The end. :(

Well, I've tried my best with the insurance company, but they are not going to pay for the further treatment the vet wants to try to get Bonnie sound. Much as I love my Bonnie, with just my pub salary I really can't afford the £600 plus callout fees that Adequan injections would cost. :(

So it's been decided that Bonnie will be given the summer off to see if she comes sound. It would be great if she does, in which case we'll be doing very light hacking, until next year when I'll be off to the Royal Vet College (fingers crosed! :D) and she can go to live out the rest of her life in a nice field with shelter behind my house (... once I've sorted the fencing and a companion out!). If not, she will be officially retired at the end of the summer and can enjoy an extra year of mooching about in her field, weather permittig. :)

I've had a great six years with Bonnie in my life, having owned her for 3 of those. She's got me through some pretty shitty times, and I'm always going to be thankful to her for that. She's got a home for life with me whatever happens. :)

:)

Ooh, I havent posted anything in ages.

All is well in the land of Bonnie. The vet came to see her a few weeks ago, and basically told me to bring her back into full work and see how she goes. She still wasn't totally happy with her soundness behind when she trotted on a circle, but we're not going to know what the future holds for her in terms of workload unless we see how she copes doing a bit more than she was.

So currently, we're continuing with the hacking, whilst also incorporating some schooling into her workload. At the moment I'm on study leave, so am hacking her 3 or 4 days a week and schooling 1 or 2 days, depending on work/open days/other random commitments. :) She is seeming pretty comfortable with what we're doing, aside from a minor blip last week, when she felt a bit lame behind when I rode her. I gave her a bute and a day off and she seemed fine after that... so hopefully we can carry on as we are until the vet comes back again.

I'm hoping we'll be able to start doing a bit more, but if not, I'll just be carrying her on with low level work to keep her going as long as I can. Much as Bonnie would be happy to spent the rest of her life growing older and fatter in the field with Mayfly, I really think 11 is too young to consider retirement, haha. :)

Fun in the sun!

I love the sun! :) Except for the fact it seems that the bright sun, combined with all the pollen and such like in the air, is making Bonnie's headshaking much worse at the moment. Her nosenet helps a lot, but she still flips her head about in trot a bit and constantly wants to rub her head and nose on anything she can.

But all in all, she is a very cheery pony, living out in her nice green grassy field with Mayfly, and only coming in to get some love, fuss and her daily, drugged-up feed! We go for some nice walky/trot-y hacks too... although silly horse does occasionally try to break into canter when we hit any kind of grassy track, haha. We've built up to quite a few long-ish trots on longer hacks anything up to an hour and a half... although I had to be quicker when I went to see her today so we just went out for a quick 40 minute hack. I also randomly decided to ride bareback today for a change. I think Bonnie enjoyed not having a girth done up round her, and I enjoyed the fact that I still have pretty good balance and haven't lost my core stability completely seeing as I haven't been riding much recently! :)

Rain, rain, go away.

Bonnie and Mayfly did not seem happy about having been out in the rain overnight when I got there this morning. :) Mayfly was standing at the gate shouting at me, whilst Bonnie was hidden in the field shelter. The two fat mares were very happy to come in and get a handful of haylage each.

After I'd mucked out and poo picked, I took Bonnie for a lovely hack in the rain. She was in a bit of a stupid mood again, we had a minor rebellion when she saw a dog walker up ahead. Obviously, the best thing to do in such a situation is to start backing up into a ditch...

We were probably out for about an hour in all. Bonnie seems much happier to be having longer and more frequent trots now, she's always quite full of herself when we first leave the yard, trying to jog off and doing weird spinny things etc, but after a couple of trots she settles down nicely. She wasn't very happy today though, I took her along this track at the side of a field which she seems to associate with being allowed to have a gallop. :) She tried to tank off with me at a canter, and got very annoyed when I made her stop and do a civilised trot.

She'll probably just be having a short ride tomorrow seeing as I have to work at the pub at lunchtime, hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer for us!

Happy times.

Well, I'm on Easter holidays, and Bonnie is living out now... so we are both happy. :)

We're still building up Bonnie's trot work... although at times it is a bit of a battle to keep her in trot! When we went for a hack with Catherine and Ben on Sunday she kept trying to break into canter, regardless of me trying to convince her she needs to taking things easy. And yesterday she was doing her best 'wild horse' impressions with some spectacular rearing and spinning at nothing in particular. She's really not doing a very good job of being 'arthritic'! Bloody horse nearly got me off. I also think that's when I lost my phone too... I think it fell out when she reared and span to the side and I kind of ended up clinging to her neck haha. Oh dearrrrr.

I just hope the vet is happy with her progress when she next comes to see her. For the sake of both our sanities, I think I just need to be able to let her have a canter! :D

:)

Well, it's been more of the same, really. Little walky hacks, Hibiscrubbing her leggies and feeding her Budgens Value apples, ahaha.

She had a leisurely weekend moseying about in the field... although I did see her and Mayfly decided to have a bit of a moment and go charging about the field together on Saturday. :) So today we went for a bit of a longer hack, and had a short trot on the homeward stretch. Bonnie seemed to be feeling a little full of herself today as it was, she was being quite silly and spooky, so she was more than eager to go springing off into a power-trot, ahah. We only did a few strides, which she was not happy about and decided to do some kind of weird sidestep and drag me into a hedge... laddered my tights! (Yes, I do ride in shorts and tights, cos I'm cool! :D)

So providing she seems comfortable tomorrow, and in subsequent days, we'll be building up her trot work over the next couple of weeks.

Walky walky walky.

Well, Bonnie has been back on turnout again since yesterday, and she's seeming much more chilled about this walking out in a straight line business. Although we do still have quite a lot of spooking and trying to run off to deal with. Why does all the wildlife seem to emerge as soon as I set off for a hack?!

But yeah, we're starting to build up the walk work slightly so she is doing a bit more, before we start incorporating some short trots as well. Today we had our first longer walk, of just over 45mins. It was about as eventful as walking can be, with various pheasants and ducks and tarps and things to overcome. At one point I ended up having to get off because she decided she didn't want to walk past a flower pot or something and decided to put in a little rear! Which really really really can't be good for her hocks, so instead of battling to get her past it I just walked ahead of her and that solved all her issues with it. :)