PICTURES : PRE Rescue gets her first bathe after four months.

MDB

MDB

Well-Known Member
Joined
29 June 2014
Messages
955
Location
Spain.
Visit site
It has been four months since we rescued our sweet PRE mare who has turned out to be an adorable goofball. I am so in love! Spring has arrived and so today she had her first bathe and shampoo. I wasn't sure how she would react and although nervous at first she was a superstar. It took me an hour and a half to comb out all the knots in her tail and plait her mane in an attempt to get it all to fall onto one side. Ofcourse when finished she went straight to a nice muddy patch for a good roll... sigh! At least her tail and mane are done!! Hopefully below are some pics of how she looks now and when we rescued her.

image.jpg1_zpsvgg9ashf.jpg


20141113_1659592_zpsb6e4056f.jpg


20141115_125024_zps7427d667.jpg
 
i love this horse!!! she is the sister to Mr P ( minus the big cresty neck!) same colour and tiny little hooves!!, has she a brand on her OP?
I wonder if a high withered wintec saddle or Thorogood might fit her, med gullet? what do others think now
you are doing a fab job, she is such a lucky girl.xxx
 
Shady said:
i love this horse!!! she is the sister to Mr P ( minus the big cresty neck!) same colour and tiny little hooves!!, has she a brand on her OP?
I wonder if a high withered wintec saddle or Thorogood might fit her, med gullet? what do others think now
you are doing a fab job, she is such a lucky girl.xxx
Click to expand...

Haha. :) thank you.

Interestingly she is branded.. i so hate it. It is quite faint, i think it says 'M'.

I also would be interested to hear people's thoughts on saddle. She is incredibly high withered.
 
That second picture brings out so much emotion, the head shot of you both just shows trust and love for the future and when you pan out and see her body and what she must have been through it just shows what amazing creatures they are that she still has that in her to give to another human being.

Well done you she looks fantastic now
 
YouOnlyLiveOnce said:
That second picture brings out so much emotion, the head shot of you both just shows trust and love for the future and when you pan out and see her body and what she must have been through it just shows what amazing creatures they are that she still has that in her to give to another human being.

Well done you she looks fantastic now
Click to expand...

I know.. she was so trusting from the start. Funnily enough when we went to view her, she was a prospective horse for my OH. We had no idea that she was in such a state. When we saw her I said to my OH.. 'she is too small for you, she has been so badly abused and she is so nervous. We should not take her.. god knows what we would end up with.' And he replied.. 'trust me. I like her. I know I can't ride her, but we can't leave her'...
She spent the first day running away when you approached. Terrified. And then we just clicked and she wouldn't leave my side. :) :)
 
MDB said:
Haha. :) thank you.

Interestingly she is branded.. i so hate it. It is quite faint, i think it says 'M'.

I also would be interested to hear people's thoughts on saddle. She is incredibly high withered.
Click to expand...
yes the brands are massive, P's got a whopping great H on his bum, i've been trying to trace it, translated it to Hierro , i think it means iron and just for something to do i've been looking for the Hacienda or whatever he came from. no luck so far.
i wonder if your girl will go the same lovely creamy silver as mine in the summer with a faint dappling on the hind quarters.
i'm also wondering if some of the spanish saddles might suit her, i sympathize with you , we had a hell of a job with our boy, he is short backed and high withered, because OH is a novice we got a Wintec Pro Stock saddle and it's lovely on him, short ,adjustable gullet ,comfy and safe !!
 
Shady said:
yes the brands are massive, P's got a whopping great H on his bum, i've been trying to trace it, translated it to Hierro , i think it means iron and just for something to do i've been looking for the Hacienda or whatever he came from. no luck so far.
i wonder if your girl will go the same lovely creamy silver as mine in the summer with a faint dappling on the hind quarters.
i'm also wondering if some of the spanish saddles might suit her, i sympathize with you , we had a hell of a job with our boy, he is short backed and high withered, because OH is a novice we got a Wintec Pro Stock saddle and it's lovely on him, short ,adjustable gullet ,comfy and safe !!
Click to expand...

I can never understand the branding. Our Lusitano has an enormous F with a huge circle around it. Do you have pics of your boy with his summer coat? Would love to seem them.
I already bought a saddle for her.. the best I could get here for her shape, but it slips forward into the gap behind her shoulders where she should have more muscle. I am coming back to the UK later in spring so will take a look at maybe trying something else. I think if I can do some work with her to build up her topline it will make things easier.. but it is tricky as I have nowhere to lunge her or school her and only have hacking. I got a Nuumed saddle pad with shims to help temporarily.
Interstingly she has some curious marks on her back.. patches of darker hair in the exact shape of where a saddle would go. So I suspect she was ridden for a long long time with ill fitting saddles.
 
I've so enjoyed following your posts (in a non stalker type way...) she looks absolutely amazing now, you've done a tremendous job with her - I think she will be your and your OHs horse of a lifetime - she will be so connected to you through what you've been through :)
 
MDB said:
I can never understand the branding. Our Lusitano has an enormous F with a huge circle around it. Do you have pics of your boy with his summer coat? Would love to seem them.
I already bought a saddle for her.. the best I could get here for her shape, but it slips forward into the gap behind her shoulders where she should have more muscle. I am coming back to the UK later in spring so will take a look at maybe trying something else. I think if I can do some work with her to build up her topline it will make things easier.. but it is tricky as I have nowhere to lunge her or school her and only have hacking. I got a Nuumed saddle pad with shims to help temporarily.
Interstingly she has some curious marks on her back.. patches of darker hair in the exact shape of where a saddle would go. So I suspect she was ridden for a long long time with ill fitting saddles.
Click to expand...

i suspect you are right regarding the saddle and marks , we had the same thing and like you i have no flat land, we just hacked out a lot walking when P was fit enough to go out, took nearly a year to get him there and he'd lost a lot of muscle by then and was fat, same problem with the saddle too and no fitters in this god forsaken bit of France!!, started with a treeless, then the Wintec, good idea with the Nuumed pad, keep gently hacking her, up and down hills worked great for P.
will pm you a photo of P but a summer one will have to wait as they were on my old laptop which blew up!!
 
Mum had a Lavinia Mitchell saddle fitted last week, Julie said she does a lot of PREs as they are hard to fit yet high withered and some can be quite wide!

Must add she's a different horse, amazing change
 
Wow, she looks amazing. What a huge change in just 4 months! Do you mind me asking what you've been feeding her and what kind of exercise she's been doing? I've just bought a horse whose hindquarters look similar to hers in the before picture and I'd love to get him looking like she does now in a few months time :)
 
Shady said:
i suspect you are right regarding the saddle and marks , we had the same thing and like you i have no flat land, we just hacked out a lot walking when P was fit enough to go out, took nearly a year to get him there and he'd lost a lot of muscle by then and was fat, same problem with the saddle too and no fitters in this god forsaken bit of France!!, started with a treeless, then the Wintec, good idea with the Nuumed pad, keep gently hacking her, up and down hills worked great for P.
will pm you a photo of P but a summer one will have to wait as they were on my old laptop which blew up!!
Click to expand...

Which part of France are you in? your boy sounds just like my mare! If you do find a pic I would love to see him.
 
Caballito said:
Wow, she looks amazing. What a huge change in just 4 months! Do you mind me asking what you've been feeding her and what kind of exercise she's been doing? I've just bought a horse whose hindquarters look similar to hers in the before picture and I'd love to get him looking like she does now in a few months time :)
Click to expand...

thank you :) I definitely need to get a whitening shampoo to get those yellow stains out though!

At first I just stuck her in the field with grass and gave her controlled grazing, plus some hard feed which I bought locally (contains alfalfa, corn, vitamins and minerals) and I slowly added in corn oil about half a cup a day. Then I gave her free reign for grazing after about 10 days and added in hay, continued with hard feed and oil. It took about two weeks before I could even see any difference and three to four months to look like this. She is now off 90% of hard feed and on good grazing grass in the day and hay at night.

I started exercising her after about two weeks and just built up some in hand walking and introduced hills slowly, building up to some quite steep 15 minute climbs. Then I started riding after her wither wound (which she arrived with) healed up which was about two months on... Unfortunately I am having some difficulty with saddle fit and she needs more topline and is very high withered so I have only been riding her for short hacks about once a fortnight until I can get a better fitting saddle or build up her topline. :) we will get there though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top