A progress update on the newbie

scats

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Polly has been with me now for 3 and a half weeks and has settled in fantastically. For anyone who doesn't know, this is the one who had an injury in the winter and skinned the inside of her hock down to the bone. As a result, she is very weak in the quarters and effectively had hardly any muscle, which the vet at vetting said was the probably cause of her being about 1/10th lame on the lunge. I mulled over it, couldn't get her out my head and eventually bought her at a reduced price.

She's been seen by the physio who agreed that there is a cracking little horse in there and is confident that by spring, with the right rehab, she will be out doing some Intros, which was my plan anyway. Back wise she was fairly good, no major issues at all, just very weak over her quarters and had uneven muscle tone. We now have four weeks of exercises- ridden and inhand, then the physio is back out.
So our week is mostly made up of hacking, long-reining and in-hand raised pole work. Polly is taking to it fantastically and is already looking and moving like a different horse. She's fun to ride because she is quirky but not silly and I absolutely love her.

Some pictures...
When she arrived-


End of week 2


Now- not the best angle, so she looks fatter than she is, but does demonstrate some of the improvement in her quarters. I'll try and get a more side on picture later.


I had trouble picking her hind feet up when I got her, as a result of having had lots of fussing with her legs back when she did the injury. Sometimes she would play ball and be ok, and other times she would refuse to pick them up, dance around, slam them back down or kick out with them. I knew I wouldn't have any problems with this, as Ive always been good at dealing with ground issues. She now picks them up for me without any issues and for as long as I want.

I absolutely adore every bone in her body and I'm so glad I took the chance with her 😊
 
what a lovely update. She looks amazing!

Out of interest, as I am dealing with similar with a youngster at the moment, how did you work on the hind feet issue?
 
So glad it's all working out well with her.
She looks cracking - love the white stockings and fun, kindly face
 
Lovely to read, glad you went for it and are putting in the effort to give her the best chance. She's very lucky. Look at her chunky bum!
 
Thank you everyone. Shes very special to me already.

Out of interest, as I am dealing with similar with a youngster at the moment, how did you work on the hind feet issue?

Fairly easily if I'm honest, despite the fact that she was pretty indignant about it on the first day! I groom and do feet in the stable while they are eating their hay, not tied up, so I just started how I meant to go on. I was persistent, consistent and quietly determined. At first she was lifting leg high, then snatching it away or kicking out and slamming down. I just very calmly continued to ask. If she let me have it for even a couple of seconds (and let me put it down for her, so not her snatching it back), I gave her a little scratch on the neck and walked away for a moment as her reward. She got wise to this after a few times and her next trick was to just walk the stable constantly if I tried to touch her legs. I simply kept my hand on the leg and followed her. If she stopped, I moved away from her. She soon realised that it was much easier to stand still! Then I continued with asking her. With one hind I was able to pick the foot out the first day, with the other, I had to go a bit slower and accept a few seconds holding for the first couple of days. Day one it took me about 45 minutes to get them up and held. She continued to munch her hay in between so it was all very relaxed. Same on day two. By day three and four we were down to 20 minutes. By day 6 she was picking them straight up and letting me hold them up as long as I wanted, so she was sorted in less than a week.
 
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