Unfortunately, as the festive season approaches, I have been struck down with a chest infection and so have not been able to plan Diva’s Christmas photo shoot as I wanted.
I am sure she is quite relieved at this turn of events if her Halloween witch’s hat photos were anything to go by.
Everyone is under pressure at this time of year, and the perpetual wet weather certainly isn’t helping morale. The horses are staying in more due to the wet land and so it is important to ensure that they get some carrots or soaked sugar beet etc to keep them regular and help prevent colic.
I feed more hay when they are in and give them carrots, parsnips or swede to eat and play with. Diva is convinced parsnips are the food of the devil and will not touch them, but after a day or two of kicking a swede around her stable she has decided that she likes them.
The horse walker is getting lots of use at the moment and it does make me chuckle to see Diva marching on there with the big horses. She absolutely loves going on it. I’m not entirely sure why since she is so tiny, she can’t see out over the kickboards.
I also give them turnout in the lunge pen all together to get some social time if they have stayed in. Florence, bless her, always loose lunges herself when she first goes in, as she obviously must remember being worked in there as a youngster.
Mabel tends to just wait for her to finish before they enjoy a mutual grooming session and Diva runs about in the middle squeaking!
As mentioned last time, the field gateway is getting rather muddy, and so to Diva’s delight I have been letting her go onto the good side of the paddock as her little feet won’t churn the ground up like the big girls would and she really dislikes walking through the deep mud.
The big girls are not impressed, and I am certain I have seen Diva gloating as she munches on the grass.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Diva, myself and her friends, and I hope you continue to read of Diva’s adventures in 2020. We have lots planned together and so it should be fun.
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.