I’m not sure why I was surprised, but the clocks going back an hour really caught me out this year. I just wasn’t ready yet for my winter yard routine.
I work late two nights per week, and so when it gets dark before I finish work I tend to leave the horses in for the day. The other horses all come in earlier than mine and once it is dark, mine seem not to appreciate staying out.
I am very lucky that the yard has a horse walker as I put it to good use on the days the horses stay in. They are already used to going on it for a good length of time and on days I leave them in, I build it up so they get a good exercise. Diva, in particular, really loves going on the walker and gets really cross if I don’t open the door quick enough. There is a lunge ring in the centre of the walker, and if you check out the Equesure Facebook page there is a video of Diva trotting unprompted through the door to put herself on it.
One slightly difficult thing is that with Diva, Mabel and Julius all being very good doers I have to balance the amount of hay they can have between what they need and enough to keep them occupied through the day. I do tend to use haynets for Diva and Julius to slow them down a little, but Mabel isn’t a greedy horse with hay and so has hers on the floor.
I also start to feed some fibre beet to ensure they have moisture in their diets as they are missing out on the grass. I monitor Diva’s feed intake very carefully, as winter is the time I can work on her waistline so she comes out of the winter a little slimmer than she went in. This seems to be the opposite of me!
Equine insurance specialist now able to offer live prices and immediate cover. Equesure Insurance has launched a new insurance product for horse trailers valued up to £15,000.
The annual trip to Your Horse Live was completed and even my partner enjoyed a bit of it! Okay, he mainly enjoyed the cake stalls (and they were amazing – we took three bags of cake home with us), but also liked the rescue village and heavy horse yard. We got to go into the stable with two donkeys for pats and cuddles and we both loved it.
Five years ago, I had the absolute dream of having my own acreage, but this has honestly been the biggest learning curve, relearning so much about how to better look after our horses and what the land requires. Hopefully, I can give some insight into things I have learnt, mostly by trial and error and lots of mistakes.
After five or six years away from the British showjumping circuit, I’ve rejoined, and this time with my little Connemara standing just about 15HH – and he’s been amazing!