Banging my head against a brick wall?
It was nice to be back on a horse today, I was beginning to miss it.
Zippy was funny. I only did 20 minutes, but after 10 he made it clear that he wanted to stop, by shrinking backwards and seizing up. When I sent him out he simply made a mad dash forwards in a huge trot that covered the length of the barn in about four strides - and then smacked his head on the wall :-0 OK, he was sensible enough to stop before the wall, but only just. He did that four times, realised he was getting nowhere, and did a super circuit in a wonderful bouncing trot. Since that was what I wanted in the first place, I was able to stop and thank him.
I have no idea if it is because he has less acid indigestion or not, but he has been uniformly calm (you can always tell by the size of his eyes) ever since I have been adding chalk to his food. My 6kg batch will arrive this week, so I'll keep it up, no point not.
Jazz was lovely. I tried to take him on the outdoor to give us space, but it was very wet and I don't want to churn it up. I would have taken him out for a ride but the cloud base had dropped and the visibility was dodgy on the road. So we went into the barn, and I puzzled over what to do. I personally wanted to work on canter/walk and trot/halt, but he did that last time and I don't want him to get used to the same lesson. So I decided, after a warm up, to do canter/trot, with only a few strides of canter and not many more of trot. He found that very hard in a space 90ftx36ft, but he was a very , very good boy. He tried ever so hard, and he managed a couple of really nice down transitions on each leg. The ups were pretty much spot on, except that he did keep offering before I'd asked :-)
Anyway, it was a tough exercise, and I could feel that he had to bring himself into a really short outline to do it, and also to rock a huge amount of his weight back onto his hocks. I felt he'd done enough so we also stopped after 25 or so minutes.
I had time to clean my tack, so I did - 3 saddles, 2 breastplates and 3 bridles. It's quite satisfying as long as you haven't got other stuff queueing up to be done, isn't it?
C
posted by cptrayes @ 12:11 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Apparently, when the horse has ulcers, the acid flushed up into them when he trots and canters. It's a very interesting problem. Could cause Zip to quit after a spell of work. That's what used to happen with Tucker. He'd be OK for a while and then just tell me to leave him alone.
Maybe you could set up some ground poles and obstacles to work both boys on now and then when you are going to be confined to indoors for repeated stretches. You could create "novelty" obstacles for them, just to keep them interested and add some variety. With the young ones, it's important not to drill the same exercises day after day, as you well know.
Sounds as if Jazz is a quick learner. I remember you weren't quite sure he was when you first go him. Oxygen starvation was really limiting his ability to progress. Now he's improving every day. What a great kid he is.
And at least we can credit Zip with NOT crashing into the wall. *G* That is one good sign his brain functions. *lol*
Cleaning again.. you are becoming a little tack room fairy ;-D
I missed a point how on Earth you came to the conclusion that you needed to feed chalk to your horses???
Jazz is a tryer, Jean, and that's better than anything, isn't it? I'd rather have a slow learner than a horse who won't try and work out what you want. Not that I'm saying he's slow, he's not, but it is wonderful how hard he works mentally to puzzle out what I'm actually asking him to do. Also, once I have him "switched on", he is very , very sharp off the aids, which makes it so much easier for him to connect my aid with the results of what he offers.
I think you are right to remind me that I need to bring the poles inside.
Ah, Muriel, yes, you've been away! Chalk is calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate is the main ingredient in indigestion (antacid) tablets. It has been found that a huge proportion of horses suffer from ulcers. Ulcers are caused by too much stomach acid. Stomach acid is made worse by oil, but we are being recommended to feed 1ml per kg oil to our horses, which I am. I may be risking ulcers in my horses. Ulcer medication and antacid treatments for horses are not cheap. I am genetically inclined not to spend £1 when 50p will do :-) Limestone flour/calcium carbonate/chalk dust is far cheaper than any horse antacid, so I bought it to try it. Limestone flour is a standard supplement for horses with poor feet and horses on acid-soil grazing, so there was no risk.
Whew, got it?
C
crikey, well i followed the debate and am still glad of the explanation again! (slow on th euptake, me...)
the clean tack production line... always fun, and it's amazing how filthy ones hands get...
I put a glove on Claire, and dip it in oil and then rub the tack. The glove's probably filthy but my hand just gets a dose of lanolin!
I don't think ,by the way, that either of my horses actually has an ulcer. Just that the diet they are on would cause them if they have any tendency towards them.
C
Thanks C.
I will try with Linda ... as her very restricted grazing must not help her stomac...
I think the latest research in this country is that somthing like 42% of stabled horses without turnout will have ulcers due to not eating long enough to produce enough saliva to neutralise the stomach acid. Linda is also a "worrier" and that makes it even more likely. If I had "a Linda", I'd try the actual ulcer medication that Jean has Tucker on - she'll tell you all about it. Then once the actual ulcer is gone you can probably move down to limestone flour to keep it at bay. I feed about 80-100 grams a day.
C
Post a Comment
<< Home