29 August 2004 A work in Progress
Ruby, the "hunk of Fell pony", is now at home. I left her at my friend's place during the week that I had to be in work, so that she would get some hacking out under saddle while I didn't have so much time, but as soon as the end of that week came around, I organised Chantallamy to groom for me and we set off to bring Ruby home IMMEDIATELY!
When I arrived at the yard I could see a small problem - Ruby, in her gallops up the fell, had loosened a shoe, and she'd cast it in the field. It wasn't unexpected, as this set (her first full set) had been on perhaps 9 weeks and her feet were getting quite long. However, knowing that her feet are pretty hard (more on this theme later!) I wasn't too bothered about driving her home with a shoe missing.
She was, as usual, delighted to see us arrive, and stood happily while we harnessed up and put her to. Given the missing shoe, I opted to take the shorter route rather than the longer 5.5 mile one, and so we turned left through the village of Tebay. I have to say, this mare is a Christian as far as manners goes. There was a wedding at the chapel, with cars and crowds of people on the roadside; she just took it all in and kept on walking. The road was quite busy (it was mid-day Saturday), and we had to cross the railway and the motorway on a big bridge with mesh sides, so she saw all the traffic pouring along under her, but never bothered. Then we got onto the narrow side road that leads to my house, and she pulled away up and over the hill, which is a killer, and just kept on plugging away. Chantallamy hopped off to ease the load. We planned to give her a breather halfway up but met a car coming down, which promptly pulled off and blocked the lay-by I had meant to use... but Ruby didn't want to stop anyway. Wherever we were going, she wanted to get there! I have to admire the brains of this mare; she is all that my old mare Rosie was in the brains department, and higher class physically. She is what I hoped to get when I bought Kestrel (a Fell x Arab) as a foal; beauty, brains and power. I am just amazed by her. Of course, the big hill knocked some stuffing out of her, as she is just not used to handling a carriage up slopes like that, but she behaved beautifully and did not bother about meeting the traffic on that narrow road, not even 2 motorbikes (which have always been Mr T's Big Horror).
She was blowing hard by the time we got to the top, but coped well. She held the cart back going down the other side and trotted up the final pull to our yard. We took her out of the cart, unharnessed her and brushed her, and put her in the stable with a haynet (which she immediately dived into).
I brought Mr T round from the little paddock and put him in the adjoining box. He was gobsmacked - another pony! and a Fell! and FEMALE! he must have stood there most of the rest of the day, reaching out to touch her, as though he just couldn't believe it unless his nose was resting on her. Ruby, surprisingly, didn't do much squeeking and stamping, but she did tell him a few times that there were more important things in life, like hay. She is such a chunk, she almost makes him look slight, and yet he isn't. She is still slimming hugely; she has lost at least 6" off her girth line in the last 2 weeks and looks all the better for it. She was 78" round the girth when I got her and must be down to 72". All the fat was width, so she doesn't look much different in side-on shots, but the new riding-saddle girth I bought (52" long) had to go back and be swopped for a 46" one before I ever used it! If she goes on slimming she will fit into the 44" one T is currently using. She was tired out when I looked in on her after supper; snoozing with her chin on the windowsill. Rosie used to drop off sometimes with her chin bone on my shoulder... amazingly heavy, those big bony heads!
She and T have hardly had a cross word although she is undoubtedly the Boss Lady. And WHAT a lady... she has been so good. We have driven out solo twice, and once with Chantallamy as groom. I was working on Standing Still yesterday, and today she was foot- perfect whenever I asked her for stillness. I worked her in the field by the river, with some cones set out, to see how balanced she was on smooth turns; she wants to turn quickly at present and over steers. However, we walked and trotted through a few pairs of cones, and then went for a little drive (with one eye on the weather - stormy clouds and rain coming from Shap area!) She attacked the hill towards Roundthwaite well, so I did not take her right to the top, but stopped halfway up and brought her back, as she was blowing quite hard. She is tremendously willing (and FAST!), but still not completely fit of course.
A day or two later we drove the 5 mile triangle between here, the junction down to Orton village, and Scout Green (along the riverside). Chantallamy came as groom. Ruby seems to understand now that "England" means "drive on the left!" I think she is more hyped up when Chantallamy is there, as you might expect with a 17 yr old. I don't mean she was "like an old dog" with me on my own, by any means, but just sensible and willing. My husband Graham comes out onto the yard when I am on my own, to see me out and see me back in safely with her. I think she charms him with her big brown eyes. She is such a Posh Pony (and amazingly clean compared to T who has always been a greasy, untidy scruff, dearly though I love him. And she is tidy in the stable too, a very big advantage to any owner!)
Danny the farrier came on Monday and put new shoes on her. He was most complimentary about her and also about her feet - "A bit of quality this time eh Sue!" Big grins all round. "I could shoe feet like this all day. They're the kind of feet you dream about shoeing." Watching how hard Danny had to work to cut her feet back and rasp them, compared with doing the same with T's feet, the quality was very obvious. You could not work T for long unshod, but I bet you could do miles unshod with Ruby's tough slate-blue hooves. There was still foot left after her drive from Tebay to home, and a couple of quiet miles out and back on Sunday.
She has only been home with me for 9 days but she has fitted right in. T has got over his unreserved admiration stage, and is now torn between thinking she is going off and leaving him, and being jealous because she eats faster than he does, and so she MUST be getting something nicer! and more of it! She gets straight into eating hay, and she polishes off all her feed before he is halfway through. (Feed, in this context, means enough to make her eat up the wormer... about three tablespoonfuls!) So now, although he is fond of her, and they whinny when they are parted and reunited, he also pulls horrible faces at her at feeding time and when I give them hay. Given that I always take ALL the hay into HIS stable and then throw a share over to Ruby; and that the feeds they get, which both contain medicines of some kind and that's the only reason they get anything, barely cover the bottom of the feed skip; and that Ruby is working 1.5 hours a day and T is doing nothing -- this is not very bright of him.
Ruby, on the other hand, goes on learning, quickly and obviously. Chantallamy and I drove her through Orton village; we had absolutely no problems of any kind. When only " I" give Ruby orders, ie when I'm driving alone, she is perfectly obedient, but when Chantallamy is with me she was more naughty, so I worked out that Ruby was not sure what to do, or whom to obey, and so she got excited and danced about. Soooo, I asked C if she would please not talk to Ruby except when she was on the ground, eg opening a gate or holding Ruby while I got into the cart; and lo and behold it worked like a charm, and we had no dancing about. Of course, it wasn't an absolutely perfect drive, because Ruby was in season (the down side of mare ownership) and she was thinking of alternative activities all through the drive - can we go down THAT road, or into THAT open gateway? and weaved about the road rather a lot. But on the whole, given the hormonal distractions, she was pretty good. The next day she was even better (I drove solo, because C had gone to school to get her GCSE exam results) and I took a route that included 2 cattle-grid gates to open. I'd forgotten that there are also 2 young entires in fields alongside that road, but Ruby behaved really very well. She only stepped out of line a tiny bit, once, at gate 1. She retreated when I growled at her, and was perfect at gate 2, even though it is a difficult gate only hung on one hinge, so needing to be lifted and carried. She is a very fair minded mare. She likes to be praised when she gets things right (very good practice for ME!!!), and doesn't mind being told if she does things wrong. She did a lot of trotting today and did her best to outpace a railway train that passed us on one stretch of road. Didn't manage it, but on the other hand, for a lass from the fells with no experience of trains, she did really very well not to bolt!
She's gone on losing fat off her sides, so I've managed to drop the tugs on the backband, and Danny the farrier has found me an old but sound 21" collar which my hames fit onto perfectly. I've posted a photo of the improvement into the Sue Millard folder - Ruby in full collar. The collar fits very snugly, works well and improves the draught line immensely. I fiddled with the hame straps until I got the draught as high as I could.
She's in neutral in the photo - neither traces nor tugs are taut. The collar has shifted forward a little from the place where it lies in work, because she's pulling at the haynet. The only problem I've found with her in a neck collar is that going downhill, with her deep shoulder, once the draught slackens the collar can drift forward till it's halfway up her neck. She isn't ready to hold her head high enough to push the collar back into place. So today I put a fairly slack bungee cord from the top hame eye back to the crupper, and that was just enough to hold it back off her mane when we were going downhill. mater inventionis necessitas est....
Ruby and T can go in the bigger field together now... the first time I went to bring them in from there, they were great; the second time, T decided he was Scared of Something that rattled in the breeze by the gate, and flew off across the field again taking Ruby with him. So now I know, I have to catch HIM first. I hope they have not been galloping about too often and leaving too many hoofprints (I spend quite a lot of time stomping down the edges of the bigger holes.) It has been so wet, the fields mark really easily. Several of the shows I would normally have gone to have been cancelled because of this. So maybe this was a good year to choose to change horses :-) Someone asked me if I was managing to enjoy my holiday, with no "do's" to go to? Have to admit I AM!!!
Sue in the English Lakes Intelligence is no defence against one's own stupidity