I’m back in the saddle!

Well, kind of… Since Shah was sold to a part -retirement home earlier this year I’ve had a show arab on loan (MHS Wytuki) for a few months to keep myself fit and to have something nice to ride out on over the summer. He was a real poppet and has been easy peasy to look after, however, I knew that the time was right for me to buy my own horse. After many months of searching, a failed vetting, seeing all sorts of arabs with plenty of conformation and health problems as well as many that were just no fun to ride I finally met Mushammer.

He ticked all my boxes, passed the vetting and arrived home here with me this weekend. So, I’m very excited as I have a horse but haven’t got on him yet as he’s fresh from racing. He was raced the last time about a month ago so I’m just keeping him turned out with plenty of hay, good companionship, getting him used to his new routines before we start the re-schooling bit.

Mushammer is a fleabitten grey, ten year old pure bred arab gelding, with part French part American bloodlines. Born in the UAE he was imported and sold to his previous racehome as a four year old and started to race as a six year old. He was champion pure bred arab gelding in 2007 and has several wins to his name. Now, his new career is endurance which I’m sure he will love.

I have started doing little bits of groundwork with him, just some desensitisation and pressure release work, as well as the start of some bending as he’s very stiff from four years of racing. He’s picking up on things nicely so it will be very interesting and bags of fun to see how we develop together.

Must admit that I can’t wait to get on him, when I tried him out he had the lovliest of paces that I’ve ever sat on, and he was a real gentleman waiting for my signals to trot and canter rather than just rush off. How that all turns out in his new surroundings we shall just have to wait and see. I’m making full sure that he knows my groundwork well before we go out for our first little walk around the farm. After that it will be weeks of walking and trotting before we try a canter – the grass stretches up on the Downs will be out of bounce until I know we can walk them without him needing to run!

Will keep you all updated of our progress.

 

The end of the journey

So, the day has come when I don’t have to go muck out Shah’s stable, change his rugs, make up his feeds, go catch him in the field, groom his grumpy face, push him out for a ride, or leave him tucking into his dinner. After five and a half years we finally decided it was time to retire him. We are looking for a potential sharer to come and take him for some slow hacks a couple of times a week but as he’s such a difficult little horse I think the best for him is to just retire on grass.

I hear you say why?!? Well, I brought him back in work towards the end of December as he felt well enough in himself and we took is real slow to start with as he hadn’t been ridden properly for three months. To start with it all went well, we started with our 10-minute a day walks, slowly building up to an hour before we added some trotting and schooling work to get the muscles back into shape. After about two and a half months I felt that he was ready for a ride up on the Downs, with some slow hill work. He was very keen, got excited at the sight of the trailer, and walked on keenly when we started our hack together with old endurance friends. But half an hour later half way up our first hill he died again. This was exactly the same that had happened to us during those two endurance rides last year, but now it was happening in training, just half an hour into a ride. Even our companion horse stopped to look back and wonder what on earth he’s on about. He just slowly grinds to a stop, then has to rest for a while before he can walk on again. We picked up the walk and after a while we managed what would become our last canter across the Downs before going back with a heavy heart.

I know he’s telling me that he just can’t do it anymore. He can’t do the hill work or the Downs rides anymore, regardless of how much he wants to. All those years of neglect and abuse has started to take its toll, his health just isn’t right and it would be cruel to continue pushing him when he blatantly can’t do it.

We have had tests done but nothing conclusive ever came back and because he has such phobia of needles and vets, at his age we feel that it would be more cruel to him to put him through even more tests than just calling it a day and let him have some rest. He’s only 19 but he’s been through a lot in those years and for the past five and a half years he had a good spoilt life with me!

The owners have promised to keep me updated with what happens to him but it feels so weird not going to see him today.

I have started the hunt for a new horse but it will take some time I guess to find the right one. In the meantime I will post a bit here about my antics while going ‘horsey shopping’ – yes, we’ve had some real good stories on that topic already….

So, in summary – that’s all folks from my friend Shah.

 

Highs and Lows

We’ve had a lot of lows lately which is why I’ve not been posting here. Shah has been poorly for quite a while and it’s taken every effort trying to get him well again and at some points I’ve been seriously considering retiring him although he’s only 18 years old. Here’s the story.

After being lame for nearly five weeks in May due to a stone cut on the heel I started him up again in June and we sailed through the slow progression phase, starting with 10 minutes walk each day, slowly building up in 5 minute increments until we were back on being able to ride at a decent speed for 1-2 hours. We had a set back when he decided to reverse into some brambles and cut himself quite badly in the groin stopping any faster work for a few weeks as he complained every time he stretched out. But it healed nicely. Then something else hit us.

Early July and Shah’s chronic pastern leukocytoclastic vasculitis (PLV or LV as it’s also called) flared up badly. We’re still not sure what allergen he ate to start it all off but in just a couple of days all four feet were affected and he struggled to walk. So it was onto a strict routine of being indoors during daytime, out with sunprotect boots (Equilibriums much better than Cashel in my experience) and trial of several types of steroid/cortisone creams to try and clear it up. LV is very individual but for us, Betnovate has helped tremenduously. A warning here though, if you think your horse suffers from LV rather than ‘ordinary’ mudfever, don’t start severe treatment unless you have had it diagnosed by a vet. Using steriod creams on normal mud fever can do a lot of damage.

LV is an autoimmune system disorder. This means that once the immune system has sorted out the initial allergen it overreacts and turns on itself, in effect destroying itself and not being able to cope with anything else. When the LV flared Shah also caught a virus of some sort, we thought he’d just caught a cold as it coincided with some bad weather and being outside at night without a rug on (come on, it’s supposed to be summer here!!). But the cough hung around. It wasn’t too bad to start with, just the odd cough when exercised and especially in the dusty school so I didn’t think much of it. And we had our hands full with trying to work out how to get rid of the LV which was causing us a lot of problems at the time.

With strict management we succeeded in getting rid of the scabs in time for my next planned ride at Windsor on 19 July. We were really looking forward to it. A nice 32km through Great Windsor Park, manicured bridleways fit for a queen! The route took us passed the castle, through the deer park and we had an excellent ride finishing on heart rate 46, average speed 13.7k/h and gained a grade 2 – our best grade so far!! However, I knew all wasn’t right as he was running out of steam after about 20k. We had to stop and walk a few times especially during the last 5k, which is very unlike him. So although we had a great ride I also knew that there was something else lurking inside him.

Since then, the virus inside him broke out and he was coughing, wheezing and struggling for a few weeks. In the end we had to get the vet out (another horse on the yard has had the same so we’re pretty sure it’s a virus) and he prescribed some ventapulmin, which has now cleared the cough. I’ve also had Shah on a course of Transfer Factors to see if they would help regulate the immune system and clear the LV. In the meantime I’ve also had to change his feed completely as I’ve found out that he’s allergic to loads of things and there are quite a few feed stuffs that can trigger the LV, soya being one, alfalfa another so I was advised to go right back to basics with the feed.

It’s been a tough few months but I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Shah now feels like his old self again. The LV seems to have cleared, thanks to the bad weather I think, the cough is definitely gone and he’s just a little tight in the chest. The tightness seems to disappear after a bit of fast work when he can clear it all out. Hopefully the last of it will go after another week or so. I’m considering putting him on some homeopathic remedies over the winter to support the chest as he sometimes gets a cough anyway when he’s stabled more.

We’ve also moved stables. Same yard, just different stable to give him more air circulation, he can now stand with his head outside in the fresh air which is better for his airways. And I’ve been giving him some pink powder to get his guts working so that we can feed him haylage instead of the dry hay. He loves it, but it tends to make his belly rather loose! But with the support of the pink powder he seems to be fine.

With all the ill health now hopefully behind us I can start thinking about endurance again. We’re hoping to get up on the Downs again this week for a nice hilly training ride and I want to use it to see how Shah’s chest holds up. We were due to do a proper ride this weekend (40k at Firle) but I’ve cancelled our entry as I don’t want to exert him yet, it’s still early days and the cough could come back and if he became ill again I’d be gutted. So I’m helping out instead, will be on checkpoint 2&4, if you ride past say hi!!

If all goes well now, we might still be able to get another ride or two in before the end of the season but I have low hopes after the bad run we’ve had this year. We’ll see how it goes over the next couple of weeks and then decide what distances to try.

 

Animoto.com

Short montage

Animoto.com

 

Injury trouble

Unfortunately, the cut that Shah got during our last ride turned out to be much deeper and bruised than we thought. So much so that he’s still lame four weeks after the ride.

He’s not hopping lame so he’s not on box rest, he gets turned out in the field during the day and in at night to keep the cut clean and dry. It is healing, but very slowly due to the location on the heel. The skin stretches all the time so it will take time to heal completely. Plus the cut goes into the bulb of the hoof, another place where it takes time for things to heal.

As I was worried that it might be something else wrong with him that we were overlooking because we’re so focused on the cut, I had the vet out to see him last week. Vet confirmed that the lameness was most probably due to the cut and as Shah sustained the cut during an endurance ride, the extra strain you put on the legs while competing might contribute to it taking extra long time to heal. He looked over all legs and could at least confirm that the lameness is definitely in the leg where the cut is. There is a slight thickening on the tendon on that same leg, but as it’s not hot, sore or swollen the vet thought it might be just a small burst blood vessel and shouldn’t be anything to worry about. The cut should heal within the next couple of weeks and hopefully the lameness will go as soon as the cut is completely healed, until then we can’t assess whether the lameness is due to something else so it’s just a case of wait and see.

The good news however was that the vet was happy for me to ride walk Shah for 10 minutes a day to help with the boredom – grumpiness already set in – and condition – he’s now slipping back into bad habits. I should check his trot once a week to see how he’s progressing, and if the cut heals up and he’s still lame then we start to worry as we’ll have to investigate further! But I’m hoping we don’t have to go that far.

So, another setback on our journey. It always seems to be like that, you take five steps forward and four backwards.

I’m really missing riding, and poor Shah is really missing going out for our Downs rides and endurance rides. He was so happy for a couple of weeks after our last ride, still keen to do more although frustrated when he realised that he couldn’t trot. Poor thing is now all grumpy and back to his old self of not wanting to work, amazing how quickly they lose that motivation they get when competing. I’m just hoping that we can get going soon again and get him back to his happy state of mind.

If things get worse we’ll just have to turn him out for a couple of months to rest and get fat – but I will then face a much longer period of rehabilitation to get back to where we were. And I’m not looking forward to that as I know it will be very hard, depressing and frustrating work. So we’re trying to stay positive, stick to our 10min walks, and hope that this will be behind us as soon as the cut has healed properly.

 

Our first 65km

After having to get up at about 4am and leaving the yard at 5.30am it felt like we’d already done half a days work by the time we got to the Berkshire Downs ride, but Shah travels well so it’s never a bother taking him anywhere. Much to my surprise he was awake when I turned up at the stables at 5am, and he happily ate his breakfast too. As I’m quite organised it was just a case of hitching the trailer, pack the saddle and load Shah before setting off.

We arrived in good time at the venue, being able to have a look around and find everything before unloading and getting prepared for the ride. Farrier check all ok, vetting all ok, start heart rate 40, which is very normal for him. So we tacked up and set out on the first loop with company.

As this was a major ride it was quite busy and during the first loop there seemed to be other riders around us nearly all the time. I had arranged to ride with two, more experienced, endurance riders but unfortunately one of them had a horse that was wound up by Shah so after about half way we trotted on in front and started catching up others instead. Shah really seems to like the race-catch up with others game and I was extremely pleased about his speed and pace. We kept up with all the experienced riders, trotting and cantering all the way apart from one downhill where we met a throng of school walkers and had to take it easy anyway.

Finished the first loop on a high. Shah felt great, was still full of life, very keen and had loved every minute of the ride. As his heart rate was 57 straight away I presented quickly and by the time we got to the vets, his heart rate had dropped to 44 so I was very pleased. He trotted up fine but unfortunately had got a cut on his front heel. The head vet took a look and decided it was only a fleshwound and we were okayed to keep going as long as we lashed on some first aid cream onto it.

As I was crewless (note to myself, try not to do anything more than 50k without a crew, it is difficult) it took me a little longer than 30min to get ready in the middle of the ride. I was then curious to see how Shah would react at going out again, this was the first time he had ever done that, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head when I tacked up and he realised he was going to do the whole thing again!!

As predicted, It was VERY difficult to get him out of the venue on his own. I was supposed to ride with some others so that we got a pull out but as they left before me I had to just try it on our own. He napped terribly and I ended up having to get my wip wop out and make lots of noises before he got going. The first 10km after that were painful, he was slow as a donkey. Luckily we then caught up with another rider, and some others caught up with us and we then succeeded in motivating Shah to get going and he got a second wind.

Once motivated we continued to fly around in usual trot/canter manner. I could feel he was getting tired towards the end though, and I was also a little concerned about his cut as parts of the route was muddy and you don’t know what they can pick up in puddles and mud. It was great fun, however, to ride with some lovely and hugely experienced endurance riders and horses.

Came back with a quite tired horse who unfortunately vetted out lame on the right front foot, where he had his cut. I suspect the cut had got more bruised and sore during the second loop and it was just hurting a bit towards the end. His heart rate was absolutely fine at 46, so I’m pretty sure he was fit enough for the job. He also drank quite well on the second loop and it felt like he had lots of energy in the tank. Our speed was 12.3k/h, which I was very pleased about.

All in all I was very pleased with him. We did the full 65km, had our ups and downs, worked our way through them, kept up a good speed throughout, he felt fit and forward thinking most of the time and he proved to me that we can now go out and ride our own race, without having to be reliant on company all the time, although it really helps. I was also very pleased about his heart rate readings, and getting the cooling down/keeping warm routine right (lesson learned from last ride).

It was just a bit of bad luck getting a cut I think. The cut is healing well and he wasn’t lame at all the morning after, not even when he came out of the trailer at home to be honest. He wasn’t even a little stiff the morning after!! Wish I could say that…

Need to find another 65k ride now so that he can start getting used to going out on more than one loop. Things can only get better from now!

 

We have wheels!

Not literally!! But I have finally invested in a horse trailer. The other week I bought a single Ifor Williams HB401 trailer (second hand) and I must say that I’m delighted with it.

As I will ever only transport one horse the single trailer does its job very well. It’s roomy and spacious for even a large horse but as Shah is only 14.3 he’s got plenty of room to stay stable while travelling. I also like that it’s light, has two windows in the front close to the horse’s head so they can see out while travelling as well as a lighter ceiling at the front to make it brighter inside the trailer. It’s got rear and front loading ramps and they are nice and light to work on your own which means we can confidently travel on our own. Shah travels well in it, he’s a good traveller anyway but seems pretty happy in it.

I also like the fact that they don’t depreciate very much. The trailer is not too old (manufactured in 1999) but in very good condition and as long as I keep it that way it shouldn’t depreciate much – something my OH in particular is very happy with!

It’s also light weight so you can tow it with a much larger range of cars than most other trailers. It only weighs 770kg and as my horse is only around 450kg we can get away with a smaller towing car. That said, as I only have a small car at the moment I have to hire a car for when we want to go out and most hire cars with tow bars are normally large estates or 4×4’s. So we now have regular conversations at home about which car to get next…

I was looking at buying a small horsebox instead of a trailer but the benefits of this trailer convinced me otherwise – and the fact that a friend of mine knows someone with a horsebox who said they were spending around £1000/year on maintenance, and that really put me off!! I know horse riding is an expensive hobby but with a £5k at least pricetag plus insurance, plus MOT, plus tax, plus upkeep, plus whatever goes wrong, that’s just too much in my book to spend on a hobby.

Good thing is that the trailer purchase enabled us to reach some more goals over the last couple of weeks. We can now strike off numbers 1 and 2 on the list below. We have done several longer hacks on our own, and although they are spooky and if I’m honest, scary at times, they at least are cementing our partnership and they are slowly giving Shah more confidence in me as the rider. And we travelled on our own to a friend’s for a nice long hack, in my trailer not in a lorry but still counts.

I’m now working on the number 4 on our goal list – we’re skipping number 3 as Shah is now well fit to go onto a proper ride – and I’ll keep you all updated as to how it goes, won’t be long now…

 

Crossroads

It seems that we have reached a crossroad. We have stopped (at least temporarily) our natural horsemanship lessons and are focusing entirely on endurance. Sue and I agreed that there’s not much more we can do with NH until I am confident enough to improve our ground work, which involves me braving and working through his intimidation tactics (including rearing, bardging and running over, which he only does when we do ground work or lunge, not otherwise). Also, if I’m going to focus entirely on endurance I need to put time in to get him fitter rather than just better schooled. I will continue to school him and I will continue improving the NH methods we’ve already learned, but the focus will be on hacking out. I know NH can make us better endurance riders but for now it’s a case of trying to put everything we know into practice and just practice and practice and practice to get better before learning new stuff.

Thanks to Sue we can now hack out much better on our own and we’ve reached our first two goals on the way towards doing proper endurance:

1. Being able to cross the main road at the top of our lane, safely, on our own – leading to longer rides.
2. Do a training ride to get a feel for how long endurance rides are, to see how fit Shah really is, and what he thinks about it.

Both goals were ticked off during the last week or so. The weather here has been glorious and I’ve taken the opportunity to ride more. Crossing the main road has been less scary than I imagined (normally the way) as he’s pretty good with traffic and knows he needs to stop. It’s just that when we get across the road and onto the next lane he has a tendency to nap. But so far so good, we’ve worked through all napping attempts!

We achieved the second goal this weekend. We did a 20km training ride at Plumpton, run by the EGB (endurance GB society) and had a real blast! Everyone at the yard went, all four of us, the weather was glorious and the horses loved the long uphill gallops! Even Shah got tired at the top of one of them – nearly unheard of so far! But he was still bouncing and jogging all the way down to the finish line when the other three horses were tired and just wanted to walk. That’s a good sign, he enjoyed himself and he was rearing to go again!

After our training ride he’s been pretty chilled out. He got a day off, just eating spring grass in the field and today we’ve been for a short walk up and down the lane. He was full of pickles as usual while out riding but he must have been tired as he was yawning like mad when we got back

After achieving my first two goals on the list, I’ve now had to set some new ones, here’s the list, let’s see how we do with these ones:

1. Do a long hack out on our own, including a good gallop across local fields.
2. Travel in lorry on our own to friend’s place for a hack out.
3. Do a non competitive ride, including trot up for the vet to prepare him for future vettings.
4. Feel fit enough to do our first competitive ride – novice level.

Hopefully, they are all achievable within the next 2-3 months time. In the meantime, back to work.

 

Equine osteopath

We’ve had an osteopath round to see Shah today. After all the hassle with the saddles I decided that I might as well get somene in to check over his back properly before I start putting miles on him while training for endurance.

Osteopathy is interesting. They look at muscles and the whole picture of the horse rather than just sceletal problems. They try to find blockages and then clear them to enable good flow throughout the body. Our local osteopath, Charlie Arnold, came recommended by two people I know and trust so I decided to give it a try. Shah has always been very one sided and after the Bowen treatment he had last weekend we also discovered that he’s muscles are much tighter on one side than the other.

The osteopath first had a look at him moving in walk and trot, with me running like a loony next to him as he had decided today was the day he wanted to show off all his glorious old Arab stallion behaviour… Anyway, she confirmed that he’s very tight between the shoulders, especially around the left shoulder and doesn’t stretch his right hindleg as well as he should. This corresponds exactly to what the Bowen therapist said and what I’ve thought all along.

She then went on to work on stretching and gentle manipulations. I really liked the way she worked with Shah, taking his sensitivity as an Arab into consideration all the time and adjusting her way of working with him. She worked the whole of his spine from top to tail. He was apparently a little twisted just behind the saddle and that’s now been corrected. He was also very tight on his neck and the poll in particular. If this had been a year ago Shah would not have let her work on his head and neck (he was very head shy for quite a few years after being rescued) but he relaxed and stretched out very well and I was very pleased. Apparently there were a few pops and adjustments, which means that he should now be able to stretch out better when riding and lift his back more.

Towards the end he was letting us know when the time was up. Arabs in particular are such intelligent creatures and Charlie said that most Arabs that she works with will tell her when to stop, as long as you listen to them. He held his head very low, obviously enjoying the feeling of release in his muscles. She said he might feel light headed so it was straight into his box for some rest and food. Her recommendation was that I don’t ride tomorrow and then start slowly for a few days before getting into the normal fittening schedule.

So, no major problems – I’m so pleased! He should only need one more treatment in about two weeks time and then a check up after about 6 months or so to make sure it’s all still ok. If it helps towards getting rid of at least some of his muscle tightness I will be very happy!

Next step: saddle fitter is coming to check the fit and adjust the saddle I’m currently trying out, a free ‘n’ easy saddle. First time I put it on Shah he went absolutely beautifully without one complaint. Yippee I thought, I’ve finally found a good saddle. Second day I put it on him he refused to even trot and I think the fit is not perfect. But as the saddle can be adjusted I’m hoping the fitter can find where it’s pinching and sort it out. I want my beautifully moving boy back!!!

 

The 5 things tag…

I’m tagged! Better do something about it so here are five things you didn’t know about me:

• My first article in the Arab Horse Society News/Yearbook was published this month, I love seeing my name in print, sad I know… Only available in paper version I’m afraid so no link.
• I’ve helped gut and skin an impala – being Swedish and very down to earth, you can’t be sentimenal about these things, it was part of a game ranger safari we did a few years ago. We also had to scare away some hungry hyenas who ware trying to creep up on us while sleeping under the stars in a dried up riverbed. They came to about 2 metres away and we ended up throwing stones at them!
• I’ve been married for 11 years, a fact that I’m very proud of! And no, I’m not old….
• I very nearly started my own ‘sandwich gateaux‘ business earlier this year. It’s a great Swedish concept and I’m sure it would go down well here in the UK. But I’m happy that I took the freelance route instead.
• I’m trying to read all Agatha Christie books – I’m probably about nearly two thirds through them. I love a good old-fashioned detective story. Nothing better during a wet and stormy winter day than to sit down in the sofa with a cup of tea, piece of toast with marmalade and a Poirot!

That’s me – now, let’s see who to tag… Bridlepath maybe?