Well, all I can say is this month hasn't really gone to plan at all! I was due to run Humbug in the BE100Plus at Mattingley Horse Trials on the 8th June, however a couple of days into our holiday I got a phone call from home saying that she really wasn't sound enough to be ridden. This put a dampener on things and I called the vet to assess her that day, ensuring it was nothing life threatening. We returned home a week later and I called Mattingley to reluctantly withdraw, I had been looking forward to running at my favourite event of the season! A second vets appointment was made where she was diagnosed with arthritic changes, sedated and given an injection into the coffin joint. She is happily walking (when I have my way, which is a rare occasion!) out around the farm and has continued to improve since; she is due to be reassessed next week. This does however mean I have also had to withdraw from the BE100Plus at Rackham this coming weekend and I will be missing our next scheduled event at Tweseldown at the beginning of July.
All this has been a major setback for us as I was hoping to get a few BE100Plus' under our belt ready to have a go at the Novice at Smiths Lawn at the beginning of August; at this rate I will be lucky to get the preparation time to have a go at one in October! But this is the nature of our sport and if we didn't get knocked down from time to time, we would all be pros by now!
On a lighter note, all of the training I would be doing with Humbug this month is now being concentrated on Roo, my young Thoroughbred; he is loving the extra attention and really coming on in leaps and bounds! I am hoping to take him out to a few small shows now before I start suffering from competition withdrawal symptoms!
So a fairly rubbish month for my team and I but we are staying positive and have lots of things to look forward to during the rest of this season!
All this has been a major setback for us as I was hoping to get a few BE100Plus' under our belt ready to have a go at the Novice at Smiths Lawn at the beginning of August; at this rate I will be lucky to get the preparation time to have a go at one in October! But this is the nature of our sport and if we didn't get knocked down from time to time, we would all be pros by now!
On a lighter note, all of the training I would be doing with Humbug this month is now being concentrated on Roo, my young Thoroughbred; he is loving the extra attention and really coming on in leaps and bounds! I am hoping to take him out to a few small shows now before I start suffering from competition withdrawal symptoms!
So a fairly rubbish month for my team and I but we are staying positive and have lots of things to look forward to during the rest of this season!