He's a coward!

A very interesting picture emerged last night. I called the horses in and Jazz hung back and would not enter the yard while Tetley was in it. I let Tetley out of the yard and he went into the barn and ate his food. The other three went into their stables and ate theirs. When they were finished I took Jazz and put him with Tetley in the barn and sat down to watch. First of all Jazz stayed away from Tetley and looked really scared of him. Then he started to chase him. Round and round and round. When I had seen enough, I took Jazz out and put Tia in. Jazz is actually terrified of Tetley and is bullying him out of cowardice, not bravery! What an odd creature he is!! I have given him lots of cuddles and reassurance this morning.

Zippy and he stayed on the yard last night, with Tia's 15x15 stable to share and plenty of haylage in racks on the wall. Tetley and Tia cuddled up in the barn. This morning I took Tia out, and Tetley did not bat an eyelid. I haven't seen him weave since 4.30am on Friday morning. It is testament to how badly he was being managed that he weaved so badly there but does not do it at all here.

When Tetley had finished his food, I let him into the yard, where he made a beeline for Jazz and breathed reassuringly up his nose with his ears forwards and a very friendly look on his face. I rugged them all back up (I'd taken them off to let their skin breath) and turned them out, and they split 3:1 and the 1 was Jazz! A while later, they were pretty much a foursome, no-one obviously left out, so I think they are getting themselves into some sort of order again.

He's looking absolutely great this morning, for a thin horse. He is definitely not ill. He has definitely been starved. I have also discovered that Victoria is a consummate liar, very convincing. When she bought Tetley, one of the reasons that I let her have him was that her "own" horse Knightly had destroyed her confidence with bad behaviour when ridden. I knew that Tetley would restore her confidence, as he did for me, and I hoped that would mean that she would love him forever for it, as I did.

Shortly after she took him, she told me that Knightly had been diagnosed with suspensory desmitis and was not able to work again. She told me that she was going to have him put down. In January, she told me that she had given him to a friend as a field companion. On Thursday, she told Allan that she had had him put down. You can imagine our surprise that we now believe that she actually sent the poor creature to auction. If so, she has sold a horse which is in pain when it is ridden, to be ridden again until someone else discovers what his problem is. And I wonder how much she cares about the human being whose heart and pocket might be broken by that action, never mind the welfare of the animal. Words fail me. Victoria if by chance this is not true, post now and put the story straight.

I will tell you now that Victoria left a card for me when I came to fetch him saying that everything Mary Lou had told me was lies. Because of her total inability to accept that she needed to change anything, I called the RSPCA. They have been too busy dealing with animals in current danger to come and see Tetley yet. There may be other thin horses at Beckbrook but none in as severe a state as he was, probably because he is an extraordinarily large horse and therefore suffered most, so I am not sure how much they can actually do for any horse still there. But if Victoria is reading this, then she now knows that people are watching. Victoria if you are in any doubt about feeding a big, blood horse then the formula is as follows:

A non-cob-type horse should eat 2% of its own bodyweight a day. For normal work, that should be 2/3 hay/forage and 1/3 hard food. Tetley used to weigh close to 700 kilos. That meant that in winter, when the grass has no value, he needed 14 kilos of food a day, 9-10 kilos of hay and 4-5 kilos of cubes or mix .

Now the others:

Tia - sounder today than yesterday. Good reason to believe she'll be fine in a day or two.

Jazz - absolutely hopping lame. I checked his foot and a chunk of sole fell out exposing a fairly deep hole about half an inch in diameter. So that answers that too, just a matter of time for him too, there are no symptoms of any spread of infection up his leg.

Zip - is a little star and had behaved really well through all of this. Come closer, I need to whisper this bit otherwise it will go to his head - a friend told me yesterday that one of the neighbouring liveries had seen Zip in the field and had asked her if I had bought a £15,000 horse :-0000 !!! :-)

Off to take SH for lunch and a walk in the sunshine!

C