It seems everyone in the land is ankle deep in snow; that is everyone but us! It started snowing heavily last night at about 7 o clock and I thought ‘this is it’! I was a little worried because my boyfriend and I were on our way out to dinner. I needn’t have been troubled though because by the time we came home again, it had turned to rain. All very disappointing especially as everyone else is saying how much snow they have, while we just had cold drizzle!
In preparation for the heavy snow we ‘expected’ we tried to prepare the field horses as much as possible. For the broodmares we made sure their haylage round was full and put fresh straw down in the field shelter. We’ve also been going out to their water drinker three times a day to break the ice and make sure its running properly. I find tipping a kettle full of warm (not boiling) water over the pipes generally gets the water running again. Sometimes you need a couple of kettles!
We also decided to bring in my two young geldings. One is two this year and the other one is three, both by Stedinger. Their field has very little shelter especially from the nasty east wind so we got them in for the night. I think it’s always good practise for the young horses to spend a night in the stables from time to time, and I think they were relieved to be out of the cold and wet.
That meant we’d done our best for all the horses that live out, my two yearling colts were nice and smug in their large straw filled barn, expect their automatic water drinkers were frozen and nothing I did would defrost them! So I’ve had to give them buckets which they’ve been merrily turning over! This in turn means the area outside their barn is now like an ice rink. Thanks guys! And all the stabled horses are well rugged up and aren’t too bothered about what’s going on outside their nice warm barn.
Since my last blog one of my liveries sold her horse and then bought another in Spain. He’s an eight year old Andalucian. He was a stallion when she bought him but she had him gelded out there before he was transported over here. He arrived after his four day journey fairly traumatised and with a very infected open wound! He’s had to have the vet out every day injecting him with antibiotics and penicillin, poor boy!
Then on his third day here he managed to get away from his owner, gallop off, jump into the garden and fall in our pool! It was a disaster; the pool had its winter cover on which he shredded. We were all trying to grab his lunge line which was trailing behind him as he swam up and down in the icy water. We managed to grab it and steered him towards the steps where he scrambled out. The poor little horse stood their trembling from head to toe, now even more traumatised than before! We threw lots of rugs on him quickly, as we were worried about hypothermia among other things and were very relieved that we’d managed to get him out of the pool without needing the help of the fire brigade! The poor swimming pool is now trashed! As well as shredding the cover, he also managed to rip the liner which is what keeps all the water in, so now all the water has gone!
As for my own horses, Santa and I never made it to Addington, which I was so disappointed about. He had a bad hamstring injury which is taking a lot of physio and stretching to put right. So frustrating, when it’s just at the beginning of the season. I’m also having physio’ once a week to try and keep my back in check, it’s still not perfect, but my physio says we’re making a lot of progress so I just have to be patient……
