So many things

I am sorry for my tardiness in this posting! I realise it has been way too long and life has been a little crazy over the last few weeks in so many ways.

Axel and I have had a little blip in the road but I will tell more on that front further on in the blog.

Last week my wonderful friend Angela took Axel and I and her horse Lola over an hours road trip away, to meet Barefoot guy Philip Himanka. I found Philip through my friend Krista of Buddys Barefoot Adventures who's incredible with the equine foot and has a lot of experience and knowledge on barefoot rehab. She has contacts around the world and through PHCP we eventually found Philip. Axel travelled really well and I was super happy with his behaviour for the trip. Once we got there Philip really took his time with each horse and explained in detail to us how to help care for them in between visits and explained the strengths and weaknesses in each of their feet. The great news is Axel has really good, strong feet that showed no signs of discomfort or pain. There was a little thrush present and I have a brilliant product called Artimud which packs down into all the cracks and crevices to help with that. He also fitted Axel for some trail boots for those rocky Colorado mountain paths so when the ice has gone, we can hit the the CO trails baby! He did an amazing job shaping and trimming their feet and explained every single thing to us. Just an amazing guy and I am so Thankful to Krista for helping me to find someone who can help my trail and dressage horse stay barefoot. I am sure not everyone will agree with my determination to keep him barefoot but with my researching and reading of a fantastic book and the help of some wonderful people, I will do so, as long as its working for my boy.

On to the not so great, so last week Thursday Axel was obviously upset under saddle, he was balling himself up and very unhappy about me putting my leg on. Now up until this point he has basically given us everything we ask for, more trot- ok! More canter- ok! Caveletti... ok... ok you get the idea. So this resistance was shouting at us that somethings wrong. Once we had ruled out foot pain, I had a chat with my lovely trainer who thought it might be ulcers, we both agreed that everything was pointing towards this so we began investigations... And so after the investigations; it seems, my poor boy has some pretty decent ulcer stuff going on. To support him during this time, we are cutting down on his work intensity and just hacking for a week or so until his gut starts to feel better then hopefully game on! I am so happy he told us he is in pain and that we can help him out and get our game faces back on again soon!

Each week I learn a little more, he talks, I listen, I ask, he listens. This relationship is building up, I am sure we will have plenty of knocks, but as long as we both keep talking and listening, we will find a way.

Philip working on Axel

Axels lovely solid feet

Body changes in the month he's been with me!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

News!

Image
While the world is obsessing over Corona Virus I spent the day obsessing about my horses... well a little about Corona Virus but mostly about ponies... Axel was first up and we spent some time with him doing lameness evaluations first. We really didn't see anything here, however remembering how he was before the stifle operation we didn't really see lameness then either. The next thing I wanted to do was take some X-Rays of the stifle to check how the screw was seated and if there was any problems with it. We took a few films and it all looked good down there, of course the arthritis hasn't magically gone, but it looks just how it should. So the choice was made to get him back under saddle and walking then review again before we start trot work. So of course, I saddled up and hopped on my slightly wobbly, weak pony. He is such a doll, and of course behaved perfectly. So happy to be back on board. Hacking fitness begins now! So, Miss Willough. A friend kindly walked her ...
Read more

What have I done

Image
Oops, so I may have decided that two weeks of consistent riding is more than enough to enter our first show. I know, absolute idiot right! But, we are pitching ourselves at Training Level, which is really just walk, trot and canter. We can totally do a lovely test together and as he has this wonderful temperament I feel like we need to get out there and see what we have. It could of course, be a total crapshoot as we aren't exactly starting low key. We simply haven't been able to get a schooling show in before now so are heading straight off to the Colorado Horse Park and a USDF show. Sara and I have no idea how he is going to be. If he is going to cope ok or be really anxious. He's a dude, he tries his best always, and is generally very sensible about things, however he is also very sensitive and is not a deadhead old donkey sort. My barn friend Emma with her lovely horse Ira will head up to the Horse Park with Axel and I on the Friday, we can take some time to prep th...
Read more

Suppleness: SI > Ren > LY > Tra

Image
Nope, not a mathmatic equation... this was my lessons with Sara this week. We focused a lot on suppleness and we worked a fantastic exercise for this with both Axel and Willough (that Sara learnt from  Portuguese  trainer Alfredo Hernandez). On the long side of the arena start in shoulder in until it feels good, change the bend to renvers. swing into leg yield (on the rail) then change the bend to travers. Sara had me stay in the positioning until the responsiveness and positioning felt good and then switch to the next position, The short side is always a break for the horse. Once it felt good on both reins in walk we moved upto trot and worked the same exercise as above. I absolutely loved this for suppling the horse and getting them quick and responsive to your aids, It also showed up any weird stuff I do with my body to get the lateral work, for example when I am on the left rein in left bending I sit right too much which doesn't help the horse, so this is something I need ...
Read more