Dumped on my arse (sortov)

Yeah, it’s time for an equine catch-up…

Vin…
Vin’s reported lameness is puzzling. I put him on two sachets of ‘Bute for the first feed, then he had one sachet with each morning and evening feed for the next four days.

Today is the half-way point through the treatment period, so I trotted him up to see what we could find.

Nothing; no sign of even the faintest symptom of lameness, not even a hop or a change in balance when I trotted him up on a hardened surface.

Which is good.

Not finding any kind of a problem, even on such a low dose of ‘Bute strongly implies that my diagnosis (that he’d twisted himself or tweaked a muscle while twatting about in the field) was the correct one, and that my treatment was the right thing to do too.

Yay Vin!

I was going to ride him this evening but I had a slight mishap earlier. More of that in a moment.

Tom…
Sigh.

Because of his continual jumping Tom has been banned from turnout until his special ‘Jump out of that you rubber-legged equine!’ paddock has been fenced for him.

Hopefully the 8-feet-high fencing will be finished by the end of next week.

In the meantime I ride Tom every day which is being fun, hard work, exciting and not without a little drama. It also means that Tom is unbelievably fit!

On Saturday I took Tom up the gallops; we were accompanied by Sammi on D.

We hacked up the track together, nattering about just about everything; both horses behaved themselves with honours during the walk/trot up.

We crossed the lane, rode down to the start of the fantastic, mile-and-a-half long, all-weather track and trotted in to the start of the post-and-rail and began the long pull up the incline.

Sammi said that Tom I and should take the lead. As both horses had behaved so well on the way up and were trotting nicely, I sat and asked for canter and…

All hell broke loose.

Tom dipped his head, I felt a lot of movement going on underneath, there was a burst of speed and a bang behind us and a resulting huge clatter us.

I looked over my shoulder.

D was walking, Sammi looked pale and about to burst in to tears. We halted and waited for them to catch us up.

On the canter transition Tom had put in a corkscrew buck and his off-hind hoof had caught Sammi on her leg.

OMG, there’s a competition on BBC 3 tonight called ‘Move like Michael Jackson’. Hasn’t anyone told BBC 3 that, erm, Michael Jackson isn’t actually moving at all? Would I win if I went on the show and just lay down?

Anyway…

We took a moment to check and ascertained that Sammi was the only one to be hit, there was no damage to either horse and her leg wasn’t broken.

The girl has some guts; she refused to abandon the ride although we did leave the gallops. We hacked up the lane and rode across the countryside, returning to the yard about 90-minutes later.

The whole time we had been out Sammi had been in agony and I had been apologising profusely, even though Tom’s screw-buck hadn’t been deliberate – it had just been a bit of exuberance, a bit of ‘wayhay!’

Just saw a Government-sponsored advert on the television that said I could help protect the environment by driving five miles less each week. I’m just wondering how my Government clients would take the news that I’m cutting the drive to their premises first. I have to drive, there’s no train station anywhere near. The Government closed it in 1966. And pulled up the train line. To save money.

Sammi limped for a couple of days and is wearing a bruise of monster proportions, but there’s no lasting damage, thank goodness. And I’m still apologising.

That was the weekend.

Tom and I had a lesson with Owen on Monday; show-jumping over a testing course of tricky fences.

It was horrendously tough. It took 45 minutes to get Tom ‘normal’, to work all of the exuberance out of his system.

Once we’d reached the stage of ‘normality’ Tom jumped brilliantly (oxers, spreads, parallels, horrible skinnies, barrels, solo-brushes and a style), but things did start off wild and wooly.

Once we’d achieved a slow, steady, show-jumping rhythm *with no arguing and/or pulling*, Tom showed his real class, and also showed that he could be very careful over tricky fences. Instead of just relying on speed, he knows he can use his head and employ balance and his natural athleticism.

I told Owen that we were thinking of going to an indoor simulated cross-country jumping competition on Sunday.

Owen suggested that I lunge Tom’s bottom off before we load the lorry – to remove some of his natural exuberance!

A couple of hours later, with Tom groomed off, rugged up and noshing on his haynet, and as I was putting the last of the freshly-washed, newly-soaped and beautifully-oiled tack away, Sammi limped in to the tack-room to say the Vet had arrived.

Tom took his annual Flu/Tet jab like a man horse, but having the (must have) shot meant that he had the next 24 hours off work.

So I took him for a walk; slipped a headcollar on him and walked him out to some pasture so he could graze for an hour while I checked my emails, surfed the web and walked with him, holding on to the other end of his lead-rein.

All that was Monday.

Tuesday I went in to London for work-related stuff.

Today I was working at home, but as I didn’t finish reading said work-related stuff until around 2am this morning (see previous post) I gave myself a lighter day than planned, and went up to the stables late this afternoon.

As I said earlier, I trotted Vin up, he appeared to be sound so I decided that I’d give him a gentle workout after I’d exercised Tom.

I tacked Tom up, we hacked up the track, over the lane and up to the start of the gallops and…

There was no explosion of energy, no corkscrewing buck.

I asked for trot and got it.

I asked for canter and got it.

Frankly, I think the jumping on Monday had taken some of the wind out of his sails; Tom was excellent from start to finish.

When I asked him to quicken and extend his frame, he did. When I asked him to collect and reduce his pace, he did.

Halfway up I brought him back to trot (which is something I’ve never been able to do with Vin – not on the gallops) and changed his canter strikeoff – it all went very smoothly – again, there was no arguing, no tugging and no bad behaviour of any description.

Tom was brilliant, it’s that simple.

We hacked back from the top of the gallops, crossed the lane and hacked down the track, but as we came level with the outdoor school I turned him in to the arena and we jumped the same course that we had our lesson over on Monday. Three times.

Later, with tack cleaned, soaped and oiled again, and Tom groomed and rugged up, I slipped the headcollar on him and walked him out to a pasture so he could have today’s hour of grass.

Except.

As we were walking in to the field something spooked Tom and he skipped sideways by about six feet.

The trouble is I was walking alongside him, two feet away from his shoulder.

He flattened me.

I hit the deck (mud!) and wallowed around in the super-wet muddy grass while Tom stood above me looking slightly puzzled as to why I was recolouring my clothes with wet mud.

And now it’s nearly 11pm.

My clothes have been washed and are drying, but I ache like hell, I must have hit the deck hard; seventeen hands of German Warmblood x Irish Thoroughbred weighs very close to half a ton.

But apart from getting wet and muddy at the time and aching a little now, I’m fine. As is Tom, of course.

Unfortunately, as a result of the big spook, Vin didn’t get ridden so I don’t have confirmation of his soundness.

That’s going to be my number one priority for tomorrow evening.

Horses, eh?

That was Wednesday.

London again tomorrow.