Monday 19 March 2012

A very sad goodbye, but exciting hellos!

Firstly, some very sad news I'm afraid.... it seems we have an awful lot of sad news lately....
We had to have Melody, our 2 year old home bred filly put to sleep yesterday morning. Melody had been on the farm since she was a week old (she was born at our vets), and was our pride and joy. She lived in the hill field with her mum Belinda, and was always a happy, sweet and well behaved youngster. For some reason, on Friday morning, she decided to jump out of her field - she had been happily munching her hay with Belinda at 8.00 a.m. when Sally drove past to check the new horses, and by 10 past 8 she was standing on the track outside her field with a sore back leg. She was uncomfortable walking, so we called the vet immediately, who diagnosed a fractured tuber coxae (pelvic bone). These fractures have a fairly good prognosis, so Melody was given painkillers and taken down to her stable, given a deep bed and was happy in herself and eating well. She did well through Friday and Saturday, but lay down on Sunday morning and was sore when she tried to get up. We called the vet right away, and discussed her options - in order to get her up, we would have had to roll her over on her back onto her good hip, give her a lot of painkillers and then if we were successful in getting her up, she would have to be tied up for 4 - 6 weeks to prevent her lying down again. We decided that this would be too painful and too stressful for a 2 year old horse and that the best thing to do was to put her to sleep peacefully whilst she was lying down. Belinda is doing well, is in a stable for a few days and will hopefully go back out with some of the mares soon. It was a very sad day, as it is particularly difficult with a younger horse, but these horrible things happen if you work with horses for long enough.
Onto the more exciting news - Sally came back from Ireland last week having made 2 purchases for the school. She bought Henry, a 16.1h.h. chestnut 9 year old gelding, who has done a bit of everything and will be the new jumping horse for the staff/advanced riders to replace Timone. She also bought KoKo, an appalloosa 5 year old mare, who Apache was very excited to see walking up the farm! He is delighted that there is another spotty horse on the farm - particularly a lady!
KoKo will do quite a bit of training with the staff before she joins lessons, but she is a 15.3h.h. cob type, so will be useful for both adults and kids.
The new ones are currently in strict isolation as coming from a horse sale is high risk for diseases, and they have had a blood test taken already to test for strangles. They will have another blood test taken a week on Monday and if these are all clear, they will slowly be introduced to the farm.
We look forward to seeing them progress soon!

Friday 2 March 2012

Sad days, but exciting times ahead

A sad day for us all today, as we had decided to have Archie and Timone put down. Logistically, we normally do this (if planned) on a Friday morning, as the yard is shut so it's nice and peaceful, and Sally is free to assist the vet with it, as it can be a difficult thing for the staff to deal with.
We had always planned to put Timone down in the Spring - he was never going to make a fully sound recovery to work from his athritis, and the treatment we gave him over the winter was to ensure he was comfortable and could have a few months retirement and time out at grass. The weather was so good this week, that we took advantage and gave him a few days out at grass with no rug on with Ben and Fuzby. He had a whale of a time, galloping about, bucking and generally enjoying himself, so we knew the time was right to put him to sleep this week, rather than delay it and risk him becoming lamer and uncomfortable again.
Archie had reached the grand old age of 35 years. Whilst most of you know him now as the old retired pony who we use as a companion, he was one of the best riding school ponies we had, and taught hundreds of kids to ride. He used to make us all laugh with his ability to poo (and stop for it) every 2 minutes, his timing of having a pee every time it was his turn to canter, and his dislike for coloured ponies, leading to him chasing poor Gemima round in lessons! Archie has had a great 4 years retired, but had grown a sarcoid (a cancerous wart) between his front legs. It had become bigger over the winter, and we didn't think it was fair to give him treatment for it that is often quite painful, so we felt the best thing to do was to put him to sleep before his health started to fail. He always behaved like a mini-stallion, so he'd have hated having to slow down if he had gotten stiffer and older.
On a brighter note, Aria is returning today from being backed and has already been ridden twice by Hannah who describes her as "strong and forward" - like mother, like daughter then! Belinda always liked to go forward!
Sally is also away to a horse sale in Ireland on Monday/Tues/Wed in search of a couple of jumping horses and perhaps a cob, so fingers crossed there are some suitable ponies over there! We'll keep you updated.