He's been roughed off and turned away for the duration.
I had been considering sending him back to the rehab yard we used during his rehab from Ks surgery while I was away but decided to give him a holiday instead as he has been working hard and not feeling himself for a while now. I'm hoping he feels back to his normal self following the break but if not the vet will be coming back to investigate further and take bloods! It's looking more and more like he had some sort of illness rather then being in pain as the vet couldn't find anything wrong during his visit so hopefully a good break will have been enough for him to get over whatever it was and be feeling well again.
With that in mind I roughed him off in the weeks leading up to the holiday letting his clip grow out, removing his shoes, wormed him and moving him onto our Winter grazing.
I went to see him the day I flew home to see how he had coped and found him looking like this, he's now having a few more quite days and a bit of feed while I get over the jet lag and get through the mountains of washing etc!!
The little monkey really looks like he's a wild connie now!
I'm just waiting to get my clipper blades back from being sharpened and he will be shaved and cleaned up ready to return to work. Hopefully he will Winter barefoot but if not I will get his shoes popped back on and get him going again as soon as possible. Any longer than 3 weeks break and he will start to loose fitness and condition so we need to get him back to it this week!
I am actually very pleased to see that despite not doing any work he has actually dropped a bit of weight while I have been away. Jack really struggles to loose weight usually but I left him with only a lightweight rug on as he had grown most of his clip out by the time I went, our Winter grazing is smaller this year and on a bit of a slope so it helps to keep him a bit fitter having to go up and down. He has also had no hard feed and the grazing is not as good as cows were on there before the horses. All this has done him loads of good and he is looking trimmer already. I'm really pleased as I was concerned he would be gaining weight because he wouldn't be doing any work. Once he is back in full work again this will help him loose a bit more which is exactly what he needs to do before Spring! I ordered the Baileys Horse Feeds Equine Weight Loss Programme which arrived while I was away. It is full of helpful advise and tips to help keep your horse in good condition and has charts to monitor your horses weight loss progress so I will be getting the weigh tape out to take Jacks measurements and see how he gets on over Winter. I'm determined to keep his weight down this year and dropping some through Winter is the best start.
Just before I left on my honeymoon my best friend Lucy came over to film us doing some dressage tests to take part in some online dressage competitions while we are grounded without a towing vehicle. We both had a lot on and we could only fit it in on the Saturday morning before I left which unfortunately coincided with some really bad weather and very heavy rain :(
The ménage was water logged and deep, not the ideal surface for dressage!
As per my previous few updates Jack was also feeling very lethargic at the time despite being on very high energy feed so to be honest I wasn't expecting much when I submitted the tests for Judging to Dressage4All. I knew he wasn't performing anywhere near his best but needed to get the tests in in order for them to count towards our teams score for the year.
I was incredibly pleased to come home to 2 lovely 3rd place Yellow rosettes, decent scores and some encouraging comments from the judges plus some sweets - bonus!!
I am so encouraged by the comments and scores as I know when Jack is feeling better he will easily improve on the scores and I'm keen to get this months tests filmed if he is feeling up to it in the next week.
Fingers crossed when I lunge him tonight he is feeling more like the cheeky chappy he usually is!
I'm really looking forward to getting back on and getting us both fit again.
