It was all change at the yard once more. With Treat having completed his horse walker regime, it was time for him to go home. As he doesn’t like travelling on his own, it was Diva’s turn to act as his companion for the journey.
Rather than have an empty stable, another horse travelled with Diva on the return trip. Florence has been with my sister since before the pandemic, and now that everything is feeling more normal, she is back to improve her fitness in readiness for her workload to be increased.
I got Diva and Florence settled in their stables and then went to get Mabel in from the field. Would Mabel recognise her daughter after an absence of two years? Well, she certainly did! I let them say hello to each other over Florence’s stable door before putting Mabel into her stable. They are opposite each other in the barn and so can readily see each other.
With the mud in parts of the field being deep and the ground slippery, I didn’t turn all three of them out together for the first few days until the ground had dried up a little. I took Mabel and Diva down first and then Florence.
Florence was perfectly mannerly as I led her down to the field, but she did feel about three hands taller than usual! Mabel and Diva were about halfway down the field when I let Florence go. She trotted down the field to meet them. Diva kept squeaking and cantering about with Florence following her. It was comical to watch.
After a few minutes and thankfully no slips, they settled down. Mabel ambled over to Florence and soon they were mutual grooming. Diva stood with her back to them, clearly unimpressed with their antics after having Mabel to herself for so long. Hopefully, Diva will soon forgive both Mabel and Florence and stop sulking, but she looks very cute when she is cross.
I find this one of the toughest topics in the horse world, as everyone does something different. There are thousands of products on the market – all claiming they can cure everything – and nutritionists are often affiliated with a feed company, making any advice potentially biased.
I can say I’ve been able to tick something off my bucket list now: I managed to mount and ride a camel – a brilliant experience. I had great fun grooming my one, named Baxter, and I think the people running it were happy they had people that were used to dealing with big animals and weren’t afraid to get stuck in.
I thought in this first blog post I ought to tell you a little bit about my horses and me, and give you an insight into what you might see from us going forwards. Firstly, my name is Emma. I’m 29 years old and I’ve been riding for as long as I can even remember.
I am currently lightly backing my three-year-old American Quarter Horse before turning him away for the winter. In my previous post, I explained the setbacks this year, and frustratingly I had to start the process much later in the year than I’d anticipated. But things were going well, too well…