Boing!

I managed to find a bit of sunshine late yesterday afternoon and take Jazz out for a hack. Boy was he bouncy!! He hadn't been ridden since Tuesday and I thought I was going to get pinged right off his back several times. Nothing nasty, just incredibly powerful and full of energy. He spooked at a couple of things - but forwards, not backwards. He has really grown up in the last six months. I was marvelling at what a wonderful feeling he gives me. He is such an athlete, and so powerful, and so springy and so together. I can honestly say that I think he is now worth every penny that we paid for him, including the tieback than cost over £2000.

Radar seems perfectly happy to be having a holiday. I take his rug off from time to time, but that's about all the attention he's getting apart from two huge bowls of food a day, courtesy of the cold weather. They should be down to one by now, but they aren't keeping their weight well enough to do that yet. Mind you, we had double figure temperatures here today .... so who knows?

Campero and I did a slow half an hour on the arena. I sometimes have trouble deciding if he is stiff, lazy or just much shorter striding than the two big boys. I think it's some of all three. Anyway, he loosened up in a few minutes and was sound in a test trot half way through. I wouldn't say he was any less sensitive on stones today and I think that soaking the hay probably hasn't made any difference to his footieness. He still has very flat front feet and until the new horn grows down a bit further that isn't going to change, because he still does not have enough good attachment of the laminae to hold his pedal bone higher in his hoof capsule, though we are getting there fast. His soles are much thicker and harder than they were, but they are simply too close too the floor to cope with stones bigger than gravel on an ungiving surface.

What is interesting is that he eats soaked haylage a lot more slowly than dry stuff. I guess that's probably because it isn't terribly tasty. But it seems to me that overnight, when he has to go 12 or 13 hours without a top-up most nights, that it's a good idea to slow him up, so he won't eat any more of the stable rafters or his own rugs! It's also very easy to soak his night-time stuff  - I have a big plastic loft-type water tank that SH installed a sink plughole in. I fill it with water and soak the night's hay during the day, then turn him into the yard in the evening, pull out the plug, and leave him to eat it straight out of the tank.  It's working so well that I think I'll carry on until he can go in the barn during the night. At the moment it's needed for the others at night, but hopefully they will go onto an "out at night, in during daylight" regime soon. I just need the ground to dry up a bit.

Stunt pony yesterday did an amazing leap off a wall at least five feet high and down into the concrete yard!! He got into the main yard by dashing past me and I chased him to try and get him back into the stable yard. I cornered him behind the haylage bales and to escape me he took a flying leap down off a bank into the stable yard. He hit the ground with a smack of his little feet and a bit of a surprised look on his face, but he was unscathed, the little beggar!

C