Time has got away from me! It's already May, and I haven't done anything with Flamenco since December when we turned her out as it was just too wet to work with her.
So today, Tuesday 5th May 2009, I decided it was time to get Flamenco in again. My farrier was here, so I then decided that we would put some shoes on her too! Poor little Flamenco... she hasn't been touched for over 4 months, and the first thing I do to her is shoe her! BUT... she was great!
I brought her into the stables, and let her stand there for a little while getting groomed and fussed over, and listening to the farrier make some noise while he was shoeing another horse. Then is was her turn... she stood up quite well, and only got a bit of a fright when the first couple of nails went in. From then on she was very good, though!
We only put the front shoes on this week, but next week she'll get the hinds on. I use Malaysian concaves, which have several features that I like: Concaves tend to give a bit more 'grip' on hills; the Malaysian shoes have many more holes in them than other shoes, which helps when re-setting the shoes because the farrier can use different holes; they tend to be quite a hard shoe that stands up to a lot of wear, hence we can get more than one re-set out of them usually.
With a young horse just coming into training, we would generally get at least 2 or 3 re-sets out of a set of these shoes. Of course, when the horse is in full work and getting shod to go to a ride, then I always put a new set on.
So, Flamenco now has front shoes on, and will be gently started again over the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see how much she has retained from last year!
After her shoeing experience, I decided to measure her. Her mother, Fiesta, was 14.3hh at 5 years of age, but has since grown to just over 15hh. Flamenco is spot on 14.3hh at the moment, but I'm hoping that she'll follow in mum's hoofprints and make 15hh eventually!
So today, Tuesday 5th May 2009, I decided it was time to get Flamenco in again. My farrier was here, so I then decided that we would put some shoes on her too! Poor little Flamenco... she hasn't been touched for over 4 months, and the first thing I do to her is shoe her! BUT... she was great!
I brought her into the stables, and let her stand there for a little while getting groomed and fussed over, and listening to the farrier make some noise while he was shoeing another horse. Then is was her turn... she stood up quite well, and only got a bit of a fright when the first couple of nails went in. From then on she was very good, though!
We only put the front shoes on this week, but next week she'll get the hinds on. I use Malaysian concaves, which have several features that I like: Concaves tend to give a bit more 'grip' on hills; the Malaysian shoes have many more holes in them than other shoes, which helps when re-setting the shoes because the farrier can use different holes; they tend to be quite a hard shoe that stands up to a lot of wear, hence we can get more than one re-set out of them usually.
With a young horse just coming into training, we would generally get at least 2 or 3 re-sets out of a set of these shoes. Of course, when the horse is in full work and getting shod to go to a ride, then I always put a new set on.
So, Flamenco now has front shoes on, and will be gently started again over the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see how much she has retained from last year!
After her shoeing experience, I decided to measure her. Her mother, Fiesta, was 14.3hh at 5 years of age, but has since grown to just over 15hh. Flamenco is spot on 14.3hh at the moment, but I'm hoping that she'll follow in mum's hoofprints and make 15hh eventually!
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