What a difference a few days make. From hot and sunny to wet, windy and ten degrees cooler! No wonder us Brits are known for talking about the weather.
I brought Diva, Mabel and Florence in overnight one evening as the field was slippery due to the rain. Fortunately, since then the rain has been intermittent and so the ground has dried up enough for me to keep them out again.
Mabel and Diva are well roughed off – having not been bathed, which would remove the grease from their coats – and so they are practically waterproof! Florence is bathed and groomed more often and so I put a light rain sheet on her when the rain is persistent.
One good thing about the rain is that the grass is growing fast at the moment. This presents a potential problem, especially for a young Shetland pony. Such conditions can increase the number of cases of laminitis. This debilitating and sometimes life-threatening condition is one where prevention is certainly better than cure.
When I first got Diva, I asked her breeders, Melland Stud, for their advice on feeding as I had never owned a Shetland before. The basic advice was if there is grass, they don’t need additional feed apart from a mineral lick. Melland Stud believes in growing their youngstock on naturally and are aware of the dangers of overfeeding young Shetland ponies. This is advice I continue to follow, with Diva being fed TopSpec Stud Balancer Lite in the winter and, now out at grass, having no feed – just a bit of hay twice daily.
All horses and ponies are individuals and as such their feeding requirements are too. The age old saying of feeding according to age, type and exercise still holds true, but with Shetland ponies, generally less is more!
I also try to do a little work with Diva, as exercise will burn off a few calories and again reduce the risk of laminitis. I check Diva’s digital pulses daily, and if there was any increase in them, I would bring her in until it settled down again. I trot her up on a hard surface to assess her soundness daily.
Dividing the field up to rest some parts and to prevent overeating evidently led to the yard’s small flock of sheep deciding that the grass growing there is better than in their fields. One morning I arrived to find all but two enjoying the longer grass. I must have looked quite a sight, doing a sheepdog impression to get them out of the field!
Once again I threw Arlo in at the deep end, affiliating him purely for the Arena UK second round show, and once again he pulled it out the bag. How lucky am I to have such a wonderful little horse? We haven’t really competed this year. I don’t really compete over the winter, and also my horsebox was away for repairs up until the beginning of June, so I had no transport even if I’d wanted to.
With the dry ground we don’t seem to be having much luck with shoes, as little madam managed to pull both her front shoes off within 12 hours the other day! We entered the arena with two shoes on for a schooling session and left it with one missing (took about an hour to find it). Then that afternoon, as I went to put some hoof ointment on, I looked down and had to double take, thinking I was looking at the wrong hoof. But, no, the other shoe was missing too.
After having a long wait and some lunch at the onsite café, it was time to get ready for the Joan Wolfe Overall Supreme Shetland Pony Championship. I got changed out of my usual showing outfit into black trousers and a maroon top with white spots, as you are expected to be a bit more “bling” in the evening.
We were all set to go for our next outing, and were super excited. That was until I heard the dreaded clunk of a loose shoe! I checked it over, praying it wasn’t too loose, but, nope, it was going to need a refit.