't ride. and the plan to walk him round me on the lunge to cool off didn't come off as someone was having a lesson....

doh...

stopped raining!

to the extent that i had to put the blind down on the office window as the sun was  blazing in and blinding me...

so tacked up, amid a cloud of midges which required me to refill the fly repellent spray and spray both of us.

went round and doing ok for a while..then slowed down and stopped .. when i got off, realised the saddle had dropped back and down..

RI coming Monday - she's also one of HM's saddle agents, so she'll fetch a FlexEE and we'll try that (it has a leather tree....)

in hand again

in the 5 minutes between one rain cloud and the next. i did think about riding, but knew it was going to rain again so thought something useful and quick between the rainstorms was probably more helpful...

rain stopped play againn

well, not so much rain, more that horrid mizzly stuff that gets everywhere and makes the world a dank chill place - someone called it "dirty rain" which makes sense in comparison to proper rain which actually is rain - plus fog, plus wind.....although tbh the wind wasn't that bad...but overall miserable .... didn't do anything.

winter bites

a howling northerly so the windchill is...

expected M to want to be in, but he started shouting to be out again before he hit the yard proper, could only get him in his stable by putting his feed down, then he was "eat, shout, eat, shout" for 10 minutes... i took him out (with feed dish, as it wasn't finished) and he ate bits more, finished up with me holding the feed dish over the fence but he decided he'd rather be off at full pelt to his mates than finish it all up...

surprising. i'd expected him to be tired with the gale, and you wouldn't have thought there was that much in the grass (even though the field they're in hasn't been used for a few months so there is a bit!) - but he was toasty under this thin rug, so, his decision!

change of plan

i was messaged this morning, did i want to rehome a kitten that was found on the road sunday near a livery yard on the land?  currently at vets whilst home found.... so we said yes, as we'd been thinking of a new kitten now Simba gone.... so having collected said kitten from said vet wanted to get it home and settled in, so no riding at all, just got M in and fed him.....

smiling

when i came out of the arena - we'd been moving, not standing!

i'd decided to try a different set up with the saddle.

took the inner panels off, put the smart panel on, and didn't use a numnah.

the smartpanel has tended to drop but it occurred to me that it might be the numnah, which is a griffin nuumed half wool shimmy (can take the shims out if required) - to be precise, it might be the half wool.  i like the half wool under the treeless as there is no hard centre seam, but can see that the wool might make it slip.

anyway, whilst the smarpanel did drop a shade, not nearly as much as it has been known to (possibly, also, the lack of extra layer underneath might have been relevant).

also, the smartpanel is harder than the saddle's panels (certainly feels so when sitting on it!) and i wonder, therefore, if the feel is more stable in consequence?

having said all that, using hte smart panel with the numnah wasn't successful.

so we'll see.

i didn't do a lot, just enough to know that i could keep the walk going...one stirrup felt longer than the other even though i knew i'd set them up as normal, so assume i'd had a slight slip left getting on!  which means i should have tightened the girth one more hole (or had him a shade nearer the block when i could have stepped over and on!)

anyway, i'll keep this setup for a bit and see how we go - it'll mean more saddle cleaning, but worth it if it works.....

ages since i've had a smile on my face riding!

change of fields

not before time, there was nothing left where they were... so loads of grass, so M can be out again overnight for a week or so....phew.  we've been waiting and waiting for this ..... G's day today and we knew nothing about this field change yesterday, so will have to see tomorrow what the plan is, no one has bothered texting me about it! save G to tell me it was happening!

saddle loan

called at feed store in north of county today on way back from mother's, its' owned by former RI/YO from when i lived up there .. she happened to be there so we got chatting, as you do, and she was able to lend me a 18" jumping saddle to try on M to see how he went, wasn't that kind?  she currently has nothing that fits it so been sitting there doing nothing......

so put it on him and at first glance you'd think it might have been ok ..until i got on.  put fingers under front - squashed fingers.  got off.

TBH i wasn't arguing about getting off, it was uncomfortable and of course stirrup bars forward pulling one into a chair seat (and incipient chuff chafe!)

so, that was no test at all, really!  but it was very kind of her to lend me it.  it will be going back next saturday...

the warm bath

is what we've all been having when stepping outside.....it's really weird, not that i'm complaining but 18C and rain is not normally an October combination.....

rain stopped play

but warm......so that was fine, since it was far too warm to have rugged this morning! had hoped it would hold off until i'd got him in, but no, teeming down before i left the office!  so hard, i was very impressed to see people out riding (assume they set off before it started...

blue jasmine

G's night with M, so we went to the pictures to the latest Woody Allen.  go see it (but apparently it is very reminiscent of Streetcar named Desire, which i have, so far, managed not to see so can't comment...)

in hand improving

to the extent that i can keep him going right rein, which is always his worst....

and G is getting up to do turnout in the morning. we've agreed she'll do turnout on her days, phew....