Back on form!

Well the rest has done both of them good! Tetley was sound this morning on a lovely 35 minute hack. He didn't even work himself into soundness, his first step of trot was sound. He preferred me being on one diagonal than the other, so I guess he is still 1% off somewhere, but I couldn't feel it. He loves that saddle too, more than the treeless at the end of 18 months. I hope that this one doesn't slowly "fade off" too, but the things that caused problems in the treeless (pressure from my seat bones that he ran off from and pressure from the stirrup bars that marked him in the end) can't happen in this one because of the tree. Fingers crossed he doesn't find something else to worry about with this one.

Tia isn't that different in it, but I've told you before that she's a daisy-cutter. All her action is in her legs, not in her body. Though I am managing to change that slowly, because she gets more suspension by a long way if I can get her to really use herself. She was sound in Boas on the front feet on the same hack (but not at the same time - there's only one of me :-) ) When we got back, her frogs on the back feet were showing clearly where they were wearing on the road. I am hoping that this simply means they are packing down and I'll be keeping my eye on them to make sure that the pressure is not going to cause her problems. Thankfully she'll be easy to spot if it does - if her feet aren't right, she does the classic "laminitic" walk of raising the back feet really high and moving them forward before putting them down from a great height. She did it for a week soon after the shoes came off and then stopped. If she starts it again she isn't ready for the backs to go without boots either.

Now - Boa gaiters with Old Mac boots - easy as pie to get on and very effective
Boa gaiters with Boa boots - very effective but an absolute ^%$&^^$&^*&^"££ to get on :-) !!

Oh and I must tell you - Tia's eyes were popping out this morning as she spotted a load of spring lambs in the field. Honestly - you'd have thought she'd never seen 15 little lambkins gambolling around wearing bright blue plastic coats, wouldn't you :-0 :-) :-) :-) Just goes to show how bad the weather's been - in 15 years here none of the farmers have ever needed to use the coats before but they are losing lambs to the cold.

We actually got double figure temperatures (not F, C if you are in the US!) here today. So if the wind drops just a tad they can go back out tonight after tea. The forecast for tomorrow is dry and I am determined to get Tia to the farm ride if she's sound in the morning.

C

ps think I will give you my life story because you are all too polite to ask how a woman of less than 50 gets to do one day's work a week and keep 3 horses! I'll bet half of you think Allan is a rich businessman who keeps me as a pet, and the other half think I inherited a lot of money. So here's your first clue - there was luck involved but mainly I worked for it!