mixed fortunes

loads to catch up on, but I'll start with the "now" and fill in the gaps later.

The horses have had neighbours for a few weeks as some of my sister's ponies are down on the farm for a while. They have been down before and one in particular seems to be Fi's special friend. We didn't expect any major issues this time and after some initial squealing and pulling faces, they seemed to settle down.

Then on Friday I got a message at work to call home. Turns out that when mum had gone to do the horses in the morning, she had discovered Fi with a blood covered hind leg :o Fi had had an argument with some fencing between the two fields and the fencing had won :(

Fi was bunged into a stable (thank goodness for the new shelter) and vet was called. He cleaned it up but could not stitch as there was not enough left to close it all up :(

So madam is on box rest, with antibiotics and bute, with an open gash on her near hind that is from hock down almost to fetlock, maye 3-5 cm broad at the top and narrowing to a point. We need to check how it heals and let the vet know as he may need to do things to help it heal properly.

At least she can be in a stable inside the field where the other two are, rather than having to be aware from them up at the house. But she is still already getting bored and fretful. We are out of the nuts they get in the winter so I haven't been able to make her up a horse ball to play with.

Luckily I am off work next week so can do the extra work involved with her being in, and try and find ways to keep her a bit more amused.

In the meantime my parents put aside what they had planned for the day and changed the electric fence along that section to be further away from the wire fence. (we already had a top strand keeping them from the fence but it was only maybe 20cm from main fence - not full kicking distance obviously).

On the flip side, we were up at Blair today for the yearly demo. Last year it took a while to get in to the grounds as they were having to tow some boxes and trailers through the mud created by the inclement weather.

So it was a bit worrying when we had so much rain recently and started hearing rumours of people being towed on the first day of the event ! We allowed plenty of time but it still took as about 40 minutes in a queue of traffic just to get up the drive to Blair. At the top of the queue we discovered they had three tractors running a relay race and were towing everyone in, regardless. Now we have a different car from last year and I had no idea where the tow point was. It only took a few minutes to find but there was a moment of OMG in there :o

All of which left not much time to get ready for the first demo. It turned out our numbers were even more depleted. We normally have around a dozen ponies of varying age. This time it was due to be 7 - but then one pony was not well. So six rather unprepared riders set off for the demo arena.

And we survived !

Actually Rosie was really rather good. She left the other ponies without a murmur. We'd managed to find a "low branches" obstacle to use, and when we first approached that her eyes were out on stalks. But with a bit of urging she went under (at walk) and got a round of applause :) Next time she happily trotted through, and we also did bending poles, corridor at trot, and maypole at trot.

One of the older ponies seemed to decide she was really an event pony and was rather full of herself. So after the demo we went and found a quiet bit of collecting ring elsewhere and did some work at trot and canter. Rosie is still not keen to be alongside another pony but was starting to get the hang of it and worked up a slight sweat.

Next a break for lunch - a haynet for Rosie. And some retail therapy including a TREC sized bright red whip (they only came in bright colours at that size !)

Then the second demo, and we did good again. Cantered under the low branches, remembred to do reinback this time. All in all a good day.

And we got out of the horsebox park without needing a tow :)