A little improvement?

I have a much more detailed post, telling you all about Echo's yoga, her shoeing and her physio (with some rather interesting developments...) but I just wanted to share this very blurry photo. Since doing the yoga with her, I am catching her standing like this a lot more - much more square behind than she has ever chosen to stand before. This is just how I saw her standing while eating her hay. I think she just looks more solid now when she stands. It's not all the time, but it's definitely more.
And right now, I'll take ANY sign of improvement as something to be over the moon about!

Echo does Yoga - Day 2

Echo was a little more grouchy this evening, but I persevered with the yoga and she was really good in the end. She really enjoyed the front leg stretches, but she doesn't like the 'butt tucks' very much at all, and without someone holding her, I can't get her to stand still and hold the stretch. We did get some good stretches though - here are the photos. Before:

After:

We then did 15 minutes long-reining and she was starting to relax much more - until it started hailing! This was taken just before - you can just about make out the rainbow by her right ear!

Echo does yoga - Day 1

Two posts in two days!?

Well...today I spent all afternoon with Echo and it was really lovely. It was nice to spend a bit of time at the yard - I always seem to be rushing somewhere else at the moment and today it was just Echo time.

I started off giving her a bit of a groom as she had got filthy in the field, and then got rained on. Then I took a photo from each side. The idea is that I will take photos as regularly as I can to see if the yoga is having any effect on her body shape.



And here she is from the other side:



There is nothing major to see here, although on that video I posted yesterday April Battles talks about how a comfortable horse should naturally stand square. I find it nearly impossible to get Echo to stand square, and she certainly doesn't do it of her own accord. You can also sort of see some of the muscle wastage on the right side of her body.

So - the first exercise I did was the one where you lift a front leg and bring it across the other one and encourage the stretch right through the shoulder and withers. She really enjoyed this - she found it a little more difficult to bring the right leg across the left one, but once she let the stretch really work, she enjoyed it and stood with her front legs crossed for a minute on each side. We then did carrot stretches (although she is used to these, followed by a tail pull. I had to pull her tail from side to side to get her to stand square (although this didn't really work that well) then once she was square, I got hold of the end of her tail and pulled fairly hard - with most of my weight - at the angle that the tail comes out of the body.

This movement is designed to stretch the lumbar region and this is where Echo was really sore when we first noticed her feet being unlevel. She let me do this once she worked out what I was after and really pulled against me, meaning that the stretch was more effective. The next stretch was more uncomfortable for her - a series of what April Battles calls 'Butt tucks' (!) followed by belly lifts. I had to find the spot on her quarters that gets her to reflex through all the muscles along her back. She was quite resistant to this on the right side, which makes sense given the muscle wastage there. Once she had pulled through the back, I then lifted her back from under her belly. I wish I had taken a photo after this, as it was fascinating. Her back looked a totally different shape after doing this. I will definitely try to get a photo at this point tomorrow.

Having loosened her up, I then took her into one of the paddocks to have a go at long-reining. She has been long-reined twice, although never by me, and she hasn't done any exercise for nearly two months now. I had bought some shiny new long reins and started by just leading her in hand. She was ok, but she doesn't totally understand hand-walking - she gets a bit competitive about getting in front of me.

So I just put her straight onto the long reins and got on with it. And she was great! She plodded along happily. What was interesting, was what I could see from being directly behind her and watching her walk. There is something very strange still going on with her back end. If I can get some video one day next week I will, as it is very odd. also, her right hip is much higher than her left as she walks. It's a bit exaggerated in this photo due to the stride she is on, but it is definitely held higher in walk.



This might become a rather familiar view over the next few weeks!

I had an interesting chat with a girl at the yard just before I left, whose horse has had many many problems, and I got talking about my thoughts on Echo's injury. I will write more about this when I have thought things through a bit more, but she has a sort of physio person working on her horse who I am very interested in...but as I said - more about that later!

I think Echo enjoyed her yoga today though - this is how she was when I left her this evening!

A few things on my mind

It has now been six weeks since Echo first started having the vet look
into her lameness. She has had three doses of shock wave treatment and has been
turned out every day, but has done no more exercise than that. She now has
lateral extensions on her hind feet, at the recommendation of the vet, and is
starting to look like she is moving a little better behind.

She has also had two physio treatments; in the first, the physio found
she was very sore on her right side (the right hind suspensory is the more
damaged) and she loosened that off quite carefully. She came out to treat her
again on Wednesday and found that she is still sore on the right side, although
this is now much more localised.

However, the physio watched her trot up and didn't really think there
was much improvement in terms of her lameness. I think this suspensory injury
has probably been the problem all along, which means that it is pretty
deep-rooted. She has had a good deal of rest over the last year and that
doesn't seem to have worked. I am mulling over the possibility of surgery,
although I will wait for the vet to reassess her before I make any decisions.
However, I have been thinking over the last few days about a slightly
more...holistic approach to her problems.

Some of the people at my yard have become very interested in a lady
called April Battles, and I have spent a long time this evening watching her
videos on youtube. It really is fascinating. I haven't completely got my head
around it yet, but she seems to suggest that a lot of hind end problems start
off further forward and that problems in the first eight ribs, where we think
of as being the horse's shoulder, can be the root of many hind lamenesses. I
can't explain it really without getting it wrong, but the thing that is really
interesting is her 'Yoga for horses', which she uses as both a diagnostic tool
and a treatment. It involves releasing the horse through the areas that will
often be tight and the areas that cannot be loosened by any kind of surface
manipulation.

Here is the long video - it's really really long but well worth watching if you have time.



Now, I know Echo's problem is medical and will need fixing, but I can't
help feeling that I am going to have to do a bit more if I am going to get her
sound again. I have been watching videos from my lesson a couple of months ago
and really looking at the whole of her body and how she is moving and I know
it's easy to tell with hindsight, but she looks terrible! I could hardly watch.

So, I am planning to do the yoga stretches in April Battles's video
every day for a month. I will take some photos along the way so you (and I) can
see if there has been any improvement. Everyone at the yard who has been doing
these has said that it really is working. In the longer video, she talks about
measuring the horse from the centre of the poll to each corner of the mouth - I
am quite interested in this, as Echo's bridle always looks a little odd - I
wonder whether (as April Battles suggests is the case with lots of horses) she
has different lengths. I am also thinking of getting her a new bridle. Perhaps
I am going soft, having been out of the dressage world for so long, but I am
struggling in my mind to justify my clencher noseband and fairly tight fitting
bridle. Echo's comfort has to be my priority and so I shall look into better
alternatives.

I've been having a careful think about the whole blogging thing, and as
I really enjoy writing about our (lack of?) progress, I will keep doing it. I
have been a bit put off writing on the internet in general recently, as it has
been evident that people's agendas for reading are not always that positive. I
think, with blogging, you need to feel that you can write what you want to
write - when it seems like you can't, it becomes a less pleasant experience.
I'm aware that I sound a little cryptic and that explanation was rather convoluted...but
I was just feeling a bit 'on show' in the very public world of blogging -
people can be rather judgemental and in the horse world everyone has different
opinions on how things should be done.

I don't claim that what I am doing is right - in fact, I will often ask
for advice from all of you, as I regularly don't really know what to do... I
have learnt a lot over the years from reading other blogs and asking questions.
I really hope that if someone has any queries about what I'm doing they would ask
- either in person if they know me, or via the comments section on here. I
moderate comments, only because the internet is a funny place and, hiding
behind the cloak of anonymity, people can say some mean things. In the end, we
are all just trying to do the best by the horses that we love.

I don't know if I've fully made the point that I intended to...but
enough of that.

Tomorrow we start the yoga and we start long-reining - so I will
endeavour to take photos and tell you all about it.

These are the exercises I will be working on with her for the next 30 days.

Suspensory fun

Sorry about not following up the last post about Echo's lameness. I have been feeling a little undecided about the future of this blog and writing on the internet in general...but that's another story.

Echo had another session of nerve blocking and we determined that it was definitely in the low hock area on both hind legs, but she had no improvement when the joint was blocked. The vet was pretty sure it was suspensories, so he scanned both hindlegs and, sure enough, the suspensory ligament right up at the top, near the hock, was inflamed on both. The right leg suspensory was bigger than the left, hence the increased lameness on the right hind, but both were fairly large and grainy on the scan.

The vet said that it isn't a specific tear, but wear and tear of the ligament. Its official name is apparently 'Chronic proximal suspensory desmitis'. He said that surgery is an option, but he wants to try using shockwave therapy and controlled exercise first, then if that shows no improvement we can consider surgery. This seems like a good idea - I was really worried about the prospect of box rest and, this way, she could keep on going out in the field for now.

I've been going over and over the last year's events, trying to work out when this could have started, but it's really hard to tell. It could be as long ago as October 2010, just after I moved to Lincoln, when she first started going badly and I found that the saddle didn't fit. It could have happened charging around in the field when she was in Lincoln....it could have been the feet being imbalanced that put too much strain on the ligaments...or it could have been the ligaments being sore that made her load the outside of her feet, causing the feet to be imbalanced. It's pretty impossible to tell.

So, for now, we are doing...not a lot. She has had two lots of shockwave treatment, two weeks apart, and has spent her days munching hay in the field. It's been good that the weather has been nice, as she's been pretty relaxed and chilled. She can get a little strong going to the field, but once she's there she doesn't run around or anything. I think, if she did, we would probably have to restrict her grazing to a small pen - but I didn't opt for this as she is better off keeping moving- the shockwave treatment is designed to stimulate blood flow and cell growth in the damaged area, so moving about is good for it.

Sh has her last session of shockwave tomorrow, followed by two more weeks of turnout, then hopefully the vet will re-scan the ligaments and we can go from there. If there is a significant improvement, we will be able to start working her - in walk and in straight lines. Although the vet said this could be ridden, I think I would start off with long reining her in one of the long paddocks. She won't be able to go on an arena surface for a long time, but I wouldn't want to take her out to begin with, as she can be really spooky and I wouldn't want to waste all the progress. If we long-rein, there is also more of a chance of building up the muscles more evenly, as her right side is much less muscled than her left at the moment. I have a feeling that if I were to put a saddle on her as she is, it would just sit wonky and make everything worse. Not to mention how utterly impossible it is to find a saddle that fits my horse.

So that's where we are! We'll keep plodding on and see how it goes. Luckily, Echo doesn't seem to mind all the time off - we've had no breakages or naughtiness and she's enjoying doing all the carrot stretches that the physio has recommended. She's having more physio next week to keep her comfortable and so I'm pretty confident. Or at least trying to be!

The Vet Route

Having fiddled around for a while now, trying to make Echo more comfortable, things took a rather different turn this week. One of my best friends is an equine physiotherapist and came on Monday morning to have a quick look at Echo. She wasn't going to treat her, just have a look. She knows her pretty well and has known her since she was a yearling, so I trust her judgement.

She had a feel along her back and said she was quite sore from the 9th vertebrae back, and that something was not feeling right in her right hind - that there was a lot less muscle in the main groups of the right hind in comparison to the left. She then watched her on the lunge. Recently, Echo has been doing a weird hop up into trot on the lunge - unwilling to push off her right hind. It isn't so noticeable when she's ridden, but on the lunge it looks awful. She pushes off the left, then sort of hops on her right hind, seeming to not want to bring it right under.

Ella watched her on both reins and said that she was really unhappy with her right hind and she would recommend getting a vet to look at her. She said that if she was asked to make the call whether the horse was lame or not, she would say she is lame. Marvellous.

So I called the vet that she recommended and he came out yesterday. He performed flexion tests on both hinds, watching her trot up, and said she is definitely lame on the right hind. He said also that the flexion test affected the left hind too. He then watched her on the lunge in the school and on grass, then watched her trot up again, and said she was worse after work.

He nerve blocked just above her fetlock on the right, and she showed no different. She didn't think much of being injected, and nor did I. I forgot how squeamish and affected by needles I am - I nearly passed out, as I stupidly watched him inject her!

He then nerve blocked the top of the suspensory area / base of the hock in the right hind and she was much better. However, when she was better on the right, she showed some lameness on the left. He didn't have time to do any more yesterday, but is coming out again tomorrow and wants to block the hock joint, to see whether that makes any more of a difference than we achieved yesterday. He told me to ride her as normal today, so that he isn't seeing her after having a few days off. That was really tough. It's one thing riding a horse that you're not sure is sound, but riding a horse that you know is lame is really upsetting. She was very good, but of course I could feel her lameness every step now that I KNOW it's there!

Last night, I stupidly did lots of reading on some of the possibilities that he was discussing. I read about high suspensory injuries, about arthritic changes and about spavins in the hocks. And all of them sound horrible and terrifying. She is insured, so I will get her fully sorted out, but the idea of months of boxrest with a horse that a) gets frustrated when she has more than a few days off, b) gets cross when she's left in longer than the other horses and c) has a habit of jumping out of her stable when she decides she's had enough of being in there, is, quite frankly, hideous. I had a brief chat with Lyn, the yard owner this morning, who said that she is sure we would be able to work something out with a small pen in one of the fields for her to go in.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't even know what it is yet. Something deep down, some instinct - that may well be wrong - is telling me it's a suspensory injury, probably in both hinds, but I am obviously hoping it is something easier to treat than this. I should know more by tomorrow, but in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for her.

Not quite as I'd hoped

Today I had a lesson with Jane. It was...interesting. She is happy with the saddle and it does seem to fit well, although I now no longer have any idea whether saddles fit or not. I lunged Echo for five minutes before the lesson and she was great - no crazy galloping or anything. When Jane arrived, I tacked up and got on.

As I said yesterday, she has been starting to overbend in trot and she's never done this before. It's only been in the last couple of weeks that she's done it. It ties in with the Bowen lady saying she was really tight around her withers.

I am finding it hard to know what to say about the lesson. She trained with Phillippe Karl and I have only a limited knowledge of what he does. She was getting me to lift Echo's head up, then ask her to flex, so that her head carriage was much higher. I'm not totally convinced by this, although it did seem to combat some of the overbending problems. I did find it made her a bit stuffy in her wither area though, as if she was finding it harder to walk. She said not to worry about the angle of her head too much - we just want to get her neck coming out of her shoulders at a better angle.

In walk, this was ok - we did lots of halt transitions, and they did get better and lighter in front. However, in trot, the overbending got worse and worse. She had us racing around at a great speed, trying to lift her head up, so that she could bring her hindlegs more under her...but it didn't really work like that. I felt like I had nothing in my hands at all - I just couldn't get her to stretch forward at all. Towards the end it got a bit better and my hands were nearly at her ears, but it didn't feel like it used to.

I can't work out what it is that made me not enjoy the lesson. Echo has gone much much better in the past and I didn't really agree with her method. She also kept telling me that the reason she is so overbent is because of the way she has been trained, from the hand first. If you've read this blog before, you'll know that I have trained her myself and I really don't hold the front in. There is a lot to improve in my riding, but she was going really well before her year off, so I can't really accept that. She was talking to me as if I didn't know that a horse needs to work through from behind...which was a bit odd.

In addition, she charged nearly twice what I was expecting (moral of the story - always ask how much a lesson will be before booking it!) and I could have had a lesson with Carl Hester for that price! But the saddle is good. I think. But then when I said I wanted to buy it but would have to sell my saddle first, she got a bit funny. She said she knows someone who might like it, but she would sell it for £50 less than the one I am buying, and then she'll take 20% commission. When I said I would rather sell it myself on ebay, as I can't afford that, she said she wouldn't let me borrow the one that fits unless she sells my saddle for me. I was really shocked - she's got me in a really difficult position, because I really want this saddle and want to be able to keep the work going now, so I need to hang on to it. So I have to let her sell it, and pay over £100 that I don't have.

I feel really disappointed. Not only was it a bit of a rubbish lesson that cost me a fortune, it's going to cost me loads to get the saddle.

Right - here are the photos and video. The video isn't great, as the camera goes out of focus when it zooms in and out and you can hear the zoom mechanism working...but hopefully it will illustrate some of our issues.

This was in walk near the beginning:

This one shows (rather exaggerated) the overbending problem!

Nothing on the end of my reins!!

This isn't too bad, but it was quite near the beginning of the lesson. Am struggling to upload videos so for now, click on this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbD0mSMFNoc&list=UU6Hv2xK6l-KFnIJVUJYzSXw&index=1&feature=plcp

Tears, tantrums and...tentative progress!

Since my despairing last post, things came to a bit of a head, then got rather suddenly better. I am so grateful for all of your suggestions about what the problem might be. Lots of people queried what food she gets, and I had a chat with the yard manager about this, but found that she is still only getting a scoop of chaff (without molasses) and a bit of water three times a day. She has a supplement called Digest Plus, made by Baileys, which is a prebiotic and supposed to stop ulcers. She has a big pile of haylage in the field during the day, and then hay twice in her stable - once when she comes in and once at about 8pm. She was getting half hay and half haylage in her stable, but I've asked if she can have just hay to see whether the sugar in the haylage is having an effect.

Having written that last post, a friend at the yard had an instructor in to help her find a saddle and start giving her some lessons. She has been looking for a more suitable saddle for Echo but I didn't hold out too much hope - she seems to be so hard to fit! My friend said she didn't mind sharing the school, so I decided to lunge Echo while they were fiddling around with saddles at the other end. I took her into the school and Jane, the instructor, asked how I was getting on. So I promptly burst into tears. It really annoys me, but this is my reaction to everything at the moment - what an idiot! I think Jane took pity on me, so I explained how I was feeling a bit nervous of her and she said to just lunge it out of her. I wasn't supposed to lunge, as she had had another Bowen session, but it had got to the stage where I thought I would rather be safe, and hacking her out in straight lines in walk didn't feel safe (or very productive as she spent a fair amount of time cantering sideways with her head in the air - hardly the relaxed long and low it was supposed to be!)

I was worried about lunging her, as last time she had gone so crazy that I had to stop - I thought she was going to hurt herself. Having Jane there made me a bit more confident, so I put her on a circle and she promptly galloped flat out - in that really ugly two feet at a time gallop - dragging me in a huge circle and getting faster and faster. This was the point where I previously would have stopped her, but with lots of encouraging shouts from Jane at the other end of the school, I kept going. It was as if a switch flicked. She suddenly stopped galloping, put her head down and trotted quietly. Five minutes of craziness had returned my horse to me.

Jane had a look at her and thought she might have a saddle that would fit her - it's a dressage saddle made by Lovett and Ricketts - not a particularly grand make, but it fits! It sits nicely behind her (enormous) shoulders and seems to fit the odd shape of her back. Jane had a look at me lunging her in it and was happy that it didn't move and sat in good balance. She is a HUGE perfectionist and won't accept a saddle if it isn't perfect, and she was happy with this on Echo. I think I had worried her, so she asked if I wanted her to lunge me on Echo, but she was like a different horse - back to the Echo that I know and love, so I was happy to just get on and ride.
She felt good - she could move through her shoulder and seemed much happier. She was obviously also knackered from all the galloping, so that helped!

I was so so relieved. I know it's only a small step, but knowing that my horse is in there somewhere was a huge relief.

Jane said I could borrow the saddle for a while and then have a lesson to see whether it's working for us. I was planning to work her as much as possible that week, but then it snowed and the arena was totally out of action for over a week. Yesterday was the first day I was able to ride and I knew I would have to lunge her again first. I don't want to have to lunge every time, but as she had had 10 days off, I thought it would do us both good. She did gallop a bit, but not as wildly and not for as long, so that seems like a positive step. I put the saddle on and got on - and she was great! It was really windy and there are tall trees by the school that hide nasty horse-eating monsters, but Echo didn't notice them at all. She went very well - we walked and trotted on both reins and did a bit of leg yielding in walk. It's interesting actually - for the first time in months, she was happy to leg yield to the right - really happy.

If I am being fussy, she did feel very overbent, and in her last Bowen session she was really blocked behind her withers - although all the tension had gone from her hind legs, which, given all the foot balance issues, is remarkable. Teresa, the Bowen specialist, said I should work on getting her properly long and low, not tucking her nose in. I wondered whether it was her bit, as I had in the last few months changed to a fairly thin loose ring sweet iron snaffle with a central lozenge. She found it strange at first, so I wondered whether she was still not keen on it. I have put her back in the loose ring single jointed snaffle that she always had in the past, but she is still overbending and not really taking the contact forwards. Early days though.

I was hoping to ride today but work commitments stopped me; tomorrow I am having a lesson with Jane and I am really really looking forward to it. I will try to get someone to either take some photos or some video for me to upload.

I have also possible found someone to ride Echo for me a couple of days a week, so that she can get some rather more consistent exercise. She's a teenager whose horse has fractured his pedal bone and her has months of box rest ahead. She's a tidy rider and is keen to have some lessons, so it could work out very well for all of us...I'll let you know how she gets on!

I will try to update my blog more regularly now, as I know I have a lot of very kind, loyal followers who would love to hear more regularly how Echo is getting on. I have just got a new laptop after months of a terrible old one that could barely do anything on the internet. It has been driving me mad and made me so reluctant to even switch it on! But this one is fabulous. So I will do my best.

But your loyalty and interest is very much appreciated.

OK

Ok. I have been putting off writing a post for a while, as things haven't really been easy. It must seem like all I ever write about are problems, but that's sort of how it feels at the moment.

The saddle has been...ok. I don't think it's perfect - she has moments where she feels great, and moments where she feels like she is really uncomfortable with it on. Her feet are also ok. Not great yet, but improving - these things take time. And lots of it.

The day before I went up to see my family for Christmas, I rode Echo in the school - we had been doing quite a bit of riding and hacking - mostly in walk, but she had been really good. I rode her in the school on this day and she was great. I was just about to get off, when she shied really violently. I don't know what spooked her, but it got some of the other horses in the fields around too. I let her listen and look for a moment, but it was nothing, so I rode her in a circle, taking her past that place again. She shied even more violently that time and went totally rigid underneath me.

Since I was about to finish anyway and there was a really novice rider in the school, I thought it best to get off. She is normally fine to lead after spooking, so I went to lead her across the school to the gate and she reared, and started bouncing off all four feet at once. Echo has NEVER reared - ever. I stood her still, spoke to her, tried to calm her down, then went to walk off again - and she did it again, then cantered sideways all the way to the gate. I was quite scared to be honest - that was not my horse at all. I got her out of the gate, thinking that she would calm down then, but she did it again, this time rearing at me with her front feet. I had to let go of her, as I only had her reins to hang on to and her feet were coming too close to my face. But then I envisioned her causing havoc on the yard so I launched in and grabbed her reins. A guy at the yard who had just been long-reining his horse ran over and took hold of her, and put a lunge line on her.

She calmed down pretty quickly, but I had been really scared - this really isn't like her at all. I know she's had lots of time off, but the whole time she was out of work when I was living with my parents, I trusted her completely - thought I knew every reaction she has in her - I've had her since she was a yearling for goodness' sake!

The worst thing was that I then had to leave her for over a week and couldn't sort out whatever was wrong.

When I got back, I lunged her a couple of times - the first time she went crazy - probably to be expected, although she's never really been crazy on the lunge before. The second time she was great - really calm - and then the third time she was totally wild and I had to stop, for fear that she would hurt herself.

Despite the fact that her saddle has only just been fitted for her, someone at the yard was a different person out to get their horse a saddle. Although not a saddler, this woman is a BHSI and apparently (according to lots of people, including my farrier) is amazing at fitting saddles. I just asked if she would take a look at Echo's and she immediately said 'well, that doesn't fit at all.' She explained that Echo has quite a shaped back and modern dressage saddles all have flat panels - it will be putting pressure on her lumbar region (where she gets sore) and digging into her shoulders. It does make sense. But I could have cried.

So...she is looking out for a saddle that she thinks will fit her better. In the meantime - I didn't know what to do. I started off not riding, then got a Bowen specialist out to treat Echo's back. This is someone that a good friend of mine has been badgering me to try for a while, and it does seem like it's done something. She was really tight through her lumbar region, but when the Bowen specialist, Teresa, had a look at the saddle - guess what! She didn't think my saddle is that bad a fit.

I decided that if she thinks it's ok, I would start riding her again gently in the saddle that I have and see what happens. If the BHSI finds me a different one, I will happily try it.

After the Bowen therapy, I was advised to only ride her in straight lines for a few days, so no school work. Great - particularly when I have a horse that I have suddenly become rather a lot more nervous of and which hasn't been ridden since before Christmas. But, I didn't want to waste my money by doing the wrong thing, so I dutifully hacked out, on what was possibly the most stressful hack I've ever been on. We saw everything that we could possibly not want to see: a huge field of pigs, all standing right by the track, who decided - all 60 of them - to bolt away from us as we rode past; a giant turf lorry hurtling towards us on the track; a truck pulling a bouncing flat-bed trailer appearing beside us out of nowhere.

Echo was very good, in fairness to her. She was scared of the pigs, but that's understandable. It just wasn't very calm. I then went out with someone else two days later and it was just as eventful; I had to get off her at one point to get her past a huge tap by a reservoir that was hissing madly and spurting out water - she probably would have been ok, but she wanted to give it a wide berth by going onto a turf field - and the farmers charge you by the hoof print for that!

I rode in the school on Sunday, in what can only be described as a gale, and then hacked out today. It was much calmer out - except that Echo felt like a coiled spring and spent the first 20 minutes pretty much passaging along - feeling like she was totally solid through her back and neck and not listening to me at all. She calmed downeventually and we did do some trotting today, so that was really good.

It WAS a really positive ride today, but I am just finding this all so stressful at the moment. I feel like I don't know my horse at the moment and it's making me nervous. I've never been nervous on Echo - not even when I backed her. She's just really unpredictable at the moment and it's really, really upsetting me.

Perhaps it's the saddle. If she is still uncomfortable, that does seem to have a huge impact on her temperament. I know she's had loads of time off and it will take time, but I don't feel like I'm making things any better at the moment and I don't really know what to do.

She's having another Bowen session hopefully at the weekend, which will be interesting, as if she's tight again then I will know that something is wrong - she'll have been ridden about five times since the last treatment by then, so if the tightness has come back then I'm guessing there must be a reason for it.

In the meantime, any words of advice or encouragement would be gratefully received - 'cos I don't really know what the hell I'm doing right now.

Sensitive little soul!

On Wednesday, I picked up my reflocked saddle and was so excited about trying it on Echo. Thursday morning I decided to ride in the school in it, just in walk and a tiny bit of trot - pretty much all that I have been doing bareback - and see how she felt. I was really disappointed. She just didn't feel right in it. She kept stopping and napping, swishing her tail and shaking her head. Now, I know that she's had a long time off work, but this is not like her at all. I encouraged her forward and got her to keep her head carriage low, so that she could stretch under the saddle, but after ten minutes I'd had enough.

There was an instructor just coming into the school and her pupil asked how the saddle was - I briefly said that I wasn't that sure, so the instructor had a quick look. She said she thought it was tipping me forward and that the balance of the saddle was a little low at the front. She recommended that I play around with trying different pads under the saddle, to see if I can raise the front fractionally. With this in mind, I rode her on Friday morning, with a little patch of sheepskin under the front. It was like riding a different horse. She walked on as soon as I mounted, felt relaxed, wasn't pacing at all and was happy to half-halt and take a contact.


It's amazing how sensitive she is (although several people have said to me that cobs often are) but I guess it is a good thing that she is so adament when she is uncomfortable. Once I was happy that she was comfortable, I took her for a walk to the end of the track outside the yard and back. I couldn't go any further than that on my own as there is a lovely big field of pigs just round the corner and she has only seen them once before - and was not impressed! I think we need to meet them again when we have a nice calm friend with us for support.


It was a beautiful sunny day, and it was AMAZING to be out on my beautiful horse again - and here is a view that I cannot tell you how much I have missed!