Monday 23 January 2012

Vet has been again!

Poor little Murphy is broken - he came in lame on Tuesday and we had the vet to look at him on Friday, who booked for him to be x-rayed today (Monday). He was slightly lame on his right hind, which got worse when the vet flexed his fetlock area. X-rays showed that Murphy has a small fracture to one of his sesamoid bones (small round bones at back of fetlock) and our vet is going to refer the x-rays to another vet to find out the best treatment. There is a small chip of bone in the joint area, which may need to be removed, but we are hoping that with lengthy rest, Murphy will recover - we'll be keeping our fingers crossed until we hear back from the other vet though! We have no idea how Murphy did this - he has no cuts or anything on him, and very rarely moves at any speed in the field! But fingers crossed, and wishing him a speedy recovery. Apache was also lame, but it looks as though he just kicked himself in a lesson and he is much better today with the swelling down.
Murphy does seem to be enjoying his box rest though - he can't believe his luck that all he has to do is stand there, and everyone brings him his food and water and picks up his poo!

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Murphy is lame!

Murphy has gone lame! This is a phenomena! Murphy has never been lame in all the time we have had him - he has steel legs! We are hoping he just has a foot abcess so he is in with a little pink stable rug on (much to his disgust) and a poultice, which will hopefully make him feel better - poor old Murphy, although he will be enjoying the stable and hay!
The other horses are fitter now, after another weeks work so they have started doing some jumping. We are keeping the jumping quite simple with them this week so that they keep getting fitter slowly, but they are all enjoying themselves!
Just a little reminder as well for any riders who want to use their discount vouchers that they got in their Christmas presents - the block booking ones in particular have an expiry date on them, so make sure that you get them used in time!
Thanks

Tuesday 10 January 2012

Happy New Year!

A Happy New Year to all our blog followers! We are all back at work now after a nice relaxing Xmas and New Year both for the staff and the horses and ponies. As you probably know, we close for four days each week over Xmas and New Year, so the horses and ponies all have a nice rest in the field with plenty of haylage, and we go onto skeleton staff numbers each day, so that the staff can have some extra time off.
Firstly, we hope everyone enjoyed the panto - it was really good fun, and everyone seemed to have a great night that came along to it. The videos worked well and all the horses behaved (apart from Murphy, who behaved like a stallion for the evening)! So a big thank you to all our staff for putting in the extra work getting ready for the panto and rehearsing.
The cough that was going round a few of the school horses appears to have cleared up now, so they're all much happier, but a little unfit after their time off over the festivities, so we're going to be doing flatwork only in the lessons this week to give them a chance to pick up a bit of fitness before they start jumping again. Abbey took the longest to get over her cough, and ended up having around 6 weeks off in total, so she is slowly puffing her way back into work with a bit of a belly to lose!
Reggie is doing well and is sound, apart from constantly pulling off his fancy sports shoes - the poor farrier has had to reattach one each week since he had them fitted - its not even when he's working, he pulls them off when we put him back in his stable and he turns round, so perhaps he needs to be a bit more organised with his feet!
Timone is pretty sound now, so we have gone back to open heeled shoes with him to see if he can get a couple of hours turnout each day (he can't be turned out in his round shoes) so we're keeping our fingers crossed that he can go on and have a bit of fun in the field now.
Aria is (fingers crossed she loads and travels well) meant to be going away to start her backing this week, so we'll report back with some pictures and things of how she's getting on once she is away and settled at Alisons.
We are having some staff changes at the end of January as well - Danny has finished his time training with us so will be moving on, and as Nic is his partner, she has decided to go too. We are interviewing next week for a new instructor and training student, and hopefully we'll find someone who fits in well with our team and enjoys teaching. We've had quite a few applicants, so its just a case of trying to find the right one.
Thats all for now!