My Horse Diary - My Diary, The Beginning

The Beginning

I never would of thought a year ago I would find myself looking after a horse. It all started when my friends Barry and Rachel moved back to Norwich, bringing with them four horses. My then girlfriend Carly loved horses so we went to see them. I have never had much contact with horses and I found it very unnerving to be in a field of horses. They seemed to sense my nerves and all made a bee line for me. I didn’t last very long in the field that day but over the next few weeks I became more and more confident around the horses, and started to enjoy going to see them.

Then it happened, Carly decided she wanted a horse of her own and I started to think of any reason why we shouldn’t get one like vet bills, food, shoeing and how much time is spent looking after them, but I was fighting a losing battle.

We had to decide what breed of horse to get, a yearling, one that has started to be broken or one that was ready to ride. We decided to get one which was in the process of being broken in because we felt we would get more for our money and a younger horse.

We looked in some newspaper advertisements and found a horse that had started to be ridden and was in our price range. We decided to look into this horse so Carly and Rachel phoned the owner to arrange to visit the horse.

I had been doing a lot of research into buying a horse and the one thing I kept reading was take your time and not to rush in which is exactly what happened. When Carly came back she had arranged delivery for the next day.

This is the first picture I saw of Lola then Scragsy before she was delivered.

irish draught

I would advise all first time horse buyers to take a lot of time in deciding what horse to buy however exciting it can get when looking at a horse.

There was a lot to sort out for Lola’s arrival but little time to do it. We needed lots for Lola like a rug, head collar, brushes, horse insurance, get her registered at the vets and £1000 to buy her with. We also had to section off an area of the field, so we could safely introduce her with the other horses slowly.

It was very exciting waiting for her to arrive. Then we saw the horse box pull up and I got to see Lola for the first time. As the ramp was lowered and Lola started to walk down she slipped and fell over which was a very worrying moment, but she got up fine and carried on walking.

This picture is of Lola a few days after we had got her, she was very skinny and looked a little neglected then, I think she looks lots better now.

After we paid the lady and she left we released Lola into her pen we made using electric tape. Our pen lasted for about ten minutes until Deano came along and ran through the fence. So Lola was free, they all went a bit crazy running around biting & kicking each other. The power struggle went on for a couple of days until they sorted out who was in charge which turned out to be Lola.

To start with everything was going great Lola was friendly a bit skinny but we thought a bit of a bargain. I not knowing much about horses left it was up to Carly to be in charge of the training I got all the good jobs like poo picking in the field, fun, fun, fun. We would take Lola out for walks, lunge her, which I now know isn’t very good for horses. It was all going well, so we decided to get a saddle fitter to come & measure Lola for her first saddle. To say the saddle fitter didn’t do much measuring is an understatement Lola wasn’t very keen on the look of the saddle fitter with a big black thing in her arms. As soon as she went near her she would rear up do a bit of stomping and pace about. But we got a saddle, girth and stirrups in the end.

The next problem came the very next day, when the farrier turned up, Lola also doesn’t like men in leather chaps with an assortment of tools, so much so he didn’t even get to touch a leg let alone a hoof.

This is when I discovered Monty Roberts I was looking on the internet and I found some information on horses with problems with having their feet done. So that was it I was hooked on his horse training advice, I had to have his book so of I went to Norwich to get myself a copy. I read the book over the next couple of days and transformed myself from being a horse novice to an expert in my own mind.

The first thing I did from the book was to make an artificial hand on a stick so you could mimic you touching your horses without getting kicked. This worked well she soon got used to it touching her legs. But when it came to me picking up her feet it was a different matter she didn’t mind a leg massage but picking up a foot was a completely different thing altogether, it turned into a battle of strength between me and Lola and I didn’t win many.

We had also been putting on Lola’s saddle with mixed luck and taking her for walks it was like having a dog. But one day we had a disaster Lola was tied up in the yard and we were giving her a brush getting her ready for the saddle. Got the saddle on her and was doing the girth up when she spooked and broke free. She was going mad running into things charging at the gate we couldn’t get anywhere near her. We had to do something if not I think she would have really hurt herself. So Barry opened the gate so she could calm down in the field. Within seconds there were five horses charging around the field. We all thought she would calm down and we could catch her and it would all be ok. To start with she did start to calm down but at this point the saddle started to slip around until it was under her belly. This scared her even more she was kicking at it like mad, bits where flying of. She wouldn’t let any of us near her but when she started to get tired she slowed down and Barry made a grab for her, luckily he got her. We got the saddle off her and walked her back to the yard we couldn’t believe it, we were so lucky she didn’t even have a cut on her. The event really hit home to me how careful you need to be and how quickly thing can go wrong.

After this happened it made Lola very nervous with us catching her, touching her and really scared of the saddle, numner, her rug anything going under her belly and anything touching her back legs. At this point Carly and I were worried that our lack of experience on breaking a horses was making this too hard for us. So we started looking for some help and advice with breaking Lola but we were not having much luck and sending her off to be broken professionally was going to be to expensive for us.

By now Lola’s feet where not doing very well they were getting a few cracks and chips and very long and uneven so we really needed to get them sorted out. Some people had suggested a gel that the vets could prescribe to calm horses down so we rang up. When we asked they said it wouldn’t be powerful enough. So they suggested that we have her knocked out and then the farrier can do her feet, this turns out to be quite expensive when the bill comes through. So this made it more important for us to find someone to help us with Lola. One afternoon my Dad came home said I’ve got something for you and it was a leaflet for an equine behaviorist called Amanda Dixon we read the leaflet and it sounded like she could help us. So we rang up Amanda and arranged for her to come and see Lola.