The Daffy Diaries

Things seem to have calmed down a bit lately.

We've been going out for our walks inhand (and the dry weather is a god send) and playing a little in the school. Daffy has a girlfriend; she's bigger than him, and she's the boss, but he's a very happy pony, especially now that he constantly has haylage in his stable. Food oriented much?

Right now we're dealing with him being a bit footsore. The yard drive can be a bit stoney, and they've just resurfaced the road at the end which doesn't help. He's wearing boots on all four when we go for our walks and we're giving him AlphaBute to help his comfort levels. Touch wood, this is the worst of his physical problems now, hock aside, and his muscles are rebuilding slowly.

Getting there!

Despite the fact that Daffy has been out of work for over a month now, time has flown.

Retirement does not suit him, of that I am certain. It's also rather difficult to entertain a clever pony who is seriously limited in what he can do. Mostly, we've been walking out inhand, all in a headcollar (quite the feat!), but we've also been playing in the school.

I'm actively getting back into CT again in an attempt to find new things to do. Sometimes we're allowed to do lateral work, sometimes we mustn't do any hill work. Whatever I do, I have to make sure I don't teach him anything that might cause YO problems.

We had a blast today. First in his stable, I've hung an old milk bottle up, and we were targeting that. Then a different bottle in the school, attempting to teach him to pick it up. Then we had a shavings bag (Daffy maintains he's scared of them) pinned to the ground. He won't put a hoof on it after scaring himself the other day, but he'll touch it with his nose again, so building that slowly. We also did some "stay" and "come" work, and he had a roll before we went out for a walk.

We are making progress on the physical side, he even felt up to jumping one day last week, and proudly heaved himself over a 1ft tops cross pole a few times. If not for the fact that a) he had his shoes pulled - so far so good - and b) he hurt himself in the field, he would've been under saddle a couple of weeks ago.

I've ordered a trick training book, in the hopes of finding more ideas, and I really want to get him one of those large horse training balls, but perhaps not at £50.

I've been forced to retire Daffy, and it's a mixed blessing I think.

We went through various lameness workups, he improved significantly to about 95% and we were given permission to get a saddle fitted, and told to bring him back into work. Vets seem to have this obsession with working an unsound horse to make them worse - yes it makes any problems more obvious, but I don't like it. Been told back, feet and hocks; different things from different people which never makes life easy.

We got down the lane once, he was nicely forward and a tad sharp but the second day Daffy wouldn't let me mount. Often he would be a bit eager to get going and wouldn't stand, but 20 minutes later I had called it quits after getting a foot in the stirrup with minimum pressure on it. Clearly he wasn't just eager to go - he didn't want me up there. Cue vets again, upshot is nerve blocks and xrays on his right hock, nerve blocks would allow us to look at his right fore, and once the hocks have been addressed, we can look at his back.

The vets that messed up our insurance claims over the last two years want the account balance paying off, despite the fact that they appear to have made no effort to resolve the problem. Ultimately, I cannot afford to pay that and for £1-2k worth of investigation and treatment, nevermind the fact that the outcome of such may not be positive anyway.

Daffy is rather enjoying his retirement for the time being, but woe betide me if I do not take him out onto the bridleway every day to wander and graze!

Daffy managed to hurt himself messing around on the road a couple of weeks ago.

He was hopping on his right fore, on the right rein, in the school, but fine on the left rein and on harder ground, for about a week. I didn't lunge him for a week then, and he has now levelled out a bit - still not great on his right fore, but better, and not great on his left fore either. Still significantly worse in the school than on the drive, and still happy in himself.

We're not sure what he's done, but what's the betting that it's expensive? X-rays are on the cards, I need to speak to the vet again next week and get her thoughts; she saw him when he was particularly lame and will probably need to see him again now things have changed.

The NFU paid out in full on the tack claim though, so at least something is looking up!

Daffy is feeling a little.. fresh? at the minute.

He barged out of his stable last week, and proceeded to bomb out of the yard (I can run faster these days now my shoulder is sorted - hurrah!) and give us the run around on the road for 10 minutes. I know that I would've caught him no problem if I'd just left him grazing on the verges for 15 minutes (as if), and indeed I was able to walk straight up to him and put an arm over his withers before ringing YO to request some sort of catching apparatus, but once the bridle was there, he was off. He keeps life interesting, to say the least.

I'm hopeful that I will get a cheque from the NFU this week and we'll have tack to go to a show on the bank holiday Monday. I would do the veteran inhand and ridden classes, or maybe just the inhand (and perhaps welsh inhand) as I'm not sure I fancy a pulling match around the ring, but equally I don't feel it would be appropriate to put him straight back into a double bridle after so much time off.

We'll see, I'm trying not to plan anything until the last minute in the hope that nothing else will go wrong!

I've just had an email saying I've not logged in for 30 days, but we really haven't done anything for 30 days!

I'm still out of action, and to top it off, our tack was stolen at the start of April. Still in the process of sorting out the claim form.

Daffy is looking very well and enjoying increasing amounts of time in the field (on grass too!) but getting bored. We've been doing a lot of targetting in his stable and the school, which he loves of course, but I can't wait to be back on board.

It's about to go quiet again..

Following a visit to the chiropractor yesterday, during which I was told I had the worst shoulders he'd seen in a long time and had to have my right shoulder relocated.

I've had to pull out of the competition, and will be doing sod all for at least the next week. I can't afford to be pulled about, and Daffy can do quite a bit of that.

There's always something.

It's all so quiet..

I've just had the month from hell workwise, and with the school being out out action, poor Daffy has been extremely bored. He had to resort to being a sod for YO to catch to make life interesting, although they did go out for a hack together last week, and both enjoyed it from the sounds of things. On top of that, I can't get on here from home (lord knows why) so I'm being forced to abuse the system at work.

Some good news - work has calmed down a bit (and I have some time to take off in lieu) and the school is now finished. It's two layers of rubber on one layer of sand, so it's pretty deep at the moment, and we need to take it easy.

We've been in, inhand Thurs/Fri/Sat, just lunging in walk and focusing completely on inside flexion, ignoring everything else. Then a bit of follow me, go back etc, and a quick trot in a straight line. Yesterday I jumped on bareback - there was a heck of a lot of movement through his back, and when I asked for a few strides of trot it was seriously springy! I need a neck strap to sit that. He's definitely working better, and provided he doesn't strain himself in the school, I think it'll really help him.

Some bad news - our physio and instructor, Amanda, is laid up in hospital after hitting the deck in style and getting a ride in the air ambulance. We've managed to find another therapist for tomorrow, and Susan is coming out to work through P14 with us on Thursday, but Amanda is under strict instructions to get well soon because we miss her already!

We're doing P14 on Saturday in Team Dressage - watch this space!

We did three dressage tests yesterday - Intro A, P1 and P10.

Daffy was significantly easier to ride this week, although still needs an awful lot of work to get him up off his forehand and balanced before we can start introducing the level of impulsion that the judges are asking for. I'd managed to get out on the lane weds/thurs and just did lots of transitions, and again in the warmup yesterday to get him more off the leg. I've now ditched the spurs as Daffy seems to be completely over his napping, touch wood.

We did well in the walk and trot, getting 62% and coming third, then we were consistant in the prelims getting 53% in each and "special" rosettes.

The best part - we had some nice canter! In the third warmup (I only did 5 mins between tests to work on our canter on the rubber surface, Daffy spent the rest of the time grazing) he was more forward than the others, and we managed a few reasonably balanced strides on each rein.

I though that the tests got progressively better, although the results don't reflect that so much, but we managed a circle on the right rein in P1 and all the canter (two long sides, two circles and across two diagonals) in P10, if it was a little rushed. We got 5's for our canter in P10 - better than before!

Nothing on now until March when we might get over to Manor Grange and we're on the list for team dressage on the 22nd. Despite the fact that his work has been really limited lately he still seems to be improving (particularly out hacking, he regularly works through his back now of his own accord) so I can't wait to crack on when the school is finished.

Just to add in - we got 52.91% (why can't they just round up?!) in P14 last week - nothing if not consistant! A word of advice too - if you use an A4 envelope but only put a small stamp on, you'll get caught for £1 on top of the 6p short because you didn't use a large stamp.

We had a naughty hack on Saturday, during which I experienced brake failure in all three paces, a gallop from the pony which doesn't gallop, a "whoooppeeee!!!" buck and canter leg yield - nothing wrong with that pony! Ignoring the fact that I hate it when he tanks off in canter (we were at the back of the ride, behind a young & green freisian - I did not want to crash!), he felt the best he has felt in a long time, right from the start of the ride. Really striding out and happy to be there. We led the ride for most of it, we were out for about an hour and a quarter.

Things to work on - standing for mounting from the ground and manners in company - he's fine with both on his own, but we have this gymkana coming up.

It made me worry a bit about our dressage yesterday - was it going to be like the show in November where he was completely out of control?

Actually, although he tried to tank off with me a few times, he was pretty much dead to the leg - nothing to worry about there!

I went with 3 aims;
1. Stay inside the arena
2. Complete both tests without a memory failure
3. Get over 50% in both tests

Well we met 1 & 2, and got 55% in P10, don't know on P14 yet.

Comments were generally that he needs to move more off the leg (agreed), we got 4's and a 5 for our canter - we got some (hurrah!) but he couldn't maintain it long, and I didn't push the issue. We had a few bits of nice work too. I came out feeling absolutely knackered - it'll be transitions, transitions, transitions when the school is done.

I felt P14 went better, it certainly rode better. Got a much better trot in parts, same issue with the canter, but he maintained it for slightly longer on the circles. I'm hoping the comments reflect all that!

We're riding P10 again next weekend, at a different venue, but hoping we can go back to Manor Grange at some point, it was lovely and calm, until Daffy didn't want to come home and towed OH across the field!