Grooming

Well I think Im going to give Lucas until the end of the month (January that is) It will give us time to really work on our showmanship/halter (during our hand walking) as well as getting me walking on a good consistent surface, which should help with my weight as well (so far so good, no extra joint pain over the past month). His leg is good, to me its just not the same as his other leg yet and Im more than willing to spend more time on the ground to get him feeling better. If Im working on my own fitness on the ground, really Lucas doesn't need to go back to work until March. I would be the only one holding us back at that point. The farrier will also be back out around the 20th so he can have a look at his feet as well then.


So on with the brushes!

I usually start with a proper rubber curry with 'sharp' teeth. The teeth wear down fairly quickly so in the spring/summer I usually get a new curry each month. And these are the little curry's, if you have a large hand like I do I need to stretch out the hand strap before its comfortable! In the winter or when the horse is extremely dirty I just use the regular circular motion to bring the dirt up off the skin to the end of the hair. However the trick is that whenever the horse is shedding (anytime other than Oct-mid Feb) you want to use the curry in the SAME direction in the hair in short hard strokes. This will pick up any loose hair and get it off the horse. Other than the few months of the winter you should be able to get several hand fulls of hair off the horse. Do this everywhere. Face, body, legs everything if you are gentle it won't hurt the horse.

Next is the hard bristled brush, which I use the same way as written in all of the horse books. I love natural bristled brushes but they are very expensive and hard to keep really clean so I use the cheap ones. I do have natural brushes that I use at the shows, which really bring out the shine!

Then I use the soft brush all over the horse, followed by a cloth (just a regular one) or a stable mitt. I usually oil Lucas feet 3-4 times a week with fiskes (http://fiskes.ca/index.html) I had slacked off during the fall, and it came back to haunt me.

I brush out his mane every couple of days, although it needs to be pulled now! And I take his tail out of the tail bag every weekend and brush it out. His tail has thickened up a whole bunch, but he doesn't have much of a tail at the tail bone as it is.

I always use nylon sheets and winter blankets with a nylon lining in them, I do have a polar fleece liner but I only use it when its very cold or we need another layer without steaping up a blanket weight.

Sick

Hi, just got my IV finished and got my moms new computer set up (shes going back to do her Masters in Education on Jan 15!) And now Im going back to bed. Im going to talk to the barn owners about what to do with Lucas... Im reading that circles are bad for horses rehabbing from suspensory, but Im not sure that were ready to go back to riding yet... any ideas? Still doing showmanship, and walking but should we ride?

Ongoing topic about boots below, general daily stuff here

Same old day here, back to work after my vacation. Some days after getting back to work I truly wonder how the world functions without me answering my email for 5 days! Lucas is good, did some showmanship with him tonight to start getting him tuned up to me and my body language (which wasn't so crisp tonight on my part). Getting him to wait for me to step off before he begins, stopping smoothly when I do etc. I also use something that watching reiners taught me, fencing a horse. Essentialy trotting right up until we hit the wall so that he doesn't anticipate the stop it really works with Lucas.

I get my IV tomorrow so I'm going to try and put down my grooming regime on 'paper' then.

Lucas is foolish, boots for back to work?

He was absolutely foolish today! He got turnout in the morning for several hours when the owners were doing stalls, and got brought in shortly before I got there. I got there and turned him out without his blanket on (so he could have a good roll) and he still ran around like a silly colt! Oh and no off movement of any sort, I even went in and trotted him after his antics to make sure. So were going to start walking/trotting him on the lungeline next weekend for 5 min or so to start working up his strength again.

The local tack store had a sale so I got Lucas more multi-vitamin and joint supplement, as well as a new saddle pad and new polo wraps. :)

Does anyone have any input towards boots or Polo's for when I put Lucas back into work? He has interfered with himself before so I always work him in bell boots, and either polo's or hard shelled open front jumping boots. So what do you guys think of these options

1) SMB boots (I usually only use these for trailering, would he start relying on the support too much?)

2) Polo wraps

3) Hard shelled, open front jumper boots

4) Exercise wraps (not my personal favorite but was suggested on one website)

Does anyone else have any ideas?

Pre HUS diva....

So due to the foot of snow we recived today I spent alot of time online! So please see the attached:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpP6QA_1shQ

That is Executive Privilege 3E, owned by Kingridge stables in Ont, and ridden by Hugh Graham. It is a gp jumping class at Halton Place just outside of Georgetown Ont.

Now the reason I included Hugh and this gelding is for a couple of reasons...

1) I actually worked and groomed for Hugh for one exciting (and hard working!) summer. I groomed this geldings sire and dam at several differnt shows over that summer. Hugh taught me alot, some good, some bad. If you look at my photos you'll quickly catch on to where I get my flapping elbows from! I learned about high stress barn management, and how no matter how many times you have seen someone on tv, they are still just a person. Up untill this point my verson of equation kinda fell apart when the horse did somthing wrong. I would be able to fix it but would panic in the show ring because I "lost my position" I got out of that working for Hugh!

2) This is filmed at Halton Place about 4 years after I left. Yup I worked there for about a year. I loved that place, and the opertunity it gave me to improve my riding and high level horse management skills. I was only given one horse to ride when I got there but progressed to 4 by the time I left, one of which was leased out to an amature that I helped during the week. It also ment that I was trying to keep 7 horses in jumping form, when some of them were only ridden once or twice a week. (the owner rode the young stuff on the weekend). It really taught me to learn from the horse, and to learn when to push and when not too. All 4 of mine were capable of jumping 5 foot, and could preform up to PSG. Talk about a learning experence!

One more week!

We did the trot test today. And between all 4 of us (me the two barn owners and Lucas) we think hes on the final leg of his recovery. Hes been playing a bunch in the indoor, the swelling is gone in his leg and its only because we know what he is capeable of that we think he is still not quite fully done.

Hes having a ball in the indoor now, and canters on his own for fun. That first step is still whe worst (and only at a trot) but he gets better the longer he trots. So when we get the snow that we are promised to get tomorrow we will start turning him out for a couple of hours outside. The snow will give him some cusion, and be high enough to keep coldness on that fetlock for a couple of hours.

Im extreamly happy that hes' feeling better already, and that hes so broke that having the past couple of months off wont hurt him a bit.

Getting ready for turkey

Went to the barn at 9:30 this morning to clean Lucas' stall, and give him some turnout time. He had fun out in the indoor, and even more fun when I went out to play with him :) Maybe too much fun but its nice to see that hes not feeling so bad any more. Hes also manged to kick some boads in his stall and leave a few marks, he hasnt done that since November so thats a good thing!