Sunday 18 November 2012

Mini Adventures

Not much to report on, except that we have taken the girls on a few mini adventures. One worked out well, the other not so much, and one was a vet visit.

Colo River
We took the horses up to Colo River for a ride, like we did years ago with our first ponies. We have been talking about doing this for so long, and we were quite excited about getting the horses back up there.


Matchy matchy uniforms for my trimming business. They are PRETTY AWESOME.

It is an hour and a half drive, up and down steep hills. It chews up quite a bit of petrol BUT the last part of the drive is very pretty.



Once we got there we tacked up, rode down to the (shallow) river and promptly got stuck in quicksand. Twice. :(

The horses were so scared and the ride was ruined. Years ago we had galloped up and down that river! But that was during a drought and we are not in drought anymore. The recent rains must have moved the sand about and created sink holes.

We found a part of the river that was safe and just hung out there for a while until the horses weren't scared of sinking anymore. It was a crap day, I was afraid that Allie had hurt herself and we had no reception so I thought Andrew would have worried about us. What a waste of a potentially good day. At least we know now.

Allie was not happy. She kept resting that hind leg and had trouble turning that way. I thought she had damaged her tendon but she pulled up fine and was not lame out of the water. She was just sooking.

Gracie had fun though.


Vet Clinic
We took them on Thursday to the vet clinic for Allie to have a vet exam for insurance and for them both to get their first Hendra vaccine shot. Nothing special to note except that while Gracie was NOT having it when the vet tried to take her temperature (he gave up after she kicked at him), Allie actually LOVED having her temp taken, grooming me while he had the thermometer up there. Even the vet said "Um, yeah. That's not normal". Sigh. She is a weirdo.

Allie passed the exam and we took them home. They are going back again in the beginning of December for the booster shot. Once that is done no more worrying about Hendra! For my foreign readers, all you need to know is that Hendra is a terrifying fruit bat-bourne disease that while not common, kills horses, people and dogs, in a long, drawn out, neuro destroying way. I have been terrified of them dying from it for a long time and was the first owner to have her horse vaccinated. I have copped a bit of criticism on Facebook for making that decision but it is the right one for me and for my horses.

Suburban Ride
Today we took the girls to my home town, parked at Mum's, then went for a road ride/school in the park.

Here is a video of Nat riding Allie.Please excuse/ignore my screeching.



After this video we rode to another park and I got some lovely canter work from Allie. No video of that I'm afraid, just trust me that it was much nicer than this work. They were very well behaved, it was a really nice ride.

That is about it really!

5 comments:

OneHindResting said...

Glad the girls are okay after the quicksand! I rode Diilun down to the river after the 20km and it was a bit sinky there (near the Reserve) too, so now I'm glad that he didn't get stuck too!

Why would you cop flack for getting the Hendra vacc? That's crazy! Good on you, at least now you don't need to worry about it!

Glad you both had a good ride today and that they were relaxed while they were out. Inspires me to think my mare will be a calm horse one day when she goes out! ;)

Lisa said...

Well, apparently there are rumours that the vaccine has not been tested enough and it was 'rushed' to get it on the market and apparently people up in FNQ are hesitant to vaccinate.

I've done some research into it and the risks outweigh the benefits to me.

Of course your mare will be good when she goes out when she is all grown up!! :)

Val said...

Allie looks awesome in the video!

I think there is always resistance to new treatments, kind of like there is resistance for new "trends" like performance barefoot hoof care. ;)

Kate said...

Ally looks so fancy in the video!

OneHindResting said...

Thanks Lisa! ;) Your min-adventures would be standard-sized adventures for us!

That's weird, you'd think FNQ would have the most to gain and therefore would be the most enthusiastic! Glad that you've done your research and acted on it - not the 'norm' unfortunately! ;)