Grass, footiness and taking things forward

I thought this email from Lynn yesterday was very interesting - lots of good news about Lady, which is wonderful, but also a very interesting history of what happens when horses struggle with grass.  


"Hi Nic,


Thought you might like to know that Lauren and Lady jumped their first full clear round and clear jump off at 2ft 3" last night at our local club meet! They did not place, as they took 23.4 seconds in the jump off with the winner doing it in 16 seconds, but they were brilliant and looked really together and confident, a real team!!! Lady is such an amazing jumping pony and with more practice for all of us, has the potential to take Lauren really far (I am jumping her but only as the guinea pig to show her the jumps so she is not scared when Lauren takes her in, Ha!) We are all coming on well and are really buzzing 
from it!!


So far Lady is not suffering from digital pulses even though she is out on the grass all the time, although there is not a great deal of grass and her area has been confined to half of the top field where her and Thomas were, but even so we monitor it daily as routine and she is doing great. [This is BRILLIANT work by Lynn, Dave and Lauren as Lady last summer could not tolerate grass at all when she went home] We have kept up her mineral intake and excercise her regularly with road and moorland work. Lady is sure footed and is comfortable over the largest of stones and rocks!!! I am still in awe of the work you did with her and how far she has come and that apart from a few hiccups along the way we have managed to keep her good. So please tell your clients that if we can do it then anyone can!"


There is lots more to this than meets the eye - but the point about mineral uptake which Lynn mentions is very important.  I'll post more later, as Lady's story is similar in some ways to Oscar and Dilly, who were also ok on grass at night at Rockley (as was Lady) but footy on grass once they went home...