Tony and I had a wonderful meeting with members from WSPA, The Donkey Sanctuary, WHW, Guide Dogs, and The Brooke yesterday. The meeting was held at the Donkey Sanctuary and organised by someone from WSPA as a brain storming/sharing session to discuss ways in which to help working equines around the world. It was lovely to be invited to be a part of the group and it was great that Tony was able to come with me. We invited friends down to our house for supper and Daisy cooked an excellent teriyaki salmon dish with roasted red peppers and a heavenly asparagus salad. This, I could get used to!

The clinic has gone really well and our liveries are also being total stars. The mare that had the issue with the poles has learnt that they won’t actually bite her and has also been ridden around the farm. She hasn’t been doing any ground work on the clinic as we don’t want to run the risk of her being spooked if another horse bangs a pole in close proximity but she has thoroughly enjoyed all the body work. The race horses have had front shoes on and a McTimoney treatment too so are almost ready to return to the racing yard and the three year old has come into season which has made it quite interesting working her in hand!

I have a family wedding to go to tomorrow so must go home and find something to wear but time seems to be running out. Getting up at 5.15am to walk dogs, bring in horses etc still hasn’t given me enough hours in the day and sleep is looking like a far better option than trawling through my cupboards. It will be fun though and nice to spend time with Tony and our daughters; and a real bonus to finish the day clean and not covered in hair.

The race horses’ owners have been to visit and are thrilled with the changes in their horses. They can’t believe they have only been with us a week and want them to stay for longer. I am loving having four extra horses in and with a week long clinic starting next Monday we will be packed so I shall take my female donkeys home to free up some stable space. The new young horse is a poppet but was very braced through the neck when she arrived on Monday. She can tip out of balance and walk through people very easily but this is a common pattern with youngsters. Too many people label them as dominant but when you watch them on the move you can see that the weight falls through their nearside shoulder and near fore making them lean towards the handler. Whilst horses are naturally more one sided, as are we, this is exacerbated by our handling of them since we are so conditioned to leading them from the near side.

As with most youngsters she really finds it hard to turn to the right due to this pattern of bracing that has been set up from an early age. When lunged on the right with a bit in her mouth she apparently took off which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. In my opinion she isn’t ready to be lunged – she cannot maintain her balance in a straight line, let alone on a circle. Her owner is lovely and has asked us to work with her for a month so that we can teach her some coordination and self control and we will put her through the clinic next week as I think she will benefit from working in the company of other horses once she has learnt some of the basic leading exercises.