Thursday's choices and frustrations

Mac had his hindshoes back on Thursday morning. Which feels like a bit of failure given Mac is my "normal" horse. It also highlighted how complex having two horses on DIY that live out and working in Central London is! Farrier came at 7.30am. I fed Remi in field at 7.10am and left him alone (he was okay with this). I brought Mac in and fed him. Farrier arrived. I made him coffee, discussed Mac, paid him, left him with Mac. I asked him to leave him in stable, put headcollar with another horse's as an aid memoire for someone to turn him back out. Asked farrier to sweep up when done, and ran off to catch a train to London by skin of my teeth. Seems to have worked!!

 I took Mac's shoes off for him to meet Remi and move yards, and in the hope he would stay comfortable without them, and eventually move to also being barefoot. I have been managing him on a barefoot friendly diet, with the right vitamins and minerals, and fibre diet for last three months in preparation.

However L assessed him as having little dorsal cushion, and advised he wouldn’t easily stay without shoes on Monday 25th March. I also noticed he started walking more slowly on stones, roads, and hard tracks. Though still skipped along on grass / sand / softer surfaces. L said I would need to spend 6 weeks walking on the roads to build his feet up. That I could do, but it doesn’t work with the endurance season we have planned and I don’t think hind boots only would work very well for endurance (I don’t think Mac would let me stop to put it back on!).

So hind shoes back on. Farrier didn’t really think he was sore behind, but I know his walking on road speed has slowed. Will try and figure out with Remi how to get everything right by trial and error for him, and hopefully use what I learn on Mac later. Maybe when endurance season ends in September we will try again. Mac came to me without hind shoes, and this will be the third time I have put them back on for various reasons.

Had Remi’s ACTH results back. 15.4 pg/ml with normal seasonally adjusted range of below 29 pg /ml. Comment from Liphook “no evidence of equine cushings here.” So that is good :)

Frustration is that I have been trying to get Mac and Remi's KWPN passports in order. Neither show me as owner, neither have a completed section X. Remi's passport doesn’t even have a section X in it! My vets tell me this is a problem for them not being able to give them some emergency drugs e.g. for colic, and that signing a disclaimer on the spot wont suffice. So I have contacted British Equestrian Federation, as is easier to change ownership details through them rather than send passports back to Holland. Was about to post both off recorded delivery today, with a cheque for the details to be changed. Then I read the small print. They will only add a section X to Remi's passport if I have him microchipped and have the location of the microchip marked on his identity diagram. I don’t know if he is microchipped, I suspect so as he was exported from Holland in the last 7 years and there are lots of codes on his passport. But no idea as to the location.

So I will need to book a vet to look for his chip (or put a new one in). Can wait until I have vet out for his vaccinations which are due before 7th May. I can also get my regular vet to come and he can assess Remi's progress since going to Rockley. Which is bit of a scary prospect.