Keep calm and ride on

Here's another horsey update

Basse has now gotten himself some kind of virus/bacterial infection which is causing him to cough a lot when being exercised. When he is in his stable, outside in the paddock or just walking, he doesn't cough but as soon as he starts to move, the coughing starts. It's that kind of cough where he pulls his head down as much as he can and coughs so hard that you nearly fall off. He manages to do some trot work without constantly coughing, but its only possible to get one small circle in canter before he has to start coughing.

The vet visited us in the morning and checked him over. She listened to his breathing which according to her is quite raspy, so there's probably some kind of infection in his lungs. She also took some blood, and the test results come back tomorrow, and then we'll know whether it's a virus or a bacteria. If this is caused by bacteria, then we will start Basse on an antibiotics course immediately. If it's a virus, then we shall just have to wait for it to pass. Luckily the vet said the she is totally sure that it is not the equine herpesvirus! The vet also gave him some cough medicine which he now gets twice a day for a week. 

Basse's cough medicine

Rama, Vallu and Nelli are all doing good. Rama is starting to work more with mother now that Vallu is starting to coming back into work. Mother is still kind enough to let me borrow Rama for dressage lessons/competitions. 

Rama in neon green!

Vallu has started calm down a little bit. The first few rides (which you can read about here) have been like sitting on a live ticking time bomb! Now that he is getting used to the fact we do infact get to trot instead of doing just boring walk work, he has relaxed. Although we still have daily arguments about him wanting to do a continuous medium trot with a high neck position and me wanting a more relaxed, slower and a lower neck position; but I have even managed to get a couple of minutes normal working trot with no explosions! Today we even got some softness to the contact because I wasn't having to always break and slow Vallu down. This week we can do a grand total of 10 minutes of trot work, so hopefully Vallu will start to chill even more once he gets used to the work. I can't wait for next week when we get to start doing some canter work!

Vallu and the dreadful poles which were so scary to walk past