i'm in the Midi Pyrenees , absolutely masses of Spanish horses here, it's very popular with the dealers to nip to Spain and buy job lots at the auctions, sadly i see alot of really neglected ones here and when we saw P it was obvious he had had a hard life, horrible hooves, wounds, scars, bad hock, head shy, badly fitted saddle, etc, etc. it was love at first sight for my OH and he is an awesome horse now!!!!( if hilariously naughty)
thank you
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.
She looks amazing
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.
