Saturday, August 30, 2008

mud fever, parelli and a long day..

which started at 05.30 - had to get up as had to leave house no later than 06.40 to get partner to durham/tees valley airport 2 hours before her flight time (i.e., had to be there 07.30) . EEEK. did that, came home via Tesco's, had that all done and in the house for about 0900 if not before!

I'd wondered if Molly had mud fever = scabs round the bottom of her legs a bit suspicious, but could have been dried on mud, and today was the day to "bottom" it. It was mud fever. so lots and lots of warm water and medicated shampoo stuff got most of them off = had to do it in two lots, but she was VERY VERY good about having it all done, I found later when I put the mud fever prevention stuff on afterwards that i had missed a couple, but will get them tomorrow, I hope...

parelli. One of the livery owners does parelli (she started it as the horse used to be a bit of a B, and she's a small person, he's a large horse) and YO likes to have things on so today was the 2nd parelli type day - livery owner demo's the 7 games and then the rest of us try it. Set up a few exercises in the arena - narrow gaps, tarp, pole to stand either side of, big blue ball to touch, zig zag formed by poles to drive through or try and back through, and a wooden stand see if you can get your horse to put its front feet on that - the best at all those exercises was the backed this year Welsh Section A

It was interesting to see - a lot is similar to what others talk about, a different way of achieving the same end. the exercises were interesting. I did get Molly to stand on a scary blue tarp (not nearly as easily as I got her to walk through the huge pond we had last week after the rain!). some of that I might try and integrate in to the other stuff I do with Molly

this is all basic stuff, level 1

I then tacked up (must get my money's worth on the saddle trial, after al!) and rode whilst the others were doing stuff, and interspersed other things with riding through some of the things that were out. The zig zag poles are of course a good ridden exercise, but molly wasn't having any of the tarp ridden (but then, she hadn't seen one until today)

then YO got her eye on the saddle, which is striking, so put her up on molly to try it - poor molly thought she was done by then - YO rather liked the saddle, surprised herself I think

and how stable it is - i didn't realise until I got off that I hadn't fully tightened the girth, so I'm clearly doing something right balance wise as it didn't slip at all!

so was at the yard from just after 10 until nearly 6, and in all that time had eaten 1 piece of chocolate cake one of the owners had home baked, rather nice! and had 2 cups of tea. I was amazed that I wasn't hungry - but that soon changed when I got home!

so a very long day, but productive I think.

6 comments:

cptrayes said...

It sounds a satisfying day, all in all.

C

Stephanie said...

Sounds like a good day :)

Will you be playing games with Molly now?

I use a blue tarp from B&Q for despooking. Only problem is that it makes a crunching noise when Beanie paws at it, so she attacks it some more :P

Jean said...

Good day. You must have been busy, but I am glad you rode the girl too. It was good for the both of you to challenge yourselves with all those obstacles about.

Wonder if YO will be a treeless convert now. Might be fun.

Claire said...

apparently they're only a pound from poundstretcher, so said YO's dad, who supplied it! (tarps, that is) and this one didn't crunch... or maybe it wasn't noticeable with the vaguely crunchy surface anyway!

Ruth Eberhardt said...

It is daft isn't it having to treat mudfever in August. Tali has had a spot of it on his only dark heel, but touch wood I seem to have got on top of it now.

Nicola said...

It strange but Polo has two scabs on both front legs just above the heels I was thinking its a touch of mud fever but he's never had it in his life!
I wonder if its because the weather's been so warm but wet?