Bad Backs (continued)

Following on from our vet's visit last week, Richard had arranged to meet Polly, a chartered physio at Greatwood yesterday morning. He had decided to sedate Bunkhouse and Insheen to relax them sufficiently in order that Polly could work on them to try and release areas which had seized up. Polly spent a particularly long time on Bunkhouse, he was pretty sore all over, particularly through his neck and poll area. It was Sue's holiday and Becky's day off, but they were both sufficiently interested in the procedure to tip up for the morning. After Polly had manipulated them, Richard then injected cortisone into Bunkhouse's poll and sacroiliac, he also injected along Insheen's back. Hopefully, this treatment will help them. They are both on box rest for a couple of days and then they will have a few weeks off before we bring them into work again.
We had been a little anxious about Mighty Minnie, she had been going on and off lame but we also wanted an update about her eyes. We had looked at her eyes six or so months ago and had detected a cataract upon her right eye, and a little cloudiness on her left eye, however subject to regular check ups this shouldn't have affected the ability to rehome her. We were, therefore, staggered when Richard's examination of her right eye confirmed our worst fears. Her sight had deterioriated to such an extent that she has very limited vision. We are all pretty devastated, not least because she is such a sweet good mare.
I am off later on this morning to go and have a look at a couple of yards which may suit as satellite yards, but my first quest is to see if we have rugs for those horses which feel the cold (we have sent a load off to be mended), so I hope that we will find enough. Apparently, the next few days are going to be pretty dreadful, the horses have been ok so far, but certainly the old boys will need them, and we will need to get New Seeker, Titch and Chewie in out of the storm. New Seeker hates wet weather and just hangs about feeling cold and miserable and none of see much point in letting that happen.

Bad Backs & Dreary Weather

I have been with Richard our vet this morning. We had had some concerns over a few horses and our worst worries were confirmed, yet more cases of kissing spine....we did talk about it and it may be that owing to mobile x-ray units we are capable of diagnosing the problem easier. Anyway, sadly poor old Warren Knight has it so badly that it is untreatable, so now he will be off to the sanctuary. It is a shame because he had been going so well until the work made him sore. Insheen has a milder case and we will inject his back with cortisone, we never got round to properly x-raying Red Willie because we spotted a bit of shading in his eye, we looked at it further and realised that he has a fairly sizeable cataract on the eye (3/5) which has appeared within the last 6 months.......making it very probable that it will continue to deteriorate. Better news for Bunkhouse, we x-rayed his neck and poll and could see a small amount of damage which we can then treat, and he too has bones along his back which are touching and painful, but again, he can be treated with cortisone.
So a bit depressing really, the weather doesn't help, Laura, Head of Special Needs had organised a number of groups of children to visit, I am sure her life would have been alot easier if she had been able to go out into the sunshine instead of these continual heavy downpours!

Jodie Kidd Gala Evening

We consider ourselves to be very fortunate that Jodie Kidd nominated Greatwood as one of her four chosen charities to benefit from The Jodie Kidd Foundation. To this end, Janet and I whizzed down to Goodwood to attend the Jodie Kidd Foundation Gala Evening. For the last couple of years, Jodie has organised a celebrity golf day followed by dinner and auction. It was a splendid evening, and although the auctioneer had to work quite hard to achieve the bids, I think that it raised quite alot of money and everyone enjoyed themselves. It is very good of Jodie to put so much time and effort into raising money for 'her' charities, and it certainly makes an immeasurable difference to us. Thank you Jodie.
It has been a bit of a hectic time all round. We went to Nigel and Penny Bunter's Barbury Castle Horse Trials the day before, and took a table for lunch. This is always a splendid event, well organised and well attended with an incredible line up of top event horses taking part. It was great to catch up with so many locals who wish to support Nigel and Penny and enjoy the terrific spectacle.
Michael and I were approached recently by Harper Collins who wish to publish a book about Greatwood and how it all started. We have spent quite a while going through alot of archive material, (that in itself was a bit of a mammoth task, involving delving through loads of boxes which were housed in a pretty grotty shed). Anyway, miraculously we appear to have pretty much located everything we need. This is a bit of a miracle because we once employed someone to help us file everything, and to our consternation realised that her filing involved lots of black rubbish bags, all of which were aimed for the bin.
Other than this, everything has been fairly quiet, although we are rather hoping that our work with the horses and special needs children will be featured in the Sunday Times today. The horses themselves have been doddling along. We have several in work which we hope will be rehomed before too long, and as for the rest, they are enjoying a peaceful and restful time in the fields. I think that they are a bit relieved that it isn't quite so hot but we could do with a bit more sun now.