Year 2 dramas

So, for the first few months of the year I concentrated a lot on school work, trying to get to the point where I established a nice canter.
I think I attended some dressage clinics in the first part of the year but all the work was pretty much about training and hacking rather than showing.

This was going well until the saddler came up and announced (as I had predicted) that Herbs’ saddle no longer fitted and that he was back sore in places (didn't know about that bit though!). I was horrified that I had hurt him but also know that he would have shown more signs of discomfort if it had been very bad so I decided to get a bit of a grip. A year later I would know Herbs so much better as to know that most of this was down to his sensitivity and wasnt pure pain. Anyway, I booked the physio and until he was fine couldn't get a saddle so it was lungeing for us for a few weeks.

Well this improved the canter no end, and once we'd bought our lovely new Bates Caprilli we were ready for action. At this time, I started a new job after having 8 months off so it now starts to become a bit of a shock to ride again in the evenings.

Dressage and Working Hunter

At some point in the year we went to another show. This was both a hysterical giggle and a very proud day. Some friends at the yard had kindly offered to bring us home in their box so Sharon and I entered the dressage classes at a show and intended then to go on and do some showing classes.

The dressage was a complete washout, with us arriving at the showground after a bloody awful hack filled with scary things and horrible traffic to find that they would let us ride the test that we were late for as long as we got in the arena immediately. Neither of us knew the test so we arranged for the delightful Molly to call it for us. Well, ahem, lets just say that Molly’s calling skills need a little fine tuning as both Sharon and I were eliminated for errors within about the first minute of the test! Lots of giggles later I entered the Working Hunter class and Sharon the Ridden Cob. This is where I get very very smiley indeed.

First, we jumped a couple of rustic fences and that separated those that would go through to the next part of the class and those that wouldn’t. We did just fine albeit my steering was rather dodgy, still, we were through. The class was very busy and so was split into two classes, one for Ponies and one for Horses. I think there were about 8 in the horse class after the jumping. Individually we had to show all four gaits and demonstrate the ability to come back to walk from gallop without a struggle (or tanking off out of the arena!). Well Herbs did me proud, we got the gallop and came back to walk quite nicely, whilst some of the other riders didn’t establish the gallop or were a little more ungainly. Consequently we came away with a rosette for second place and a massive grin.

Straight on from that Kirsty took Herbs in the Most Handsome Gelding class and got us another lovely 2nd place rosette.

As for Mr Coy, well…… unfortunately the Ridden Cob class was the last of a long day and Coy behaved impeccable during the class until the lap of honour. 2nd place rosette flying proudly he decided to jump the arena rope and head for freedom with a very determined looking Sharon on board! Bless him, once he gets something into his head there’s no negotiating – he is after all, a typical Cob!

Unfortunately, whilst there were lots of time for fun, 2005 will forever be known as injury year.

During 2004, Herbs had a couple of injuries. One time he came in showing 80% lameness but a couple of day’s box rest and he was fighting fit. I think it was just a pulled muscle and as he was so unfit and poor the larking about in the field took its toll.

Another time, he had a kick to his near fore and had to have xrays just to check there was nothing serious and then rest whilst it healed. This was a bit of a drama because as soon as the wound had started to heal he decided to nibble the itchy bits and opened the whole thing up again so it was a case of starting over. I did find some great stuff to slop on it though to stop it drying out so quickly and this seemed to do the trick.

Whilst frustrating and worrying, these injuries were nothing to what we went through in the 2nd half of 2005.

First Herbs got what looked like a barbed wire cut on his chest. He had staples and dressing over it and fortunately didnt chew at it (unlike the leg injury - little sod) so it healed really nicely and I could still ride as it hadnt affected any muscle areas.

Next he got a similar wound under his chin, just missing where the cavesson goes. This again needed staples and Herbs had to be tied up at night to stop him scratching his chin on the wall. He bore this pretty well but I hated having to do it. Again, I could still ride with the nose piece off the bridle so he still got exercised after a couple of days and once the initial swelling had gone down

My worse nightmare came one Sunday when I brought him in from the field with a very bad cut to his near hind fetlock joint. Joint fluid was oozing so the emergency vet was called again. She declared that he would need to go to hospital and there followed the worst week of my life followed by another horrible 10 weeks.

Herbs spent a week at the equine hospital after an operation on the Sunday night when 9 litres of saline was flushed through his fetlock joint. This was to flush the infection which was found by testing the fluid when we first got to the hospital. During that next week I visited Herbs every afternoon (work were great about it) and finally on the Thursday he was allowed to come home after much dressing changing, litres of antibiotics and sufficient further joint fluid checks to prove that the infection was definitely gone.

Herbs came back home on the Thursday night and I was just delighted to have him home.

Our discharge notes ordered a 10 minute walk twice a day but otherwise box rest for 6 weeks. Sharon helped relentlessly with the bandage changes which Herbs was initially not too chuffed about because he’d been poked and prodded so much already. Within a couple of days he relaxed though and like the good chap he is, just trusted us and let us get on with it.

Well I wont bore you with the following weeks dramas suffice it to say that I had a bit of a looney on my hands from being kept shut in a stable all day and some people at the yard were less than sensible around him, including those that sent him doolally by loading their horses right outside his stable.

The good news came in 5 weeks when the vet confirmed he was fit enough to be turned out and so, sedated, he started being able to graze in the sick paddock. A week or so later I had my first ride in the school and he was as good as gold. I progressed through a programme of slowly bringing him back into work only for him to get another injury above the knee (typical, he wears sexy boots in the field now but somehow I knew an injury somewhere else would blinking happen) 2 weeks after going back into the normal grazing paddock and we were then into more staples and 10 days box rest with no riding.

So, as you see, 2005 was a traumatic year. I did buy a horse box in October as Id got sick of not doing shows because of the hassle of hacking there so the latter part of the year was spent getting to grips with driving it and trying to keep Herbs injury free.

Ozzie, the 'orse Box - so named by my work colleagues who spent an entertaining afternoon putting names into an empty chocolate box. Ozzie was the first name out and let me tell you I am soooooo glad it wasn't some of the others!

After a nightmare time at Christmas and New Year when I was constantly having to drag Herbs out of the field because he simply would not stop playing I ended up cutting his feed down to nothing to see whether that had any impact. This, combined with having him dragged in from the field at the first sign of naughtiness and a huge dose of growing up he has now settled down quite a bit. I just hope it continues.