Rollkur and the FEI Behind Closed Doors

On Feb.9th, the FEI will hold a closed door, no press allowed meeting to discuss Rollkur for the fifth time.

The list of invitees is long but only one man has spoken up loudly agaisnt rollkur again and again and refused to be silenced is invited. That one man, Dr. Heuschmann will stand quite alone in a room dominated by interests that have nothing to do with the good of the horse. Please show him and the FEI that his fight, our fight has not been in vain and that there are thousands upon thousands of horse lovers who stand with him.

A petition is live on his publisher's website.


"YOU can HELP Dr. Heuschmann put an end to rollkur on Feb. 9th at the next FEI meeting by signing your name to to a list he will take with him. Every voice is needed, it is time to step up and be counted for the good of our horses. Go to www.wu-wei-verlag.com and click "Officials! Stop Hyperflexion!". If you want to help Dr. Heuschmann prevail, end rollkur and horse suffering please share this message with everyone you know, use your Facebook page, twitter, blogs, phone. Together lets make a difference.

SIGN PETITION HERE

Winner - 2 Sets to 1

In the time it's taken me to watch the Australian Womens Single Final we have had 3 inches of snow. Up until a few weeks ago I'd not thought of this as a hard winter, but it's starting to weigh heavily now.
I've nothing against Serena Williams, in fact I think she's a nice girl, but I'm not over keen on her game. Justine Henin, well she's a different prospect. She's small for a tennis player, but she's quick and agile, she plays smart and she has a one-handed backhand! She's made a great comeback, but, unfortunately, not great enough to beat Serena.
Horses all out in the field, huddled around a pile of hay, all except Anky  who's determinedly searching for grass.

I'm loathe to tempt fate and put it into words, but Anky has been quite well the last few weeks. She's back on her diet of  Baileys  Lo- Cal Feed balancer, we've replaced the Dengie Alfa A (for all our horses - too much molasses) with Hi-Fi Lite which is a mixture of Alfalfa and Chopped Straw , has a 40% Fibre content, very low sugar content, is great as a hay replacer and Anky loves it. Added to this she has a supplement of mint, fennel, psyllium , brewers yeast and corn oil, all of which aid digestion and are good for a gassy gut.

Obi - in the doghouse!!!!

My OH has a blog now. I've just noticed that he's told you about my Obi Dobe! Well Obi dobe bit the next door holiday home cleaner man.I haven't mentioned it on my blog as I'm ashamed of him (Obi that is) and shocked too. He's a big dog but I've never thought of him as being dangerous. After a long chat with cleaner man, I am reassured that the bite was unintentional and it was just over excitement (all the dogs were jumping up at the gate and were definately over-excited having legged it up from the bottom of the field) but that doesn't alter the fact that he did it and he shouldn't have. Apparently, Obi caught his arm, but didn't intentionally grab or hold on.
We've had a very serious discussion since then and feel that Obi deserves a visit to the vet ( not for the dreaded injection, but definitely for the removal of his favourite bits) he's being getting more and more hormonal over the last 12 months, having a bitch in season around the place doesn't help one bit. I think he'll have a much more peaceful life - yes, of course he will!!.

How much is gravel these days???

It was very cold this morning! Even in the sunshine it felt like the wind was on the fast lane  from the ice caps! Anyway I didn't ride. Our local gravel man called round to give us a quote for laying new gravel on our drive. Aaaaaagh, do they think we're stupid - obviously they do!! I'm not being Frenchist but they definitely do have "English Rates". I guess we'll be doing the drive ourselves.
So, the horses went out, I went out to the supermarché, bought a few essentials had a lovely drive (it usually brings me down off the ceiling) and Jim did the stables.
After lunch we brought the horse trailer onto the yard and left it hitched up to our old motor so that we can practice getting the youngsters used to it.
The horses were playing in the field, as usual I missed the best bits but managed to get some nice pics.
The wind had dropped a little and the sun felt warmer so I brought Corky in. With the others watching at the gate I groomed, tacked up and put her boots on. I think they were a little confused with the change of routine and the fact that the trailer had appeared on the yard. I had a lovely ride, made me feel good, I'm hoping it'll carry me through the snow that's been forecast for the next few days.
When we brought them in tonight we walked them up to and around the trailer, lots of huffing and puffing from Remy and Bonbon but pretty good for a first try.

Sanity prevails.

Riding? What's that???

Ok, another day and still no riding. First thing was to get Remy out for his session, it was bright this morning, but icy cold and blustery. All the horses were a little edgy but I thought it would be good to see how Remy reacted to the conditions.  He was a little distracted  but stayed focussed and I was happy with the session.
It's Jims' birthday today and he was talking to his son in Australia on the phone , the weather had turned really grey and nasty, so I put the horses out and started mucking out the stables.
I had a musical afternoon at my friend Rickys' which I always enjoy, we played for a couple of hours and then chatted over a couple of glasses of pineau. She's determined to get me to play at one of her musical evenings - hehe, it's never going to happen!!
I've a free day tomorrow, nowhere to go, nothing to do, except ride, I hope!!!

La nourriture de cheval de l'Angleterre .......

J'ai manqué ma leçon française aujourd'hui parce que nous avions un ordre de nourriture de cheval de ramasser. Comme beaucoup d'anglais avec les chevaux, nous devons apporter notre nourriture de l'Angleterre parce qu'il est difficile de trouver la nourriture convenable en France.
Dans mon cas, j'aime nourrir mes chevaux une haute nourriture de fibre et je n'ai pas trouvé de bon ici.

C'était un matin agréable pour monter, ensoleillé sans vent, mais nous sommes partis tôt et avons été sortis tout le jour.
Je veux monter demain, donc j'espère que le temps sera bon.

Après que nous avons ramassé les aliments, nous avons visité Bob et Bev, j'avais un après-midi joli en parlant avec Bev et Jim a aidé Bob à réparer sa voiture.

C'était une bonne journée, mais je suis très fatigué maintenant!

Oh what a wet day....

.....today!!!! The only positive is that it's chasse day, I really hope they got rained off too! 
I went down to the stables, groomed all the horses and put their turnout rugs on, definitely not a naked day today.
We had a good time at dinner last night, hard work, but not awkward. After 4 hours of speaking french my brain was about to explode.LOL After a couple of aperos' and a couple of glasses of white wine I was probably at my linguistical (not sure that's a real word) best, but then, after a couple of glasses of red with the main course, forget it!! Woke up with a headache this morning, not sure if it was the booze or the strain on my brain cells.

Can't get out of bed??

I overslept this morning and raised my lazy bones at 10 am!
After the obligatory cup of tea I went to the stables, groomed Remy and took him out for a short in-hand session. If I do nothing else I've decided that I must do this most days. We could hear shots from the chasse, not too close and Remy remained calm. We worked on walk halt transitions again and then I started moving him around the area at his shoulder. His halts were quite good and he remained focussed. His rein backs were very good today so I was pleased with him.
I went over to Trudis' yesterday and after a lovely chatty lunch we played with her boys Moo and Chapiro. I tried some in-hand work with Moo and I have to say he's a very tolerant chap. The benefits of In-hand for both horse and handler are obvious, It's quite a new thing for me but I can see how much it has helped Moo with his flexibility and carriage. I'm looking forward to doing more with Remy and Anky.
After my session with Remy I groomed Anky and did some stretches and flexions with her. Bonbon was poking her nose over the wall and wanted some attention and as I can never resist her we did some stretches too, one side and then the other, through the front legs etc. I also asked her to lower her head by using the headcollar, bringing her nose to the ground and stretching over her neck. She's a smart cookie, no problems with that. Of course the click treating helps. She can be a little bit impatient and insistent when treating so I've been extra vigilant not to let her get away with it and she's getting much better and becoming much more polite.lol  Didn't get to ride, though I wanted to. The noise from the chasse in the distance helped to make my mind up on that one.

We've been invited to "Aller Diner " with a french couple tonight, long story short, we went to look at a sofa they had for sale, got chatting, they want to learn more english and we want to learn more french so 'voila', they invited us to go dine with them. We'll see how it goes. I'm looking forward to it - I think!

What, no rugs!!!

I did some groundwork with Remy this morning and he was calm and attentive. It was a short session but successful. We worked on walk halt transitions, me leading with a loose rein and then asking for halt and me moving to his shoulder and asking for walk on from this position. He kept the halt as I moved to his shoulder and walked off nicely on command. No confusion, no backing up as I moved over to his shoulder as he was doing before. When I asked for the backing he did it in a relaxed manner and from a very  light signal.
As I finished the session the sun was trying to fight its way through the clouds so I took off all their rugs, gave them all a grooming ( they're starting to lose their winter coats) and put them out naked!. They were happy bunnies and went galloping off to the bottom field ( not our top winter field, which is very dry, but our wettest field with the stream) and I swear I saw an evil glint in Corkys eye.  Well, anyone who's had horses will know what happened next.........
Bev called over for the afternoon and we had a good laugh and a good chat. Thanks mate.

I love......

Stephen Fry!  I'm not into all these lovey dovey awards thingies ( National Television Awards), but yay for SF! Such an intelligent, warm, funny, modest lovable person.

One of those mornings....

A bit of ground work with Remy, he was a little edgy but we did a good ten minutes in the garden. I decided to walk him around the garden and back to the barn, but he wasn't as calm as I thought (oops) and he spooked, dragged me over and legged it back to the yard. He was waiting for me at the bottom of the barn, bit snorty but ok. We stayed out for a further ten minutes leading, halting and backing, he was fine, still a bit edgy but a good boy. I groomed Corky intending to ride, she enjoyed being groomed, but she was coughing a little, she sometimes does in winter, it's the dust. I'm thinking we must get them out 24/7 as soon as the weather allows. I then had a blazing row with Jim (not about the horses)  and all good intentions had gone.
It's a funny time of year, I made one resolution - to try and stay healthy and do more with the horses (does that count as two?) , "the mind's willing but the flesh is weak" kind of thing. LOL-how pretentious.  However, I've come to realise that the mind isn't really very willing and I'm not sure why or how to get over it.
It must be something in the air, Anky, normally very well mannered, stood on my foot in her haste to get into the field, a mixture of impatience and my perpetual clumsiness.

L'apathie est le même dans n'importe quelle langue.............

Je vais à ma leçon française le lundi donc cette entrée est dans le français.
C'était une bonne leçon et quand il avait fini nous avons bu du café et avons parlé depuis plus qu'une heure, malheureusement nous n'avons pas parlé dans le français.
 Je viens de revenir de ma leçon, c'est un jour beau, ensoleillé et je crois que je devrais faire quelque chose avec les chevaux, mais si je ne le fais pas le matin il est dur de rassembler l'enthousiasme.

Cet après-midi je voudrais monter Corky, l'hématome est maintenant beaucoup mieux et ne sera pas affecté par la sangle.  mais ils sont tous dans le champ et je suis vraiment trop indolent pour les sortir.

Je suis heureuse de dire que  Tiger est revenu et il a très faim, mais il va bien ( c'est l'expression correcte ? Est-ce que c'est le même comme" comment allez-vous" ? Ainsi il est" Il va bien" ?  Je ne sais pas!! Quand même, il est OK!!).

Oh, je ne sais pas que faire! je vais déjeuner et ensuite je déciderai. Plus que probable je ne ferai rien!!

J'ai mal à la tête!!

The thrill of the kill

An early start this morning, Mum and Dad needed to be at the airport by 9am so up at 7.30 to check flights. All ok so Jim set off with parents and I stayed home to do the horses.

It was light by 8.30 so I went down to put them out, I could hear the chasse in the distance, not very far away, but not close enough to be a worry (or so I thought).
The horses were on their toes. I put Corky out first and instead of mooching around the gate she set off down the hill into the front field. We vary the going out order and they're pretty chilled with it and even today when they were a lttle on edge there was no problem. Bonbon went out next and stood calmly until I'd unclipped her before cantering up the field to Corky. Remy doesn't have as much confidence as Bonbon but he was very good and when I unclipped him he stood with me for a few seconds before galloping, tail in the air, to the others. Back in the stables, Anky could hear the others cantering in the field and she was standing, head up, ears pricked and, not for the first time, it hit me how beautiful she is.She was trembling slightly and as I stood watching her she turned toward me and walked up to me, very calmly. I walked her out to the gate and into the field with no problems, again after unclipping her she stood for a couple of seconds before kicking her heels up and galloping over to her pals. I really get a kick out of their confidence in me.

The horses were in our front field and the chasse were on the other side of our land in a small wood. As I was mucking out I could hear the incessant howling and barking of the dogs and they were obviously getting closer.  I went out and I could see a few orange jackets ( the members of the chasse must wear these for safety when they're hunting) just on the edge of the wood, and then 3 or 4 shots.
The horses are pretty good with the chasse, they've got used to the sound of the dogs and guns, but I'm not good at all. I've been ok this season, but that's mainly because we've seen very little of them. I make a mental note of the whereabouts of all my animals when they're around, from what I've heard the chasse manage to dispatch many cats during the season. This morning I could account for all except Tiger and J.C. one of our two ginger kittens ( not kittens now but we call them the kittens), so I was  worried about them. The whole idea of the chasse makes me feel vulnerable and I hate it when they cross our land, it frightens me. Jim says that my reaction is OTT.  I heard  a very loud shot and shouts and as I emerged from the stables I saw an orange jacket at the very edge of our bottom field. As I watched him he let off 4 or 5 shots across the field.  I didn't see anything, but Jim who had just arrived back from the airport said that he'd seen  a fox running across the bottom of the field.  Suddenly a group of orange jackets ran out of the wood clapping and laughing, obviously delighted.
I find it incredibly gut wrenching that a group of grown men get so much enjoyment from killing a fox(well, any animal!) .Of course, I ended up in tears and Jim says that i'm far too soft for country life!
Having finished the mucking out I found J.C. asleep on my bed but Tiger hasn't appeared yet.

Blog Mania

I had a very nice lunch out yesterday with Bev and Trudi, lots of chatting and eating, perfect.
Today I had a trip out with Mum and Dad, they're off home tomorrow and things will seem  very quiet for a while, it's always a sad time when they leave.
It seems that everyone around me has gone blog crazy. Dad has decided to start one so I set one up for him this afternoon and then Jim said he would like to start one too, so I set another one up, and now I'm totally blogged out.

Great, but a little bit worrying.......

........we just can't believe what we see!

The snow has gone, we now have rain

The snow has more or less disappeared overnight.  It's been raining all night and today we have a mixture of sunshine and showers. It feels so good to see the grass again and I think the horses feel the same.
I gave Anky a good grooming this morning and despite the odd belly ache and stretch, she seems ok and certainly looks much better. I'm trying to wean her off the Alfa A, I think I've said before that we think  she may be intolerant to Alfalfa and the amount of molasses added to the Alfa A here in france is ridiculous.It's a difficult process of elimination and certainly  molasses could cause the gassiness and inflammation in the hind gut and Alfalfa also. if the horse has an intolerance to it.  We've started her on a new feed (several weeks), but she really doesn't like it so it's a struggle. I've decided to go back to her original diet of Lo Cal  feed balancer, corn oil, psyllium ( helps protect and repair the mucosa in the hind gut) and replace the Alfa A with an alfalfa/ molasses free chaff/chop.

I groomed Remy and took him out for some ground work. He was fine, if a little distracted. He's got the halt ,  and he's also got the back now, but if I ask for halt and then move to his shoulder he starts to back, so today we spent some time on asking for halt and then keeping the halt whilst I moved to his shoulder. We then asked for a few steps of walk on and halt with me at his shoulder. He's done nothing for quite a while so I was pleased with him.
I've just come across this. It is an excerpt from a recent article in the Horses for Life Magasine, which has some excellent online articles and adheres to the mostly forgotten notion that the horses' welfare and well being should come first.

As expected...

....parents are still here. We checked on the website at 8am and all flights from Liverpool airport were on schedule. We've had very little or no snow overnight so we were optimistic that Limoges airport would be open. Hmmm, wrong on that one. After a careful drive to the airport, we arrived to find a very long queue of people trying to rebook or get refunds after an announcement that the flight had been cancelled. It had apparently left Liverpool hoping to land, but was diverted to Bordeaux.  So a careful drive home to rebook the flight, the only available one being next Sunday. Hopefully the weather will pick up and we can perhaps do something nice next week.

Serious snow today...........

.... and I think my parents may be staying a little longer than expected. Some flights have been cancelled today so we'll just have to wait and see. Their flight is scheduled for 9.25am tomorrow, so an early start.
The horses seemed to quite like the snow today, we spent a quiet afternoon warming ourselves with home made hot cherry liqueur, yummy!

In the bleak mid-winter........

.....frosty winds did make moan and we were silly enough to go out in it! After five days in, we decided to brave the outside world. Nothing exciting you understand, just a little trip into town mainly to do some shopping. My dad bought my mum a new wedding ring (don't ask me why, it may be premature senility setting in) which meant that I've been given my mums original wedding ring. A lovely gesture and I will treasure it.
We were all glad to get back home and were greeted by the lovely aroma of roast pork- yummy!!!
For those who don't need to go to specsavers (unlike me and half my family) what's wrong with this pic.

And, unlike some of my more dedicated fellow bloggers I have again done nothing with my horses today. Having experienced the harshness of the weather today I find it hard to feel guilty.

Strenuous Exercise

We had snow fall overnight and any plans for today were subdued by the grey, heavy weather. In the spirit of getting on with things we put all our energy into something energetic....... a KIR sampling and domino tournament. Jim, not wishing to exert all his energy into something so worthwhile spent the afternoon reading, so it was down to me and Mum and Dad. It was difficult, often very tense, the pressure was immense but at the end of a tiring afternoon my tenacity and wit brought about a win!!! As you can tell by this post it took a very strong will to down several large Kirs and still keep my wits about me to win the very important domino tournament.

The horses have had a very peaceful day picking at any grass they could find in the snow.

We are back........................

.....to This!!!

.......

I thought I may be able to do a little in-hand today, but any chance of that dissolved with my resolve when I went outside!!
The snow is now starting to get quite deep......

It is bleak, very, very cold and the ground is rock hard. Aaaaaaagh.

On a positive note, we have lots of food and wood for the fire.........

A needle in a haystack.............

literally!!!!
Bonbon came in tonight with her rug half off. One of her leg straps had broken, so, not wanting to leave it until tomorrow, thicko here decided to do a quick stitching job in the only available decent light - next to the hay in front of the stables!! No need for reprimands, I've done that already. A combination of clumsiness, butter fingers and eyesight gone to pot and the needle fell into the hay. Bloody hell, how stupid was that!!!!
I quickly picked up all the hay and swept the floor, all of which I put into a muck skip. Even though I thought that I'd managed to get the needle, I couldn't be sure, so spent the next hour sifting through all the hay I'd collected. Mum and Dad arrived yesterday for a short visit and Mum came round to the barn to see what I was doing. In all seriousness she actually said you'll never find it, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack!!
I did find it eventually, in the very last few handfuls, typical!! and Dad said, you should get a prize for that. Funny!!
Although I got peace of mind and a lesson learned - prize enough.

Corky has a haematoma between her front legs, there's a small graze so she's obviously run into something, any excuse not to be ridden. ;-) She's had a couple of days of bute and hot massage and it's moving slowly.

Bonbon continues to be a joy, I think the ugly duckling may just be turning into a swan - and she's so smart!! The last couple of days I've been doing a little ground work with her and she's very responsive. I hope she stops growing soon though, she's only 30 months and nearly 16.2hh.

It's a new year.

We had a quiet night in last night. It was good, we spoke to my parents, sister and niece on the webcam and opened a bottle of bubbly to see in the new year. In fact, with the time difference between France and the UK we saw in two new years.
It's been bleak this morning,the sky is heavy and grey, it's rained all night and it's just starting to snow as I write.
The horses have been moochy in the field today and not settling to eat as normal. Remy and Bonbon were restless, and amused themselves by taunting each other. Well, Remy did the taunting as usual, but Bonbon soon joined in, keeping close to Corky for 'protection'. They were spinning and rearing and cantering the smallest, balanced circles. The play went on for quite a while until Corky had had enough of the kids messing about in her space and chased Remy off. They all then proceeded to roll in turn, digging up an area of precious grass. Anky's not been too lively today, a little bit of stretching, moochy like the others,just a little more so. This weather isn't conducive to positive feelings I hope it clears up soon.