The Daffy Diaries

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!