Never been happier to have a lame horse
Tetley is more unsound today than yesterday. And I am extremely happy about it !! :-)
Am I an idiot? Nope, it's just that he has a great deal of heat in the bulbs of the heel on his worse hind leg for spavin. The ride we did hasn't made him lame at all!! He either has a very nasty bruise or and abscess in the heel and that will be cleared up in a few days (hopefully). His bar is cracked on that foot so an abscess is a definite possibility. The alternative, that the ride caused his arthritis to flare up again, was a far worse option, so I am grinning.
Tia is sound. I have ridden her in boots on the front and she was superb. She produced the best paces she ever has. But then again, she did have a saddle on her back that has just cost me £1500 :-0. It's my WOW, it's finally here. And they both LOVE it. Even hopping lame Tetley was relaxed and blowing and stretching forwards. Tia simply seemed, well, astonished would be a good word. I have only had ten minutes or so in it yet on each horse and I'm dead excited about riding in it tomorrow. It does feel very different, almost like "standing around" the horse instead of sitting on it. But very comfy. And superb quality, which it should be for that price!
I have struggled for three years to find the right saddle option for Tetley. I have been through Bates, Flair, treeless and none of them were right for him. He loved the treeless, but with the severity of the work I do on constant hills they did not work for me. The WOW is the only tree that I would consider using on him long term. For eight weeks he has been in a flaired GP fixed tree, and he has just begun to lose shoulder muscle with that again. So although it seems like a lot of money, I didn't feel I really had any option - they are even £1000 on eBay and I'm not paying that for something I can't even see before I buy!
Tia and Tetley are one gullet plate size apart, with Tia the narrower. I am going to try to get away with using the bigger gullet plate on Tia, but I have the smaller one and can change it over if she needs it smaller. I'll give you all a progress report on it when I've had more time with it.
Meanwhile, some pix to keep you happy. Claire took some mini-vids when she was here. I can't upload them, they take 45 minutes without broadband (unless they fail in the middle when they can take days!). But I have two stills from them - one of Tetley trotting and one cantering. He had only been working a few minutes, so they are not his best, but you can see what he looks like when he is pretending to be a dressage horse.
C
posted by cptrayes @ 5:31 PM
13 comments
13 Comments:
YEAH! The WOW is here, how exciting. I am glad that Tia likes it too, although at least you knew Tetley did. They really are lovely saddles. I was very impressed with them. Now I want to see photos with the saddle on! We could do a before and after WOW comparison then. ;-)
nice piccies ..... LOL
Ive decided its Tetley im going to smuggle home with me...lovely pics!
I saw a weird pink WOW and a blue one at some 'horsey do?'...I'd say you were a 'blue' owner??:0
*gasp* £1500?! thats what we paid for sparky himself!! wish I could get a WOW mind, maybe a pink one but I would like spark to know hes a boy...
Oh I know, I know, I've paid less than that for a dozen horses I've bought! Even Tetley only cost the same........
But like I said, I'm out of other options, and selling my two treelesses I am still £50 in hand at the moment.
Nicola you are absolutely right, if affiliated competition allowed colour I would be on purple or bright blue! With Jods to match or contrast. And why not? Wouldn't it be more interesting and sensible than the stupid beige we are forced to wear at the moment - I mean WHAT a daft colour for using around horses!!!! (I believe it started originally so that you could show that you were rich enough to have servants to do the dirty stuff for you - sounds true, doesn't it??)
C
ps Tam come over and ride on it.
pps Nicola this is the last time I'll warn you - neither Superhubby, nor Tetley nor Tia are to be packed into your suitcase as you leave, and I will be checking.
Talk about daft colors. How about white breeches and white gloves for dressage in the USA. That's the standard. The breeches get all stained and the gloves...What fun it would be to go in blue!
I do use a lovely dark/royal blue velvet saddle pad on my bay baby for the shows. The white pads just look like every one else. He looks quite elegant in it.
believe it or not, british dressage allows blue saddles (I checked the rules when i bought my green one) - so when Molly gets to that stage, I shall be out in my green one if I still have it and we'll see what happens. saddle colours tend not to be part of the stewards instructions, it's all about bits ....
Why do horses get ill so often? Or is it you are unlucky at the moment?
"ps Tam come over and ride on it."
Oooh, and me and me!!!!! Can I, can I, can I????
Em, of course!
Egrunt one of my horses is not "ill" she is going through a stage of footsoreness which is caused by removing her shoes. It's an unfortunate side effect for a few weeks, but it soon disappears and the benefits to her after that are hugely worth it. She has been perfectly sound for two days in boots, but she still prefers to have them on her front feet and is "short" without them when she is ridden. But perfectly happy to walk across concrete without the extra weight on her back, thankfully so there is not much amiss with her.
Tetley has arthritis early, but it's extremely common in the hock joint in horses in their teens.
The reason horses get ill so often is that they are so fragile. Man has bred them to be big enough to ride and pull carriages, and in consequence they have been genetically weakened. They were supposed to be the size of a large dog!!
They are also incredibly badly designed! The hock joint in which Tetley has arthritis, for example, is completely unnecessary for his action - it doesn't even bend! If it wasn't there, he would not miss it. So why IS it there? Intelligent Design? I don't think so :-)
If you ask vets they will tell you that in any large yard of 40 or 50 horses at least 10% will be lame at any one time. The owner might not have noticed though - have a look in the warm-up of any club competition and count the number of slightly lame horses whose owners are oblivious. I pride myself on noticing the slightest thing about mine, and I report it all here, so it may well sound as if mine have more problems than others, but it's usually the reverse.
I hope that answers your question -is your name a pseudonym or are you a non English speaker?
C.
Egrunt I forgot to add. Smartie had huge problems when I bought him, so I can't count him as "bad luck". I buy cheap horses deliberately and once in a while I can't sort them out. It's a risk I take deliberately. I was very unlucky two years ago to end up with an extremely rare case of laminitis in a big fit horse. But it's just the way of horse-owning I'm afraid. I find it best to expect them to go wrong and be pleased when they stay in one piece!
Caroline.
Egrunt Suvner is a sumonym!
I'm big on word play.
from
Less well informed person living south of Watford!
My internet is like crazy mustang today! Finally I opened your blog. Uff..It's interesting! Azteca
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