Riding on Stubble

 Only a short time ago Niko and I were given the great opportunity to go riding on a stubble field. It was my very first time riding on a stubble field, I am sure the same can't be said for Niko as he is a ex- point-to-pointer so no doubt it was nothing new to him.

 Niko was an absolute star for me and I can honestly now understand why some people go on about stubble fields the way they do, although none of the photos show it clearly the field was a great size for Niko to really go for it and let me see how fast he could go.

Here we are again not going at any real speed here but I'm sitting comfortably and Niko is going nicely for me. Speaking of going nicely I've bought Niko a new bit, it's called the Verbindend and is made by Neue Schule, it's a very good bit but more on that in another post.

And finally here we are all finished after a great time out on the stubble field, I think we both had a lot of fun, I know I did, and considering Niko's love of running I'm pretty sure he did too


More details on Niko's new bit and how he is finding it in my next post, till then I hope you're all enjoying life with your equines.

Part Two-A Job Well Done

I said I would show you all how the rest of the equines got on with the farrier so here it is. The farrier has successfully removed Tipper’s shoe and trimmed his hooves a bit too, here is a photo of his front hooves now the shoe has been removed, his hooves are a lot more even. The farrier tells us that Tipper has good hooves but they need time to recover from racing, but give him time and he will have a nice set of hooves. Now that Tipper has seen the farrier and all went well, and he got lots of treats, he is a lot less worried about having his feet picked up, he is still not good about it but he is not as bad so I am very happy with all that.

Now take a look at these sweet little hooves they are of course Murphy’s, he has had a full trim and I think it looks pretty good. Murphy was as good as gold and it was his first time to have the farrier that we know of. Ponies really are just so easy, they are good about nearly everything, so all was well with Murphy too.

And of cause I really need not say, as I am sure you all already know, Pip was very good about it all and was absolutely no problem, he had a full trim. So all in all, very good farrier and very good day.

Wow now I really need to do a post that doesn’t just have lots of hooves in it.

Part One-That Little Bit Extra

The farrier did indeed arrive and on time too. Take a look at the photo of Niko’s hooves before they had the work done on them by the farrier, as you can see they are not very nice, they had become broken at the sides, which meant the shoe did not fit correctly.

Now normally with our old farrier they would just put the shoe on and let the hoof grow in to fit the shoe, but this does mean that the horse can easily cast his shoe before the hoof has had time to grow to fit. Niko has done this many times, but not this time. The new farrier fitted him with new shoes that have two clips rather than the old ones that only had one clip on the front of the hoof, and to prevent Niko from casting his shoe he filled the areas were the hoof did not cover the shoe with Polly filler. There are professional equine products that can be used for this, but they are normally used to rebuild the hoof if the horse has suffered a serious hoof injury, so obviously this was not necessary for Niko. Because of the great job the farrier did and extra effort he put in to doing Niko’s hooves they have come out really well, and Niko has that extra little spring in his step.

Now on to Madeline, this is a photo of her hooves before she had work on them, they are also a mess. Madeline can be a tiny bit rude with the farrier and by rude I mean she kicked one on the leg, they were ok but it didn’t go down very well, I did tell the new farrier that she can be bad. So when it came to the back legs he ran his hand down the leg standing to the side of her she gave a quick kick out, as soon as she put her leg back on the ground he picked her hoof up and stared work. When you are picking a horse’s hoof out or working on a horse’s hoof you hold the leg and stand so that they cannot kick you, anyway the farrier successfully trimmed all four hooves, by being careful yet competent and quick to reward with a polo.

Here is a photo of the finished hooves, while they will never look as good as some horses hooves, she naturally has ugly hooves that are very plate like and flat, never the less they look a lot better then they did and today when I rode her she went beautifully so I am very happy.

Well that is it for part one, next post I will be telling you how Tipper got on and how the ponies did with their first ever farrier.

Good Hooves Good Horse

Today has been pretty uneventful, but we have had the farrier come and do Niko’s and Madeline’s feet. Murphy has never had the farrier, and nor has Pip, we will be needing to have Pip done soon. Here is a photo of Niko’s nicely trimmed hooves looking a lot better than they were. Niko has shoes on his fore feet but he is not shod on the hind, when we got him he had a complete set but it soon became clear that he didn’t need them. Here’s a photograph of Madeline’s hoof, Madeline has not been shod since we have had her, but maybe when she is doing harder work we will have her shod. Anyway that is all we have really done today as I always let the horse have a day off work when the farrier has been. * Thank you all for your comments, Sherri, I think you are right they look like they love it, Abby, Bartl are great I would like to buy Niko a Bartl noseband cover, they are so soft.