Whirlwind

What a busy week!

To add insult to injury, poor Romeo had an abcess on his cheek which burst and of course we're now cleaning it out twice daily which he isn't enjoying and to be honest neither are we much, nasty stinky thing. Poor boy!

We have been assisting the property owners of the location we rescued Asha and Harmony from, offering advice for a tricky situation involving two of the remaining horses on their land and have made several trips out at their request to give what assistance and advice we could. We've recieved word that their owner hasn't been to see them in almost two weeks now and so feed has been provided as she has not organised feed for them.

Also Asha's foal which is currently in care due to his pnuemonia was well on the mend when the poor fellow have his carers an absolute heart attack started having seizures or fits at around 8:30 last night. The Vet was called immediately and went over him from top to tail and her diagnosis was a concussion. She began treatment immediately which involved an injection of steroids to help stop his body reacting so violently and now the poor lad must be kept in and quiet for a few days and very closely monitored. However great news; he's eating well and looks like he's recovering nicely but he won't be completely out of the woods for a day or two. If he survives I'd like to vote a name change; to Cat - he seems to have 9 lives! (well, 7 now)

I made the trip down to Boddington yesterday to see Oscar and Nemo and to try them under saddle to see how they'd go. Oscar is so fat if he's a mare I'd be expecting a foal any day! He truly runs on the smell of a chaff bag as he has 3 hours of grazing and 2 tiny hard feeds a day for his vits more than anything and still looks like a beached whale. So we're restricting his diet a bit more whilst he isn't working.

He's not a happy camper under saddle. He was incredibly grouchy about the whole thing, and incredibly resistant. There was no go button at all and it took half an hour of ask, turn and reward to get him even walking around the round-yard. He resisted at any change of direction, resisted any attempt to get a trot and resisted any effort to get his walk more animated. He crabbed and cow-kicked and even managed a full pig-root, ears plastered to his head.

I get the distinct impression that the poor chap hasn't been broken to saddle at all and the people who owned him just jumped on expecting a good ride and then gave him hell when he didn't know what they wanted. Now he's just sour and still doesn't know what we want. So over the next couple of weeks, we'll move him up to one of our more specialist carers for some riding and groundwork to install an accelerator! (The brakes work just fine, thanks!)

Today the feed order has arrived and so I must sign off and get out there and sort it all out.