More wind.

It's never going to stop, is it?  I'm already two months behind getting Ace going for this season and for another day we've had winds too strong to ride in. I could just about  hack, but he was so spooky on Monday that it isn't worth trying. Schooling would just be completely pointless.

 I've had to have a good go at Radar's feet with a rasp. He isn't working at the moment and his feet are just spreading sideways. They don't grow down, they just go splat.  It actually makes it quite easy to rasp his feet and get the balance right, because all you have to do is to put them on the stand and take off the outside edge that's forming a ski jump all around his foot :-)

He was  a bit of a fidget and I was about to get cross with him when I realised that the last time I touched his feet with a rasp with his foot up on the stand was probably close to a year ago. He normally trims himself with his work.

I recently took Ace's feet right down to put his frogs back in contact with the floor. He had begun to land toe first, and that's a big no-no.  I was trying to let him shape them for himself, but they just grew too tall. He's back to a heel first landing now, so I'm happy I've done the right thing there.

I'm helping a friend when she has her daughter's mare put down on Friday. The horse is only nine but she has kissing spines so bad that she has a hole through one vertebra and is completely missing the points off the processes of the back four; they look like clubs instead of bent spears.

The girl was going to give her away as a brood mare but Mum and I managed to persuade her that it wouldn't be fair for her to carry foals with her back in that state.         It will be sad, but it's very necessary.

It's made me think of Woody, of course, but thankfully I have never doubted since he went that it was the right thing to do. Again, sad but necessary.

Must go and brave that wind to feed the boys now.

C