Does anyone keep a diary for their horse?

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OvergrownShetland

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As title really! Does anyone keep a diary for what they did with their horse each time they ride?
I'm thinking about keeping a diary to monitor weight, and how our lessons/schooling goes each week, as in improvements, issues, exercises etc.
 
I used to, every single ride / day/ cost.

It was the cost that stopped me! I found that the cost was something I would rather NOT keep an accurate record of.

I liked dairying, but was surprised how little I referred to it. I now keep things like farrier etc in my usual diary, but not everything else. I do a blog though, so have a monthly round up....
 
Yes I have ever since I broke lucy in, I originally did it so that I could cost everything because she was originally bought to sell
I don't cost things now but I always record everything done, everyday :)
 
Yep I started to keep one a few months ago (just a copybook) of what I was doing in sessions, what had trouble with or needed to work on and what stuff was good. When I have lessons write down some tips or advice to remind myself. Also at back keep track of when farrier did shoes, when I wormed my horse, vaccines or injuries and what was done.
 
Kind of, I keep records of health issues/changes etc, but I do have a fair few horses around at the moment and a poor memory.

The comments about riding are the distance/time and how she and I coped. This is a record for me really because I have been very ill for 12 months so recording my progress is encouraging for me.
 
I keep an exercise daily diary and veterinary and wormer and trimming, all colour coded red for not ridden, yellow for walk and trot only, beige for lunge only, or green for cantering included in the exercise.
 
Nope, I've probably had my mare too long and know her too well by now to bother with a diary.

I do make notes on my phone of when she's due to be wormed/worm counted, shod, vaccinated etc.
 
I have been thinking of doing a "Jester's Journal" when he goes to be broken in and schooled....I'm hoping I will be able to refer to it and learn from any mistakes I make. Time will tell if this will prove to be a success lol :o
 
I have a Facebook group that I created and I invited my horse trainer and a couple of good horse friends. I post what I do with my horses and they're more then welcome to comment or to like or ignore its more for me then anything else.

I also post when the farrier comes out, when I have the vet what he did to whom stuff like that....
 
Yes when I was given the go-ahead to start riding him again last year after him nearly being written off I decided to record all ridden work. Found it very useful to keep track. now with the barefoot process it helps me keep tabs on his amount of roadwork etc. Also enter what the weather was like if he was calm or spooky where we went. It's also got saddler, dentist chiro dates etc.
 
Yes, we do. We keep a record of what he's done in terms of schooling/hacking, etc. during the week . . . including what he found difficult, breakthroughs we had. We also include things that may have happened on the farm to upset him - the stallions being on the yard, someone taking Rog out of the field, Frey coming in before him. Any changes of feed or changes in his intake of food/hay/haylage/water and the state of his stable (if unusual) are recorded. Lastly, we record what happens when he goes out to competitions/clinics . . . right down to what he was like to travel, whether he ate or drank, whether he stood nicely to be tacked up, etc.

We find it helps us spot patterns we might not have noticed, and our dressage trainer really uses it too. Doesn't take much time to fill in. I keep it on Excel so that I can graph a particular activity to see if we're doing less or more of it than we have in the past. As an example, when we moved to current yard, Z also changed jobs so was available to ride more often which meant Kal spent much less time on the lunge/in the Pessoa and more time on the walker (which we didn't have at previous yard) . . . that and no longer feeding him some of his forage from the floor resulted in a change in shape (and not for the good) . . . being able to look back at what we had been doing differently (without evening thinking about it), helped us work out why his topline had changed AND change our management/riding routine to reverse the process.

P
 
My mare writes her own diary. Has done since 2007!
In my defence I started the blog after being inspired by black beauty when I read it to my granddaughter as that is written from BB's perspective.
Load of nonsense mostly but fun to look back on and see what we were doing on specific days a year/2/3/4 whatever ago.
 
I use the 'Stable Mate' App to keep track of things like Farrier Visits, Worming dates, etc but apart from that not really. I do update my Facebook status regularly with what we have been up to so I guess that's a bit like a blog/diary and I used to write reports in a blog after a day's Hunting so I could remember all of the best bits! :)
 
Yes, I have one for cost which I try not to read, just document what I spend it (never including treats and luxuries) and I have another only since 2014 of our schooling, I had a chilled year in 2013 as we'd only just met one another but in 2014 it was my goal to focus, I find on a Monday morning I plan my week, what do I want to achieve this week, when will I ride. I am flexible for example I hacked last night when I'd planned to school but when I got to the yard the girls were tacking up, the sun was shining and it was too nice to refuse but we both enjoyed it and there are plenty more evenings for the menage like tonight!
Dairy is 3 months in and working really well.

http://geegeeandme.blogspot.co.uk/
 
I may have gone slightly overboard with mine, as each has an A4 folder with sections in to record vet/ farrier/ riding/ weight etc. Also have a diary section to keep note of general stuff like weather, behaviour, time in/out etc so if any of them have problems I can see if there was anything that had happened previously that may have affected them.
 
I keep a diary on Trot Online for my adventures with HippoHead, although I've not updated it for a couple of weeks or so so the next update is going to be fairly epic again. It's lovely to read back through it and see all the little things we've conquered, as well as the greater journey. I've also got a Facebook album for all his pictures. I keep meaning to match the two together and do a scrap book but never got around to it yet. Maybe some day I will have time. I also keep a shows diary which logs all our results in a little notebook. And then there's his folder with all his paperwork in. Each of mine have one a folder. For actual appointments I note times etc. in my own diary, but then note it in his diary if it's worth of noting, or just as an update.
 
Wrote a diary every day from the first day I had my horse to the day we lost him - 20 diaries in all. Have details of every competition, every lesson, routine health checks, diet, quirks/odd behaviour, proved invaluable looking back to sort out problems. Very careful not to put in too much details about how much things cost.........
 
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