February Update from Karen and Bond

Karen and Bond are Trelawne Equine's sponsored riders for 2010, and are helping us to put the Easycare hoof boots well and truely through their paces! Karen writes:

February started off well, with Looey and Subah upping their training distance in boots and also barefoot. We’d managed to sort out Subah’s girth issue by going back to a good old fashioned cord girth. Unfortunately, Looey started with some rubs from the gaiters as we increased the distance in training. We had another look at the fitting details and decided that because he’s in size 3 and 2.5 gloves (big clodhopping feet for an Arab!), the gaiters were actually too big. After discussing things over with Lucy at Trelawne Equine, we decided to get size 1 gaiters and have them stitched onto the size 3 and 2.5 boot attachment. Our local saddler, Peter Duggan, did a great job, despite his original misgivings about weakening the gaiter. This meant that Looey was without boots for a couple of weeks but his feet are in great shape and he continued to fly over all terrain completely barefoot with no issues.

I decided that I could probably benefit from some lessons, especially with Subah, so mid-February saw us hiring a local indoor arena and having a lesson with Laura Butler from Inspired Equitation. The idea was to work on my position in order to help Subah use his abdominal muscles properly, lengthen his stride and work over his back. We had an interesting lesson in more ways than one. First off, diggers were being driven round the side of the arena. Subah had a couple of explosive moments about this, but I manage to stay on board since I was expecting him to freak. Once they’d parked up, he began to relax and so did I, resulting in some lovely lengthened strides. Laura had already deduced that Subah really didn’t know where his back feet were and had given me some things to work on at home. However, I wasn’t expecting him to demonstrate this is such an extreme way. He clipped a trotting pole with one hind foot as we were walking round the outside of the arena, completely exploded, leapt in the air sideways, landed with me just about hanging on and then freaked because of me and leapt again dumping me heavily on a rather compacted sand surface which felt like landing on concrete! OUCH!! I was in one piece but knew I’d be very colourful in a few days. I managed to climb back on, finish the lesson and hack home. After 2 days, I was aching from head to toe, but luckily I managed to go to my regular pilates class and stretch out all the aches and pains.

Some more snow put a short hold on our training, we’d entered our first organised training ride at the end of February. I did wonder if we’d done enough work with them. Looey has held a lot of his fitness from last year, but Subah hasn’t had a full year of being ridden, so we need to take things steadier with him. We’d got Looey’s boots back from the saddler and managed one trial run in them before the ride. They looked much better…we could now tighten them properly, so there were no gaps. Subah was now in a new endurance saddle but I was having “ issues” with it. I was struggling keeping my right foot in the stirrup and felt that I was riding lop sided. Bond said that I seemed to be twisting in the saddle. Bond agreed to ride Subah on the ride, since I’ve had back problems in the past and didn’t want to exacerbate anything with Subah or me by riding crookedly. Bond was also having a rough time with Looey, since he was being very competitive and had started to pull his arms out at every opportunity in order to get in front of Subah. For some reason, Looey doesn’t muck about as much with me – maybe he’s glad to have a few stone less to carry!!

The ride was only about an hours drive away in Stockport, organised by the local bridleways association in connection with Lancashire Endurance Group. The weather forecast was mixed – we might even have snow! However, on the day it was overcast, chilly, but at least it was dry. The route was 21km of very mixed going, really good for a youngster – we rode round the edge of towns, through parkland, rough tracks out into the countryside, over bridges, horse stiles, through deep mud. We had a few opportunities to canter but the going mainly dictated trotting and the odd walk on really slippy, muddy grass. The boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves and so did we! They skipped round at an average speed of 10kph. It was really nice to see everyone out and about again. These training rides are brilliant value for money. Helen, the organiser had even included a choice of sandwiches, crisps, choccie biscuit and a drink – all for a tenner!

We’d booted all round with the Easyboot Gloves and decided not to use the power straps, just to see how well they stayed on, especially with Subah since he has wider than long feet. They didn’t budge. However Looey suffered some rubs on his pasterns again. So, we’ve got a bit of experimenting to do with him. Some ideas that we’re going to try are using pastern wraps under the gaiters, or taking the gaiters off and wrapping athletic tape round his hoof to help secure the boot, so we’ll keep you posted as to which we think works best. However, we’re also looking forward to trying the “new” gaiter which should be available soon.

Looey and Subah, also had an MOT from our physio this month. Just as well, since Fiona uncovered why we were having problems riding Subah. It seems that he did injure himself when he chucked me off after all. The right side of his back was really tight and he also had a tight muscle in his right buttock! This was making him banana shaped – hence I couldn’t keep my right stirrup and kept feeling as if I was crooked. Bond had felt the same on the ride and we realised that it was either Subah or the saddle which was the problem. At least we now know! So Subah is currently not being ridden but doing lots of stretching exercises and being long reined and lunged in the Pessoa to encourage him to stretch through his back. He only needs a week off and will the hopefully be back up and running for another couple of training rides in March.