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

Health scare: Equine herpesvirus outbreak

Last week the equine herpesvirus arrived in Finland from Estonia, and so now everyone is closing their gates, canceling shows/competitions and trying to prevent further spreading of the disease. Let's just hope that this passes quickly and that we can prevent further infections and deaths from occurring. 

What to be on the look out for?

Clinical signs:

• coughing 
• fever (38.9℃- 41.7℃)
• nasal discharge
• general discomfort
• incoordination of the hind
• urine retention
• bladder weakness

Also keep an eye on your horse's eating - loss of appetite can also be a symptom!

Transmission routes?

• aerosol transmission → inhalation of droplets from coughing and snorting (NOTE: EHV virus is not as easily spread this way than the equine influenza) 
• indirect transmission → virus can be carried on people's clothing and skin so disinfectant and clean clothes are important!

Incubation period is 2-10 days after infection by any route, but can be as short as 24 hours!

How to try to avoid/prevent infection?

• practise proper bio-security measures to prevent people spreading → promptly disinfecting hands after handling different horses, changing clothing and footwear and wearing gloves can all help
• do not share equipment with other horses →  virus can be spread through contaminated objects such as water/feed buckets, tack and equipment
• direct horse to horse contact should be avoided → if at a show or competition, try not to let your horse touch/smell other horses

Don't panic (unlike myself, I've already had several panic attacks!), most horses recover from this in one to three weeks. There are several vaccinations available, just ask your vet!

Dressage lesson with Karita: creating softness and suppleness

Life is starting to settle back into a normal training and riding routine now that spring is arriving! My weekly lesson with Karita Kotikulma was on Thursday, and once again it was fantastic. I am so fortunate to have found a trainer who can teach me on any horse with no problems and still achieve so much improvement every single lesson no matter which horse I am riding. I had a lesson with Basse, whom I haven't ridden properly for a long time, and my last lesson with Basse must have been over a year ago!!  Luckily I know Basse so well that I had little trouble adjusting to him.

A great thing that I now admire about Karita is her ability to work with any horse. After having been to her lessons with both Vallu and Rama, I was a little apprehensive on whether she would be able to help me on a less advanced horse, but once again Karita showed how well she can teach any level horse. Those who have read Basse's page know that he is working at elementary level (HeA) whereas Vallu is working at Inter I and Rama at advanced medium (VaB)

Our lesson started with a basic warm up of trotting around the arena with Basse in a relaxed long and low frame to get him moving through his back. After several minutes, Karita asked for a slightly quicker from behind and more active trot, which I had to ask for in a very subtle way so that Basse's relaxation wouldn't disappear. Basse, on the other hand, had other ideas! Whenever I lightly tapped him with the whip or slightly used my spurs, he would either sprint off at a quick speed or then suddenly buck! We were not lacking in energy! 

Whilst on a large 20m circle, we then started flexing his neck to get him to be properly through. One of Basse's weaknesses is that he won't come completely through or relax his neck (even though he looks it and has fooled many a trainer and dressage judges with this!!) and thus he is not totally working through his back. This is something that most trainers don't pick up because it is such a exceptionally small difference, even though you can feel it through the reins from his mouth that he isn't completely soft. Karita noticed this straight away in our warm up and thus we began working on it immediately. On the 20m circle, the idea was to just move the inside hand a bit lower and a bit towards the inside in order to help Basse become totally round and soft in the neck. One of my greatest challenges is to keep my hand steady and still when it is in this position because for some reason I have a need to keep releasing the contact constantly, resulting in Basse becoming empty in the contact, and so all of the hard work goes down the drain! Once I got the hang of it and was able to keep my hands still, Basse became much softer and easier to ride.

After a short walk break where Karita and I discussed Basse's conformation and how Basse moves, we started on the canter work. Basse's canter is easily four beat if it is not ridden correctly, and if he is not collected or supported enough he will continuously fall down to trot. I have often felt that canter is Basse's weakest pace, but with Karita's help it started to feel and look really good! We did so many walk canter transitions that I can't remember the last time that anyone has made me do so many transitions during one exercise! At first, the exercise was just to do walk canter transitions on a 20m circle with a low inside hand. However, when the downward transitions from canter to walk were not very good, Karita suggested to do a small 8m circle straight after getting down to walk.

20m circle in canter with three 8m circles in walk

By using these small circles, Basse's walk improved because he didn't have the chance to lift his head up and thus had to carry on working through his back. Also on the small circles I had the chance to check that Basse was keeping his inside hind-leg underneath him and being totally straight through his body instead. Bu having a better walk, I then also got a much better, stronger and more For anyone who struggles to keep their straight and wants to improve their horse's canter, I really recommend this exercise!

After doing this exercise for a while in both directions Basse improved dramatically, and at the end of the lesson he felt so much better than at the beginning! My contact to his mouth was much softer, better and more elastic, Basse wasn't pulling on the left rein like at the beginning and he was much more active from behind. Near the end during our cooling down trot I was able to do small 10m teardrops for changes of direction without any problems, because he was much more through his neck and more responsive to my leg.

Unfortunately our camera ran out of battery right at the start of the lesson and the few photos that mother was able to take were all blurry which is such a shame! Luckily Karita is coming again next Thursday when we will continue to work with Basse, and hopefully someone will be able to come take some photos.

It was a very good day!

Riding Vallu is like sitting on a ticking time bomb. He isn't really concentrating, he just wants to go fast and whenever there is a slightly different noise, he will spook. With the sun warming everything, the snow is starting to melt, including the snow on the roof of the indoor arena. As it melts, some small chunks fall down and make a small noise which can be heard very well inside, resulting in one very jumpy pony! People moving around can also be a very frightening thing, which also means I have an even more explosive horse underneath me.

Nice hind leg action!

 Today we did 5 minutes of trot work, mainly during the long sides and a little bit on a 20 meter circle. 5 minutes flies past so quickly, I felt like I'd only been trotting for about 30 seconds! When Vallu doesn't want to walk forwards, he starts to piaffe and today he produced some pretty nice moves! Tomorrow we can 6 minutes, and I plan on riding him in the morning to test if he is calmer and more relaxed then.

And again, my wild inner ponyclub girl won the day and I had a short walk on Nelli without a saddle and without a bridle! I love this horse to pieces and I owe her everything, without her I wouldn't be riding today. 

Tomorrow I have lesson with Karita Kotikulma, but this time I will be riding Basse! I'm really looking forward to seeing Karita work her magic on Basse, and hopefully I'll get someone to take a video/photos!

This Saturday I will be doing a dressage competition at our neighbour's riding school with Rama. Mother decided to enter me in without consulting or talking to me first so I now have a few days to learn my test and get ready. I was going to complain, but then I decided to just accept the challenge and see how it goes! 

Learning the test!

And not a day goes by without some sort of hassle happening! Today Vallu decided to break his paddock a little bit!

Trying to look totally innocent!

Vallu had managed to break the pole in half so that the wires were on the ground! I'm amazed he didn't decide to just jump over them and wander off for a little walk... Luckily dad managed to fix it in the evening so that tomorrow he can go out again!

The pole should be on top of the wood shown by the pink arrow, not next to it!

Back in business!

Oh yeah baby! I have my partner in crime back with me! Today Vallu got the all clear from the vet, who said that his leg has improved very well, and that I am allowed to start riding him again. This is the best news of the entire month, if not the year. What an amazing start to April

Vallu's 2 month walking holiday ended this morning when our vet did an ultrasound scan to check his leg. When comparing these images to the ones taken 6 weeks ago, you can really see how much the leg has improved! After scanning Vallu's leg, our vet wanted to see Vallu in motion and to flex the leg to see how it responds, so the vet suggested lunging Vallu. After Monday's explosive ride I rejected the thought of lunging immediately, and so today I got to trot with Vallu with the first in two months - and oh my goodness how amazing it felt!! Although I felt like I was sitting on a time bomb that was ready to explode any moment, I couldn't care less because finally we were trotting! Vallu was not lame and moved well, so after changing the rein, doing big 20m circles and a bit of medium trot down the long side came the crucial flexion test. At this point I was shaking so much, because I was petrified that Vallu would start to show signs of lameness after the flexion. I was close to getting my boy back, and this was our last hurdle. No lameness, Vallu was just rearing to go and carry on trotting! At the end of the indoor I could not see where we were going because of the tears in  my eyes and I just trusted Vallu not to crash into the walls. 

I know that was pretty dramatic, but honestly these last two months have been such an awful emotional roller-coaster that my emotions ran pretty high today.

Within 6 weeks Vallu should be back in full training. The next 6 week back to work plan is in 3 two week stages. The first two weeks are to introduce trot work gently into our riding. We start with 5 minutes of trot work a day and during the two weeks bring this up to 15-20 minutes. During the second two week phase, canter work is bought in. Again, starting with 5 minutes and bringing it up to 10-15 minutes so that by the end of four weeks Vallu should be trotting and cantering 25-35 minutes a day, and the rest walking. After 4 weeks if everything is looking good, the trot and canter can be increased little by little so that at the end of the 6 weeks (14th May), we could start proper training. 

Our chiropractor was tending to Vallu, who then gave me a head massage!

Nelli has been making me feel like a pony rider again. Whilst mother was away on holiday, Nelli developed an allergic reaction which meant that she couldn't be ridden as her skin was broken where the saddle would go. This meant that she had lots of days off on holiday and lots of lunging. Last weekend when I was watching Satu ride Basse I was also walking Nelli. But because she got bored really quickly I then decided to ride her bareback without a bridle. Seems like my inner pony-girl came out! Nelli behaved so well even though she hadn't been ridden for the last five days!!

Evidence of wildness!

Hope you have all had a good day and happy riding everyone!