A busy weekend, a brilliant weekend

Lots has been happening over the weekend - and in fact the various departures and arrivals are not over till later on today.  But although its been very busy its also been very satisfying - definitely one of the better ones!

The gorgeous photos above though are not of any of the horses here - instead its dear old Ginger, who went home in February, wild and woolly, and who went out and won a double first prize at the weekend - the first time he has been showing since being "written off" last year :-)

He had improved significantly while he was here, but has come on in leaps and bounds in the few months since then, despite the odd setback.  Now he is looking a million dollars and is an absolute credit to Danielle (gotta love that fabulous landing!).

Meanwhile, back on Exmoor, Aileen came to see Lenny, who has come on phenomenally over the last 6 weeks.   When he arrived, he came straight from box rest (albeit having been on a horsewalker for an hour a day) and had a tendency to try and barge out of his box and make for the hills.   He was also in bar shoes and landing toe first, and these were the first things that I tried to help him improve.

As well as having feet which are rapidly regaining health, leading to him being sounder and more balanced, he is also now a much more relaxed character.  Instead of trying to tank off and then buck under saddle, he now behaves - as Aileen says  - like the old Lenny, happy to be out and with charming manners.

Dillon, who has been here 3 weeks, has also had a good weekend.   He is not able to do lots of roadwork yet but was more than happy to go out with Nicky round the farm and is very happy on the fields (as long as we under no circumstances expect him to cross water...which is a bit of a challenge on Exmoor after  week of rain!).  

Stupidly I hadn't told Nicky we might be doing this but she managed to dig out a hat and some boots from her car and, after being doused in flyspray, Dillon behaved perfectly so we were all pleased.

Lenny and Dillon are actually both very good examples of what I was trying to talk about last week.  Both had been on box rest with no - or very restricted  - access to other horses before they arrived.  Both were handfuls initially - Dillon (who had been on complete box rest) relaxed almost as soon as he had a bit of room to mooch about and some chilled out companions.

Lenny was also happier as soon as he had contact with other horses but also seemed enormously relieved once he was back in a "proper" work schedule, and in fact the more regularly he works the happier and more satisfied he seems to become. 

All in all, a very happy weekend :-)  Hope yours was as good, and lets hope it augurs well for the week ahead!