Changing bit by bit ....

Anyway ... having two weeks solid with her when I was on holiday paid off beautifully. She is a changed horse. She's still opinionated but now works nicely most of the time and doesn't cause half as much fuss when she is expressing her opinions. Her movement, when she moves more correctly, is phenomenal especially the movement through her shoulders.

Quite a few people say that she looks a bit like an Andalucian though I couldn't really see it even through my rose tinted specs. I have to say though that when I saw the few 'correct' steps that she did in one of my lessons I have to agree.

She also enjoys jumping the xc fences and even tackled the tyres without batting an eyelid. She's such a good girl.

The thing is that I want to do dressage, she seemingly wants to event ... My ex trainer has ridden her a few times. He wouldn't ride her previously because, as he said, it's his livelyhood and he couldn't afford to get hurt. Although she argued with him she went beautifully. It was nice in a way that she stropped a bit with him too. I'd have been completely mortified if he'd have got on and she'd have been a complete angel

So ... they do get better, it just takes time I love her to bits and she's taught me so much. It must have taken about 18 months to really bond with her. I thought that we'd bonded after 6 months and then at 12 months but each time I found new depths to our relationship. I love my little Saffy Moo

Fast forward to 2006

Through it all she's been a kind and generous soul. A dream to handle, easy to catch (apart from one episode where I couldn't get near to her but later found that there was a very good reason for it :( ) and easy to look after.

We still had the tantrums in the school though.

Saying that, things WERE better, she didn't carry her neck vertically anymore and the strops were shorter and less dramatic.

My trainer recently told me that although he thought that I WAS ready for a youngster he wasn't sure that I was ready for THAT particular youngster. He also said that it was touch and go for a while as to whether I'd come through it or completely lose my confidence. He says that he's very pleased with me and proud at how I came through it all and that a lot of people would have given up on her and sold her on.

I think that I've gained a modicum of respect from him for sticking with it and coming out the other side I refer to those days as my 'darkest hours'. They only lasted a few weeks but boy were they tough. Thankfully what didn't (literally) kill me made me stronger and I'm a lot more confident now than I was even before Saffy.

Let the tree huggery begin :)

So, we've been treeless from the beginning, are using NH and clicker methods for groundwork, have been bitless (though she was introduced back into a bit because I wanted to do dressage), has Bowen/Reiki treatments and is on a forage based diet, none of this hard feed that horses *should* have!

It could only get worse ....I saw another livery at our yard have a WOMAN trim her horse's feet. This was strange in itself but then I noticed that she didn't have shoes put on. Now Saff was unshod at the back and had coped well but you had to have shoes on the front .... didn't you?

Apparently not! A long story short I had her shoes taken off and she was sound straight away. She's been barefoot for a while now and is more than happy to crunch up the stony path that comes down from the road. Her feet are rather beautiful AND she doesn't sweat up from physical exertion so didn't need to be clipped.

Saffy starts to grow

In handling, groundwork, lunging, long reining and hacking out she's a real doll. We still had problems under saddle though. She is a very dominant mare and is more than happy to argue the toss with you. She is also very persisent and will not back down easily. I've spent many a lesson with a neck in front of my nose and TWICE got bashed in the face when she was pratting about and bashed me with her head while I was on her back (as before).

Another time we tried canter in the school (her canter on a hack is delightful, very controlled and comes back easily when you sit up). She got, erm, slightly overexcited and took off around the school at a gallop. She did a very controlled 20 metre circles in gallop and I was appalling. The only two thoughts that I had were "oh **** she's going to fall over" and "shall I bail out? No, she's going too fast". Finally she galloped towards the wall at the end of the school .... I, apparently, was shrieking "ooooohhhhhh s********t" very helpfully!!

I was convinced that she was going to attempt to jump the wall (she'd previously attempted to jump a hedge when she got overexcited until I (to my shame but it had to be done) had to almost pull her back teeth out to pull her up). Jumping the wall would have been bad enough BUT I knew that there's a humungous drop down into a sloping field on the other side. We would have been toast. I had completely blanked out by this time and was completely ineffective. She, however, got to the wall, flicked her bum around, deposited me out of the side door up against the wall where I slid unceremoniously to the ground. As she cantered away (about 3 metres) she caught me in the chest with her (unshod thankfully) hoof. She then stood, turned around and looked at me as if to say "what are you doing down there?".

My trainer wandered across and then sped up as I lay there winded and rather battered. Thankfully there wasn't too much damage though my back was completely scraped up and bruised and I had a wonderful hoof shaped bruise in my cleavage. Oh, and I somehow got a humungous bruise on my calf.

Enter the Bowen/Reiki Therapist

I'd seen this 'strange' woman at the yard, she seemed nice enough but reputedly 'spoke' to the horses (or they spoke to her). Others on the yard swore by her, I was more sceptical.

Anyway, I decided to give it a go and boy did she blow me away. Logically she can't have known or surmised half of what she came up with, what she was saying was far too specific to be a gross generalisation. She sussed Saffy out even though she was stood like a donkey at her haynet when she came.

Saff had been getting very, very tetchy when you touched her and you couldn't get near enough to actually groom her. She wasn't nasty just didn't want you near her skin. The therapist said that Saffy's skin felt 'creepy' and that she didn't want the hard feeds any more and that she didn't want carrots but she did want grass, hay and cleavers, oh, and a couple of apples!

Rather bemused by this I decided that it couldn't hurt and Saff had pretty much stopped eating her feeds, including the carrots, anyway

(the therapist didn't know any of this).

The change in less than 10 days was amazing. She was a different horse. She enjoyed being groomed again and whilst she was still a bossy moo she was much nicer to be around.

I finally discovered Simple Systems feed which has been a lifesaver. She only has forage these days and a couple of apples a day. She came out of winter as porky as she went in and her weight is pretty stable even when they went out onto the new grass! Her behaviour improved immeasureably in just a couple of weeks.

She's still bossy and she's still opinionated but it's measured and useable now.

The Pasture Mix Episode

She was pretty good to handle and on the ground but I came back from holiday to find that she'd dropped loads of weight, wouldn't stay in her stable and was a highly strung, shaking mess.

She had reared at people in the field and even charged at the YO one day. I hadn't got a clue what was going on but she was obviously in some distress. I got a phone call early one Sunday morning to ask how long I was going to be. I wasn't told why but when I got there (thankfully I wasn't too far away) she was stood in her stable dripping sweat from the tips of her ears to her little hooves.

I woke up at 2am the next morning, sat up and said "Pasture Mix".

Thank you whoever planted that seed in my brain! I took her off it straight away, acting not on logic but on intuition, call it what you like. First of all she went onto Cool Mix and within about a week was much better though still not 'right'.

She was much, much better and hadn't reared since the RA visit but was still very stroppy and opinionated. She had all the regular checks and more, she was ridden in a treeless saddle (my beloved SBS), was in a hackamore, was off the Pasture Mix so it was her character ..... wasn't it?

She was completely upside down with a very impressive muscle on the underside of her neck which she used to great effect. She also had no bum, something I've strived for myself but never been able to achieve!

Enter the Recommended Associate

On the first outing to the field she walked down most of the way on her back legs.

The first day in the school (in hand) she showed me her levade even tapping my on the hand to make sure that I was watching!

When picking up even the lightest of contacts she stood on her back legs over a dozen times in one lesson. I was hit in the mouth while riding her twice and I spent one lesson with blood dripping down my face, when I got back to the yard they were all really worried as the blood had streaked all over my face and down my sweatshirt.

Her rearing was knocking my confidence. She was fine to handle but a nightmare in the school. Our RA rode her for just 5 minutes before figuring out the problem. She took off her bridle, put on a Dually headcollar and attached the reins to that. It wasn't as if she was in a harsh bit, I'd gone from a snaffle to a french link to a happy mouth to a rubber straight bar (which she ate!). I thought that she was nuts but Saffy proved me wrong and lengthened, overtracked and relaxed. Later that day I hacked her out in the Dually even though people thought that I had completely lost the plot.

The 'diagnosis' was that she was expecting either pain, discomfort or something horrible to happen when you picked up a contact. She was put in a hackamore for a few months and was 'cured' overnight.

She eventually went back into a bit, kindly choosing the KK Ultra costing me even more money! She obviously takes after her mother in liking expensive things