Foals, everywhere!

Once again we've had a busy week here on the farm! And it's not even Sunday yet. I have to start with Thursday, my day off this week. I asked my boss if I could follow her to work on my day off. Every now and then my boss has clients coming over to our stable to get their horses checked or treated but it doesn't happen more than a few times a month, most of the time my boss visits the clients in their stables. So on Thursday I finally had the chance to get a real look at the job of a veterinarian. First stop was at a beautifully situated small farm with Icelandic horses. We treated one mare with chiropractic methods. The mare had foaled last summer and was now about to restart her carrier as a riding horse but the owners had noticed some stiffness in the forelegs when riding. I haven't had that much to do with Icelandic horses but one thing that I learnt from that visit is that Icelandic horses are extremely flexible! They bend in every possible direction. Next stop was in Slangerup at the same stable where we a few months ago went to a dressage competition with Castanja. Here we treated two horses with chiropractics. The last stop was the least fun. A pony had had problems with its forelegs for a long period of time (the pony was 17) and this was mainly supposed to be a check-up to see if the condition was better or worse after treatment of the joints. Unfortunately the horse was limping around on the circle. I've been there, done that, so I felt really sorry for the girl with the pony.

Not much happened yesterday. I took a long tour in the woods with Corra and with Cristie we did some light work in the riding hall because her weekend is going to be tough. Castanja is still on a sick leave so I just walked her a few minutes.

Today we've been on a jumping practice to our trainer's stable. He's a quite interesting character and I've been very curious to see what his stables looks like. He has tried to offer me a job several times and today when I saw the stables I would have been very prepared to say yes to the job right there and then! Let me describe the scene to you. First of all, woods and more woods right before the stable appeared on the side of the road. To the left a big yellow house for living in (looked very spacious to say the least) with a small inner yard which I only caught a small glimpse of. The stable area consisted of two large stables and storage buildings. The outdoor arena was next to a walking machine (filled with gook looking horses) and the indoor arena was right next to it. Right next to the stables there was fence after fence (very straight and not chewed on... mark that the fence was made of wood. No idea what kind of wood but I want the same kind if our horses would stop chewing it!) of paddocks in different sizes. Behind the indoor arena there was clearly a new course for show jumping on it's way to be built. About the indoor arena I have to mention that the material used for the bedding was absolutely amazing to ride on. That Cristie did a great job during the jumping practice was also a big plus of course.

The best was waiting inside the stables. Our trainer introduced us to 5 newborn foals (might have been 6 as well I'm not sure because I was dancing in heaven and numbers were not important there). One of them was a small black Icelandic horse foal and maybe the cutest little thing I've seen. The rest of the foals were warmbloods and will probably have a career on the international show jumping course or the dressage course! The most interesting horse was a yearling. Yearlings almost always look terrible with too long legs or too short legs or the front growing slower than the back part but this one was something quite special anyway. Her (could be ha he as well I guess) name is Tootsie and her father is Totilas (yes THE Totilas!) and her grandfather (from the mother's side) is Sir Donnerhall. Apparently this yearling had great movements. But what else could you expect from such a pedigree...?

Tomorrow we will be going to a show jumping competition. That can turn out in many directions. I'm hoping that Cristie will jump as good as she did today and forget everything about how she was jumping on Wednesday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Now when I've talked so much about foals I thought I'd find a picture of our own Super Mum here on the farm. Last summer she raised two little foals on her own (one adopted). Her own foal, Colby, is still here on our farm.

Jalta and her tow kids taking a nap