Riding School Inspections (FAO Wally ES etc

[eml]

Just had our annual inpection and our friendly Vet tells me that he has just had a circular which changes the definition of what he is to look for.

He has always treated his roll as checking that suitable horse and ponies are provided and that they are well cared for with correctly fitted tack etc.. Because of that and because of his years of experience in the job he accepts that some older horses may come out of their boxes stiff for a few paces or have other manageable problems within the context of the work they are doing, for example a pony with ringbone could work on a soft surface but not hack out

Anyway he tells me that the latest edict (which he only received this morning so fortunately did not apply this year!) is that horses must be declared "fit" and his test are to include the heart and the sight. Not only is he puzzled at the use of the phrase "fit" without a delaration for what purpose but accepts that many older perfecly viable school horses would have to be rejected often with murmurs or irregular heart rythms or in the case of one of ours a cataract in one eye which does not affect her work.

Sorry long explanation but I wondered what other school people had heard about this. Sounds suspiciously like DEFRA strikes again.

[Mehitabel]

blimey. our inspector has always checked heart, and notes murmurs but doesn't insist on rechecking. we have one chap with a murmur, it gets noted every year but hasn't been a problem.
never had sight checked before though.

our inspection is in august, so we have all this to come! :rolleyes: we have several semi-retired ponies, one with only one splint bone in one leg, so slow straight line work only - i wonder what will be said? i'll certainly give YO a heads-up though - might be worth checking it out before the inspection.

[tubby]

Well ther you have it, you've always wondered what they're paid for now you have your answer.They're paid to make up more rules that will mean they get paid to uphold them.:D:D

[Wally]

Ugla has been noted to have a "weird gait" my words not the vet's. I pointed it out to him, she is sound but does have a funny way of going behind. Now is that fit? or could she be declared unsound? She has funny shaped hocks, she cannot help it.

Our inspection is due in April. Thank goodness the vet is used to seeing some piggy pacing otherwise a new vet would condemn all our lot as stiff or bad back or lame as so many show judges have done before.

As you say, this is a silly wording and as a professional person any vet would want any unspecific silly wording like that clarified.

Last vet check we had the vet gave all our horses a condition scores of 3, 4 and one 2 due to lack of muscle. He also noted that the horses were "thinner" than last year....a good thing with a yard of Shetlands, Icelandics and Fjords coming into May. The unqualified person at the council who knew nothing about condition scores wrote to me telling me to give extra feed to the horses deemed "thinner". See what we are up against! Desk sitters, pencil pushers and folk who need to justify thier existence by making work for others to do without really having a sound understanding of what they are talking about.

Here endeth another rant!:D :D

[eml]

Hi again!

Yes we had condition scoring for the first time this year but since it took three rants from me to get the local Council to realise they had to redo out licence (Reason..the lady who knew about horses has left!!!) I am not sure what they will make of it or of my standard list of allergies, splints etc.

Any not as bad as a collegue who runs a very upmarket riding school (where little one did Stage exams) who had a new vet who insisted every horse was examined and ridden as if for five stage vetting and proceded to dissallow several of her horse on the grounds of long term problems...as she said how on earth do we afford competiton quality horse for learning on if they do not have any problems??


rant...rant...rant

As an aside Vet was very scathing about passports and said he had been called out to do a herd of identical black shetlands that in winter coats did not even have whorls to differentiate!!

[tasha]

Originally posted by eml

As an aside Vet was very scathing about passports and said he had been called out to do a herd of identical black shetlands that in winter coats did not even have whorls to differentiate!!

LOL- he should have taken the minister behind passports back with him!

[Wally]

What can you do? If the county only have pencil pushers behind their desks who know nothing about horses. Surely the vet would have asked us to up the feed if they were "thin" it's not down to a council official to "interperet" what the vet has reported.

If our vet wants a 5 stage veting he can get on and ride them all himself.....how do you do a 5 stage vetting on a 34 inch Shetland, on a school day with nobody there small enough to ride her?

Come to think, I'm not sure Whiff has ever cantered with a rider on her back, she is a leadrein and total learner pony, I don't want her to think she CAN canter with a rider on her back!

If one DID have competition quality horses...especially competition ICelandics I'd have to fork out about £10,000 per horse and then they'd be totally unsuitable for novices to ride, they end up in a buckle of dirt in 10 seconds flat.