What a year!!

As it's coming to the end of this year it's made me think back to all that we've achieved & the new problems that have occurred.

As said before in my first blog my horse was very quirky & when i say Quirky i mean a rearing/napping, backwards thinking mess

It's weired as it seems like that horse never existed to me now, he's such a happy boy. However it took complete faith & a lot of patience & courage to get him to the happy big softy that he is now. Im glad i took a chance & bought him as i really do have a very strong bond with him

This year he's paid me back ten fold and has excelled himself, not only is he grasping ridden work quickly and progressing fast with collected work, we also managed 2 placings at regionals a 5th place at the Winters in Feb 09 & a 5th place at the Summers 09.

The year did take a drastic turn though in April with recurrent & serious Colic bout's, they where dreadful, eventually after taking advise from one of my trainers Spencer Wilton we made the decision to trial the horse on Gastrogard & my Vets agreed it was the only thing left to try.

The Difference was incredible in my horse after just 3 days on the Gastrogard it was apparent that he was suffering from Ulcers. The colic has never recurred since we started him on the Gastrogard. He's now maintained on a low dose of Gastrogard daily for what will be the rest of his life.
He's more than worth it though & thankfully are Insurance AmTrust has been brilliant throughout!!

Normally you would scope a horse for Ulcers, however the only Vet that could do this was a traveling vet & there was a wait for him or we could of paid for it to be done at Leahurst.

We all felt we couldn't wait with the dreaded Colic bouts & that Leahurst was not really a viable option, so with the insurances approval we decided to go straight to trailing the Gastrogard.

After the Summer regionals we went back out to try to Qualify one last time at Novice, we still had just enough points & i really didn't want to waste them.

I was very chuffed when we Qualified for the winter regionals 2010 in 2 outings he was obviously flying now his Ulcer's where under control.

We also dabbled with a freestyle test i spent ages doing a floor plan, picking music & editing it. I found it great fun & quite easy to do to my surprise.

We qualified on our 2nd try ever at freestyle with over 70%!!

Unfortunately the first try wasn't so good my music editing was quite wrong & way ahead of the floor plan, so i had to go back to the drawing board. Luckily i managed to hire my local indoor school & re-shoot a new video, i then re-edited the music & sorted it. This time it worked out!!

So we now have to classes to contend for at the Winters 2010.

Not only that but in September 09 we landed a small sponsorship from Equine Premium (Protexin), we already used there product as they where the only one's that have ever help my horse with his dodgy tum. So gaining support from them has really helped us & helped my horse stay on Acid Ease which really does help him, we wouldn't be without it.

So as i said in the opening What a year, here's hoping that 2010 will be just as if not more fruitful!!!

Keep checking back as new posts coming soon about our winter training.