Phew

.Well thank goodness for that.   As soon as I saw Ace's poo I could see that something had changed. It was a darker colour and much more firm and less wet.  When I got on, he anticipated pain but he only tensed up and did not rear or buck. I let him stand still for as long as he wanted to, which was quite a long time. When he moved off he was still anticipating pain, but after a few yards he let most of the tension go and we walked circuits of the arena, then trotted circles, then trotted the sides and walked the corners.

I tried canter and he did throw himself about a bit in the transition for the left canter, but nothing like what he was like the last three days. Canter right was no trouble at all. I finished on a really good rein back and we were both relieved to be back to normal.

In future I will be putting him on a maintenance dose of acid reduction medication at the first signs of spring. This year I put him on antacid supplements but they were not enough, he needs more than a bit of chalk and bicarb, clearly.

I will be keeping him on 24 ranitidine a day until the end of June at the very earliest and since it's a safe medicine I may just leave him on it until the winter starts.
I hope, and expect, that tomorrow we will have an even more uneventful ride. What a worrying episode that was for a day or two.

The other bit of good news is that the BT men have now got our line clear to within two miles of us and are just trying to source and fix the one last piece of damage and we should be back on broadband soon.

C..