Weekend update

Having said how BG generally takes good care of herself I got up there this morning to see a long line across her bottom where she has obviously been rubbing and has a line missing coat and looking very raw in some places. I also have no idea what she has done to her tail! It is one big matted mess and looks like she’s tucked half of it up in the middle of the rest and tied several big knots in it. Her tail is tough to brush but never with knots like this. I didn’t have time to sort it all out this morning, I think it is going to be a big job for tonight.

At least she was easy to catch this morning. She said hello to my husband in the field when he went to tell her breakfast was here, then walked straight down, into her shelter and head collar straight on. Last night she was not so good. She took a lot of herding to get away from the others and down to her shelter. When she eventually walked in she then refused to have her head collar on. To be fair to her it was windy and there are lots of noises from tractors working near by, but she can’t get away with it. We resorted to the hoof holding and lead rope round the neck trick again. I think she would have let the head collar go on just with one of us holding her hoof, but we did the lead rope round her neck too as I think it is safer for her to pull away from that than with someone holding her hoof. Head collar went straight on once I had a lead rope round her neck. From that to being perfect this morning….she is a funny girl.

Saturday I unfortunately didn’t actually get to spend much time with BG, and the wind was up again meaning there would have only been a little I could do with her anyway. I did some in-hand work on the Friday night with her in the wind but she was a little on her toes.

Sunday morning it was still so it really cheered me up to think I could spend a good chunk of time doing stuff with her.

She had a very thorough groom and was glowing afterwards. She really is beautiful even if I do say so myself. Unfortunately there were so many flies up the field the fly spray didn’t seem to be having much effect.

I lunged her, she was good but not as perfect as she was earlier in the week. The sun was beating down and her sides seemed to be heaving a lot, so we only did a bit of it in trot. Then I tried some positive association with the mounting block. BG eyed it with distrust and snorted as I led her round it. She got closer to it than last time and I led her up to it and halted her alongside. We ended as before with me stood on it giving her a treat, and she was quicker to overcome her fear and take the polo than last time.

The daft thing is I could probably just use another object as a mounting block and she wouldn’t have the fear association, though she would still be nervous of someone at a higher height than her.