---------------------------------------------------------------- New Rider Newsletter October 10th 2001 Issue 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------- In this Issue 1. Introduction to the Newsletter 2. New competition - advance news 3. Coping with long box rest - a personal story 4. Help us with Schools and Holidays 5. Advertising information 6. Unsubscribing details ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --- Introduction ---- Welcome to the first New Rider newsletter, we hope you find it interesting and would welcome your feedback on it. In case you were wondering why you received this we have mailed it out to you because you either a. used the newsletter sign-up on the site b. checked the option in the message board that you were open to messages from the administrator c. clicked the option for the newsletter in the classified adverts system d. have supplied your e-mail address in one of our schools or holiday listings. For all future mailings we will only use this new newsletter list of e-mails, so if you wish to take your name off the list please see the instructions at the very end of this message. Now we explained that, on to the actual newsletter... We have had in mind an occasional newsletter for some time. It will feature site news, advance information on competitions and some new features that are not yet on the web site. Over the past few months New Rider has been growing very well. I'm sure many of you will have noticed that there are often 20+ members on the message board at many times of the day. Monthly page view figures are also regularly over half a million! So thank you to all our readers. Let's see if we can keep it going up, so do encourage your friends to visit New Rider. We have many more features in preparation including a fantastic A to Z of riding terms that keeps growing and growing in size. I think it will be one of the most comprehensive on the web, if not anywhere the rate it is going. There are also some interesting pieces on the history of ladies riding styles and animated diagrams of school movements just waiting to be put up. I'm sure many of you will already have read Tim Manson's excellent articles on Western riding. For those of us who've never ridden or handled western tack they are very informative, and that Texas sun looks very appealing on a damp Autumn day in England. You can see them at http://www.newrider.com/Specialisms/Western/western_index.html Do let us know what you think of the newsletter - is it too long, too short, needs more items, about right or whatever. Until the next issue Mike Tomlin mike@newrider.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --- New Competition --- Very shortly we'll we starting a new competition with a chance to win a top range winter riding jacket. It will be a knock-out style competition run over two weeks which will involve answering some questions correctly to get from one round to the other. Don't worry the initial questions will be easy, but they will get trickier as we go on. Keep an eye on the web site for news of it starting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --- Feature: Coping with Box Rest --- As some of you may have seen on the message board, Sarah's horse Tango has just recovered from a lameness problem and had to have nearly a year off work, mostly on box rest. Sarah recounts her experience and here is the first part.. Last summer, everything was going so well. Tango and I had been to Pony Club Camp (for grown ups) and learnt to trust each other jumping, flatwork wise we had turned a large corner, so much so that my husband Stewart had decided to learn to ride on Tango. He was making very good progress. We then went for a week's course at Heather Moffett's in Devon which was fantastic. All three of us learnt so much in a week, it was unbelievable. We had great plans for the future, little did we know that we only had a week left to realise them before Tango went lame for the first time. I first noticed her lameness when riding her in the school at out livery yard. She had done some good work in walk, then I asked her to trot. She did half a 20m circle fine, then went skipping lame - her left fore was not right. I got off her and trotted her up in hand and she was fine for some steps, then really lame for others. After a good poke and prod of her leg and foot, we decided to leave it till the morning before calling out the vet. The next day she seemed a bit better, and more so on the day after so it looked like she was getting better. By the end of the week she was a lot better, but would still do a very lame step in trot every so often so I called out the vet. He was not sure what was wrong with her, but thought it was a muscular pain either in her neck on the offside or between her front legs. He recommended that we gave her bute and exercised her to help the muscles mend. We did this and some days Tango seemed fine, others she seemed lame, it was very hard to see a pattern. I kept in regular contact with the vet who said that this type of injury would take time to heal, and we should just persevere. After a month I was feeling frustrated and asked to be referred to a physiotherapist. She thought that Tango had some pain in her neck and that her spine seemed to be a bit blocked in her neck. She gave me some exercises to do and said she would come back in a fortnight to have a look. She did, and was concerned that progress was not being made and recommended that we stopped riding Tango. Tango was still living out in the field at this point and on Sunday 1 October she was cornered by another mare in the field and kicked for about 5 minutes. Other liveries at the yard tried to get the other mare to leave her alone, but she refused to give in. When I got to the yard, Tango had burst through the field fence into the geldings field where at least one gelding had tried to mount her and she was running round the field in a state, and no-one could get near her. Luckily she came to me and I brought her in. She had a cut on her right stifle and on her chest. I had already booked for the vet and physio to come and treat Tango that week as they wanted to manipulate her under sedation to try to establish what was wrong in her neck. They did so and were still none the wiser as to what was wrong with her, but were concerned that she was in a much worse state after being bullied than she had been. She was also dehydrated as she was scared to go near to the water trough in the field as the bullying mare was guarding it. We had therefore started to bring her in at night to have a good drink. We all agreed that the best thing for Tango was going to be to send her to Liphook Equine Hospital for a bone scan to see what had happened to her neck and that was set up. Continued in part two in the next issue. Have you got an interesting story or technical article that you'd like to share via the newsletter? Let us know. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --- Help us with Schools and Holidays --- We have over 1000 UK riding schools listed in our schools database, many of them with extended details including photos. We would like to keep adding to this database to make it a really useful resource for riders and need your help. If you use a school or know its owners, have a look to see what details we have on them. http://www.newrider.com/Riding_Schools/search1.html If they are not complete do encourage them to send us more details and pictures. This is a free service and details can either be submitted online or we can post out some forms to be filled in. We have recently opened the new Holidays section which features details on over 100 UK holiday destinations. For those centres that sign up for our extended service, more details and the Latest Offers facility becomes available. For any reader that can introduce a riding holiday centre to our listings which results in them taking the extended service we will send you an introduction cheque for £20. ***************************************************************** --- Advertising Information --- The New Rider newsletter reaches thousands of horse riders and in-situ adverts can be very effective for promoting your products or services (after all you are reading this advert now). Find out how to get YOUR sponsorship ad in this newsletter. Ask about our special discount for multiple ad insertions! ***************************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------- You are currently subscribed to the New Rider newsletter as: <> To unsubscribe visit the web site at http://www.newrider.com and use the newsletter subscription box to remove your e-mail address.