Quick update

A quick, much needed update on things !

We have bought a lovely new house with land and now have the horses at home, which is fantastic. We are sooooooo busy though, building stables, draining the land, planting vegetable patches, chasing chickens and generally trying to sort the place out!

I have been building up my breeding stock - we now having 8 really good quality warmblood and Trakehner broodmares (except Marcie, who is Criollo not warmblood). Belle and Tess are due to foal anytime now. Tess has gone to Landford common stud, Wiltshire to have her foal and will be put back in foal for next year to their fabulous black Trakehner stallion UTOPIAN OPPOSITION, before coming home with her ROULETTE foal. Belle is going to foal at home and we are very excited about meeting her ROULETTE foal.

Marcie is due to foal in a couple of months to CENTYFIELD NICO and is growing nicely round! Nita is at End House stud being covered by THURSDEN VALLYE RAPHAEL.

Plassey and Libby are being covered by John Whitaker's prize winning stallion RANDI and will go to stud mid April.

Our newest additions Prisda and Korrie are going to be AI'd at a local insemination centre and I think I have decided on their stallions but have not confirmed anything yet.

I have only my breeding mares now and will now be running a full time breeding business. I am not selling riding horses at the moment and do not have any plans to do so in the future (but never say never!).

Good morning,

I thought I would add some photos and info that have been sent to me by new owners. I have been meaning to put some on for a while.

Melody, who we sold at the beginning of the year is doing well in her new home and her owner, Michelle is hoping to have her sarcoids lasered off next year. She says that they love Melody and that she has settled in well, despite occaisonally seeing "hedge-monsters" when out and about! Here are some photos of them both.

Koala has arrived and settled into her new home in Scotland and Joanne and her daughter are very pleased with her. I do not have any photos, but will try and get some soon!

Monty is absolutely adored in his new home. I have recieved a lovely email from Claire and her daughters saying how much they love him. They sent lots of gorgeous photos (but I am waiting for their permission before publishing them on here!. One photo was Monty hacking through a stream - he looks fantastic and we are so pleased that he has found a great family to love him.

Ruby is also doing fantastically - I bought her straight out of training, and had the intention of schooling her over the summer. I made her a profile on my website (as I always do for our horses, even our mares in foal) but hadn't advertised her and wasn't really planning to for a while). However, a local girl, Kate (who kept her other horse in the next village) saw her picture and was looking for a young horse to bring on herself. She came to see Ruby and loved her and we delivered her last week. She has already hacked Ruby in traffic and she was as good as gold. I am sure that they will do really well together. I will try and get some photos of the pair of them this summer.

Malteser, who we sold last Autumn, didn't get on so well in her new home. She was bought by a lovely teenage girl, who found Malteser too strong (and a bit too big) for her. Due to my back operation, I wasn't previously in a position to have her back, but now that I can ride again I have bought her back and hope to find her a more suitable home. She is a nice mare and is extremely good-looking although she can be awkward to catch without food (she is easy to catch with a bucket). I have got to re-assess her this week to make sure she hasn't picked up any bad habits before anyone can come and try her - but I am open to enquiries about her.

I have also just bought 2 more ex-racers from a trainer - these 2 have had a few months off and are not "racing fit" and are both geldings, aged 5 and 9. I think we will collect them next week, so watch this space for photos.

Sierra is having the vet (to sedate her) and then the dentist this afternoon. The dentist came last week, but Sierra was not too keen on his grinder! Her back teeth really need attention as they are unevenly worn and will certainly be giving her Jaw-ache - which should hopefully sort out her fussiness in the mouth when ridden with a tight contact. The dentist said that it could take up to 2 weeks to see a difference after her teeth are corrected, as the position of her jaw will change slightly and the ligaments will take a while to adjust.

I will take some dental photos today and put them on here later!

Bye for now x

Rain, mud and blood!

Hello everyone,

I have had a really busy day today (in the pouring rain)and i still don't think I have dried off completely yet!

To start the day, Rose's new owner arrived with her trailer. Rose (as we predicted) was totally unimpressed with being seperated from Jalpa, her partner in crime. She spent an hour inching up the ramp of the trailer, refusing to budge/swinging her quarters off the ramp before reluctantly deciding to go in out of the rain. Once in, Rose seemed very settled - Jalpa on the other hand went nuts and started galloping up and down the field screaming her head off.

She some how managed to catch her shoulder on a bolt on the post and rail gate as she was cantering past, which resulted in a visit from the vet and some stitches and staples. As you will see from the photos, the wound looks pretty nasty, but the vet said that luckily it was in a fleshy/muscley place and hadn't interfered with any major blood vessels and that she should recover well.

She is being kept well sedated for the next 24 hours to stop her damaging her stitches, but seemed very settled when i left her at 8pm tonight.

We had a new thoroughbred arrive today, she is very, very pretty and friendly and i'm hoping it is not going to rain all day tomorrow so that I can ride her! I did take the camera with me to take a photo of her, but like an idiot, left the memory card at home (and had filled my mobile phone up with Jalpa injury pictures!) So photos of her will be coming shortly. Her racing name was "Elevate Jack" - which we didn't think was very lady-like, so we have given her the stable name of "Velvet".

I have lots more to say, but can't keep my eyes open - so will say it tomorrow instead! Good night - Lucy x

Lincolnshire show

Good morning,

We spent the day at the Lincolnshire show yesterday. Jon had some newspaper work to do and a few people to meet there but it also gave us the chance to show the children some nice horses and other animals.

We watched some of the hunter classes and Violet insisted on stroking all the horses in the grooms area (which we sneaked into and nobody seemed to notice).

We noticed in the programme that Candy (a thoroughbred we sold last year)was competing in the re-trained racehorse class. The class involved jumping a course of 3 foot rustic fences and 2 coloured showjumps, followed by a short ridden display and a gallop. The marks were given for jumping style, conformation and suitability as a riding horse. Candy looked really smart and Gavin rode him really well. He had a couple of poles down but all in all did really well (and did an impressive gallop - bearing in mind that Candy is lazy!). Candy behaved like an angel in the warm-up and collecting ring and didn't seem to mind all the activity. I have attached some photos of them both in the ring.

I have a couple of new horses, a grey Irish jumping mare called Koala and an iron grey thoroughbred (unraced) mare called Sierra. They are both still being assessed but photos are on my website.

I had a check up with my spinal consultant on Tuesday - really good news! He said that as i have no pain and numbness now and it has been over 2 months since my op, I can start riding again. I have already been doing a small amount of riding (but this was against doctors orders).

I am obviously going to take it easy and not do too much - and certainly won't be riding any confirmed lunatics! I should however, be able to ride a couple of safe horses a day without a problem. My baby bump is growing but I have always ridden during previous pregnancies, just no competing, cross country or breaking in youngsters.

spinal disaster!

Hi everyone,

I haven't blogged for ages due to various disasters! I know that this blog must make me sound super accident prone (which i obviously am,as the last 6 months have been just one thing after another!)

After mending my broken finger (Dec)I somehow managed to slip a disc in my back in April. I don't really know what specific incident hurt my back (and luckily it wasn't a big horse crash otherwise i would have had years of "horses are dangerous etc" from Jon!).

Since training and competing in triathlons in 2007/8 I had developed an aching pain deep in my bum cheek, which wasn't super-painful but did make me go to see a sports physio. The physio did all the proper checks and put it down to periformis/sciatic nerve problems and gave me a range of exercises to do.

The pain suddenly got worse one day in April (about 2 hours after I did some jump schooling on Tess). I couldn't get comfortable that night in bed and woke up in the middle of the night with a numb back and bum. I also went for a wee and found that nothing was happening and i knew something wasn't right.

I googled "numb bum can't urinate" on the internet and everything i read suggested i had a rare condition called Caudal Equina syndrome.

I went to the doctors and he was very dismissive telling me a probably had a bladder infection!? I put my foot down and made him read the medical pages i had found online and within a minute of reading it he buzzed straight through to the spinal unit at the QMC.

I went into hospital, was assessed by the spinal consultant and given an MRI scan (where your whole body goes into a space-age tube!). The scan revealed that i had slipped a large disc and it had snapped off and was compressing the spinal nerves that supplied my bladder.

Despite being 13 weeks pregnant they had to operate immedietely under general aneasthetic. I was told that if they didn't operate within 24 hours there was a good chance i could lose all bladder and bowel function and in some cases use/sensation of legs.

The operation went well and i had to stay in hospital for over a week. I had an ultrasound after the op and the baby appeared to be fine (i am now 21 weeks pregnant and she is completely healthy).

I was told no running, triathlon or horse riding for months. My absolute favourite!

It has now been 7 or 8 weeks since my op and my back has healed brilliantly and i can wee normally (i had to have a nasty cathetor for 3 weeks after the op and we were worried that i had sustained permanent nerve damage either before or during the op, but all is fine now).

I am fully mobile and have been walking 2 miles a day for the last 4 weeks. I have ridden a few times in walk (and a tiny bit of trotting) and been out for a few hacks (on 100% safe horses) but am not doing too much as riding is very concussive.

I initially panicked and decided to sell all the riding/dealing horses and just keep my mares. Monty, Ellie and Az have all been sold now. Because i am more mobile than i originally thought i would be, i have decided to keep selling a few carefully selected ponies/small horses but am not handling youngsters or breaking in again until next year.

We still have 4 broodmares and a couple of riding/selling ponies which the girls have been exercising.

Tessy and Belle have been scanned in foal and we are collecting them from stud tomorrow. We are taking Nita and Marcie to stud and doing a swap over.

I will try to post something more horsey and less disaster-striken soon!

Lucy x

Blood-tests and blacksmith-games

I am 12 weeks pregnant now and have stopped feeling sick all the time (as predicted in my last blog!). Nita, Tess and Belle had their C.E.M swabs done this week and Tess and Belle also had an E.V.A blood test (Nita didn't need one as she was vaccinated against E.V.A in Sweden). A friend of mine has suggested that i breed from a mare she has. She is a 15hh coloured ex polo pony, I am probably going to put her in foal to a 15hh warmblood that I like the look of.

I took Nita showjumping last night and won the 85cm and 95cm classes, we had 7 faults in the 105cm class - one pole down when we took off a stride out and a refusal at the last jump because I didn't put enough leg on, both were my fault and not Nita's.

Dee amd I hacked Finn and Ellie this week, Finn was great in the lead and behind and we went past very heavy traffic and along the bridleway (where he had never been before). I jumped him over a combination of 4 different jumps in the field out of trot and he was such a good boy.

I gave the girls a lesson today on Micky and Monty, they did some lovely trotting around the field and both the girls seemed in better control of their ponies today! Micky is an ex-riding school pony and will run off and eat grass whenever he gets the chance, Monty is just green and has never been taught manners with a rider on board. Since they are being ridden regularly they are both coming along nicely.

I bought Rose her first show jacket yesterday, she looks very smart in it. Both the girls (my Rosie and Rosie who owns Micky) are getting very excited about doing some showing classes and lead-rein jumping over the summer. They have even decided where they are going to pin up their rosettes!

I caught Rosie and Daisy playing blacksmiths the other day - Dais was on all fours whilst Rosie hammered imaginery shoes onto her hands and feet using a wooden mallet. I liked this and thought It was a far more interesting game than playing Barbie.

Black Is Back

Hello everyone, sorry it has been a while since blogging. I am 9 weeks pregant and have been spending far too much time with my head down the toilet! I am not worried though, I have been sick during all my pregnancies and the good news is that it goes away after the first 12 weeks.

Melody and Laudie have been sold to lovely homes and I have bought 2 new mares, Nita and Belle. They are both black, beautiful and bought for us to breed from this year. They have great bloodlines and Nita has a fantastic competition history. Tess is also being put in foal, she is going to End House Stud in May, along with Belle. Nita needs to put on some condition first, so will probably be going to the same stud when we collect the other 2 (who hopefully will be scanned in foal by then).

The kids are getting very enthusiastic about the horses now that it is getting drier and lighter. They had their first jumping lesson at the weekend and were very good. I will attach some pictures to this blog. Finn is coming on really well and is hacking now in busy traffic all by himself! I was getting sick of his long mane, so hogged it with a pair of scissors at the weekend! It is a bit bobbly but I still think he looks handsome.

I am hoping to take Ellie jumping on Friday night to do 65cm, 75cm and 85cm classes and possibly going jumping on Sunday day time to do 95cm and 105cm trailblazer classes (although not decided which horse to take yet).

My short-term plan at the moment is to advertise Ellie and Finn in the next month (they are both ready for sale). I will replace them with either one selling horse and another broodmare or 2 selling horses. Being pregnant, I will have to avoid youngsters or nut cases! Not that I make a habit of buying nut-cases, I hasten to add!

We have finished collecting woodchip now and have collected loads of huge silage bags from the family farm to lay down as a retaining/weed membrane. We are now just waiting for the JCB to level the ground and shift the woodchip.