Jacko rides again

I decided that today Jack deserved a blog all of his own...

He has had a quiet summer partly because we have been so busy but also because he had a spell of lameness in August due to an abscess. He has had super-strange shaped hooves in the past, with severe wall deviation, for reasons too complicated to go into here (!) but this left him prone to hoof infections, which he duly succumbed to over the summer.

However, he seems to have come back from this better than ever, and certainly has grown a more symmetrical pair of hooves, though still weird enough to give some trimmers and farriers slepless nights (so they tell me!)...

Still Jack doesn't care, and is busy growing the best possible feet for himself, and feeling better than ever.

So today, now that he has been back in work a little while, Andy volunteered to take him hunting for a quiet mid-week hour or so, with Felix for support.

Jack came to us with lots of "labels", and with a quite ingrained fear of travelling, and although he has improved immeasurably, he had not been hunting or loaded to travel since April, so we were not sure how he would behave.

He got multiple gold stars, as he loaded straight onto the trailer, which he used to refuse to approach at all, and travelled like an absolute pro. His manners were perfect all morning, and hacking home along a fairly busy road (well, by Exmoor standards - so a lorry and coach, plus a few cars!) he was unflappable.

We were thrilled with him, and he seemed pretty pleased with himself as well, and it was great to see Jack's self-confidence so much higher than it used to be. I like this photo so much - it could be captioned "Well satisfied after a very good morning's work!". What a lovely chap he is, and what a long way he has come in 10 months :-)