A chilled Filly

Wednesday 31 July 2013

A great ride

Today I followed the plan and had one of the best rides I've ever had on Filly.
As before I laid out a circle with a cone in the middle and 8 markers around the edge. I can't visualise an accurate circle to save my life so the markers really help my focus and consistency.
We started with all the normal prepare to ride stuff, but I concentrated on the circling game with me standing next to the cone.I also made sure she stayed on a proper circle and not an egg shape. We also did some 3 track and 4 track work at walk and trot just to get her used to a little sideways.
After mounting we had a couple of minute intense conversation on the subject of indirect reins. I just stayed focussed, ignored her protests until she did a couple of nice relaxed steps. Then we soaked on that for a long time with lots of licking and chewing from both of us.
Once done we went onto the "follow the rail" to get relaxation at walk and trot before going onto the circle I had marked out. Today the circles were amazing. Having got rhythm and relaxation and forwards on the circle holding the reins I just dropped them onto the saddle horn and rode very light gentle circles without them. We did indirect reins (without reins, but you know what I mean) around markers to go back the other way. That was all at walk.
Back to rhythm and relaxation on the circle at trot, drop the reins again and she was an absolute star on very circular circles.
A couple of side passes over the central cone, one of her favourite games, and the school work was done.
We celebrated with a nice gentle walk out along the local lanes with Ritchie walking Bonitao in hand for support. The most relaxed hack out I've ever had on her.
They say life is as good as your last ride. Tonight life is good :) :)

Play time with Filly again

After Filly's box rest the vet came back out to check that no sequestrum had formed. I'm pleased to say that there was no sign of any problem with her leg.Box rest was at last over.
What I did not want her to do was go straight to the field and go crazy. After 14 days box rest that would be just asking for a pulled muscle. To overcome this I waited until the outdoor school was empty and we went in there to blow off some steam.
As I wanted a gradual build up to let her muscles warm up we started with just walk and trot on a 22 foot rope, which gave me some control over speed.
But I knew she was going to want to run at some point and did not want her cantering on such a tight circle. Fortunately one of our tools is a 45 foot rope so we transferred onto that. Now Filly could run, but I could control her a bit to stop her doing anything stupid in her excitement like trying to jump out of the school. I don't usually use gloves when I play with horses as I like to keep maximum feel on the rope but for this exercise I used them. Rope burn is painful and needed to be avoided.
And, boy, did she have a good time. She ran for joy with lots of leaping and twisting. I was very glad we didn't just put her in the rock hard field. For about 5 minutes she just had fun and I enjoyed every moment with her though being a little worried she would hurt herself.
Once done she just came and stood next to me as though to say, "Ok that's enough, field now please". The turn out was then totally un-eventful.
Since then I have been gradually bringing her back to being ridden. We spent several days playing online, then a long walk down the local lanes for variety and a few days of liberty. The liberty was really good fun. She now mimics my legs. So if I strike of in the imitation of a horses front legs at canter she canters alongside me. Great fun.
I've ridden her twice recently and it went pretty well. I've even started riding without holding the reins, just using two sticks and my body and legs to direct her. The aim is to get enough confidence in her to take the halter off altogether. Hopefully that will be soon. We just need to get better transitions from forwards to halt sorted out and then it will be time.

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Filly back on box rest

Poor Filly. She really has been having a tough time recently.

A few weeks ago we found that she had a sore back and so took the descision not to ride her for a while in order to allow it to recover and to get our osteopath over to look at her.  (Top tip. If you find a good osteopath don't tell anyone else. She is now so booked up it takes ages to get an appointment !)
The osteo said it was not the riding or the saddle that had caused the soreness but probably just the exuberance she puts into play sometimes. Believe me it is exuberant. When she get like this I just let her work it out of her system for a little while, then gently start redirecting her and getting her to connect to me. Within five minutes she is as attentive a horse as you could want, but shutting her down when she really wants to play would have the precise opposite effect.
So no riding had happened for a while. Then the weather in the UK, believe it or not became hot bringing with it a load of flies. I think she then got bitten on her eyelid which swelled up so much she couldn't open that eye. We bathed it and kept her in out of the heat as much as possible. I also put her fly mask on, which I had avoided as she dislikes it so much.
Monday night I spent at Aikido where etiquette quite rightly says no mobile phones. To be honest our DoJo is pretty relaxed about this if we need to be contactable for work, but prefers them off if possible. After the session at around 10:30pm I switched mine back on to get a message that Filly had been kicked in the field and was now in her stable. I dashed to the yard to see her and found a small raw area on the front of her right rear cannon bone. She was fully weighting it whilst resting the left hind. Didn't look too bad so I went home to bed.

The next morning I went back to the yard to check on her. The eye had swollen up again and I also heard the saga of the night before. A gelding had gotten into the mares field and in the ensuing rucus Filly had been kicked. When the staff finally managed to sort things out (they had thankfully come back to the yard when they heard there was a problem) they brought Filly in. I was told she was hopping lame and would barely weight the leg at all.

What with the eye and the leg enough was enough. I called the vet. I then actually had a pleasant sunny wait for the vet, just spending time hanging out with Filly in her box and the yard staff for coffee. The vet arrived, by which time of course the eye swelling had gone down and she looked even better on the leg. However, given the site of the kick straight onto bone he decided we should get it x-rayed to rule out the possibility of a hairline fracture and disappeared off to get the x-ray machine.

He came back some hours later with an assistant. After Filly's initial suspicion of the apparatus we managed to get some good x-rays of her leg which showed a) there was no hairline fracture and b) she had broken the leg in the past and it had healed naturally and well !

So the initial panic was over. However the vet still wanted Filly to stay in the box for the next ten days in case a sequestrum formed. Rather than describe it here is a nice link to a website which gives a good explanation Sequestrum .
So we are keeping Filly in in case a part of her bones is damaged and will x-ray it again in around 10 to 14 days to see if there is a problem. If not she can go straight back out and also be ridden. If there is then it's 6 to 8 weeks of box rest while the bone heals itself.

Now the main problem is keeping her entertained whilst she is confined to quarters. It also gives me a chance to work on all sorts of little projects I have been putting off. Haltering her whilst kneeling down for example. Actually we cracked that one today :)