Who can resist a foal? Who can resist a black (beauty) foal? Who can resist a black Friesian X Warmblood foal? Well, not me!
Django has given me the best three years of horse ownership in many years. Being a part of every step in the process, and knowing the good and the bad was all on you with no excuses, has been challenging, motivating and rewarding. Now we are in the early stages of backing, with little and often being the key, it will be amazing to have someone to get the groundwork started with again.
Daisy is currently seven months old, quite unhandled and will likely reach 16.2hh (I am suspecting bigger, but can we say a little prayer she doesn’t reach that high?). So far we have achieved being able to get a head collar on, building a relationship to stroke around her neck and face, starting to lead, and she can now be caught from the field.
Over the next few weeks I will work on being able to confidently touch her all over, so I can pick up her feet for the farrier’s visit as a priority, and over winter we will work on tying up, leading and loading into my lorry. This will all set the foundations for spring, when we can start doing small trips to friends’ yards, and getting her first taste of the wider world she will have to face one day!
She has been in a separate field with a friend’s young mare as a field companion, as I wanted introductions to my bigger geldings to be slow and safe. I hope in the new year she will be ready to go in with them, and I’ll have my herd back together and the babies will stop trashing my summer grazing.
Welcome to the madhouse, Daisy!
Once again I threw Arlo in at the deep end, affiliating him purely for the Arena UK second round show, and once again he pulled it out the bag. How lucky am I to have such a wonderful little horse? We haven’t really competed this year. I don’t really compete over the winter, and also my horsebox was away for repairs up until the beginning of June, so I had no transport even if I’d wanted to.
With the dry ground we don’t seem to be having much luck with shoes, as little madam managed to pull both her front shoes off within 12 hours the other day! We entered the arena with two shoes on for a schooling session and left it with one missing (took about an hour to find it). Then that afternoon, as I went to put some hoof ointment on, I looked down and had to double take, thinking I was looking at the wrong hoof. But, no, the other shoe was missing too.
After having a long wait and some lunch at the onsite café, it was time to get ready for the Joan Wolfe Overall Supreme Shetland Pony Championship. I got changed out of my usual showing outfit into black trousers and a maroon top with white spots, as you are expected to be a bit more “bling” in the evening.
We were all set to go for our next outing, and were super excited. That was until I heard the dreaded clunk of a loose shoe! I checked it over, praying it wasn’t too loose, but, nope, it was going to need a refit.