Paula’s blog – Keeping an eye on the newbie

Since the show, Bob’s been enjoying a bit of a rest with a few lunge sessions and being lightly ridden, but I’m gearing him up hopefully for a show either this weekend or next. Wish us luck, and the poor arena pole pickers too, as he does like to send some sailing!

I’ve had another outing with Autumn with our local pal exploring the lanes again, which we both thoroughly loved, and I have to say, being very narrow lanes, the drivers we encountered were excellent. I do, sadly, think that is all Autumn will do going forward, as she’s really not enjoying schooling anymore, but that’s absolutely fine with me. We love our meanders and she’s done her competing stint, so now it’s time to live the leisurely life!

Freya’s back at work, as we managed to get my farrier to come out and put a shoe back on the front that she lost, and she is loving it. I started her off lunging, then got aboard again. But, whilst doing one lunge session, I cheekily guided her to a small cross pole just to see what she would do – well, she shocked me and jumped it beautifully without any hesitation. There is hope! Hurray!

She was a bit off a week or so before as, to our horror, one day on poo picking, I thought I saw a couple of worms in her poo. I dismissed it, as I thought: “Nope, she was clear in the worm count about two months ago.” And I was getting ready to sort the next one in a week or so. But, nope, I was wrong, as the next day every dropping was absolutely riddled with red worm!

I was utterly horrified as I had never seen anything like it in nearly 30 years of horses, and she had been wormed and worm counted twice. But I guess these were dormant from her previous owner, as there is no chance the amount that came out of her could have occurred whilst with us. She’s been wormed again and, after a few days, no more signs of worms, but what a shock.

You have to be so vigilant with this sort of thing, especially when getting a new horse, despite what you are told on the sale. Hopefully, we are well on the way to beating them, but I am keeping a very close eye on her behaviour and condition.

We’ve been up to a couple of other bits recently, too. We attempted an equine car boot sale to have a bit of a clear out. Sadly, I don’t think it was held when people were available as, although we sold a few bits, we didn’t have a lot of buyers. So, we still took a lot of stuff home, much to our dismay as I was hoping to have cleared most of it. Even I now admit to my rug obsession and the need to reduce their number!

The other thing we have done is meet another herbivore – this time a capybara. That was a different experience, but I would recommend it, if you get the chance. It was only at a local zoo and wasn’t expensive. We had two lovely females who were very cheeky, like horses, and weren’t shy when they saw the food.