CT
20th Aug 2001, 06:34 PM
Hi everyone,
Recently I was lucky enough to buy Dougal, one of Heather's horses. This is my first real voyage into horse ownership and I thought some of you might be interested in the trials and tribulations of new horse ownership from my pov and Dougal's too! Let me know if you want me to keep posting? Sorry this one is a bit long!
CT
Dougal:
Day 1 Monday 6th August 2001
Colour - bay
Weight - unknown, but gloriously heavy.
Carrots consumed - none (am) too many to count (pm)
Woke up bright and early, busy munching my favourite area of the field when Debbie(who looks after us horses here at Heather's place) mercilessly dragged me into the yard - doesn't she know that I'm a growing boy and I need at least 23 ľ hours of munching each day if I'm to carry on and reach my full potential? Debbie then set about pulling the hair out from my mane (ouch!), and putting a smart new rug on me that the woman with the carrots spent 45 minutes trying to get on me last week; laugh, I could have thrown a shoe it was so ridiculous - "put it on at the front and work backwards….no, put it on in the middle and spread it out all over". If I had hands I'd have sorted it out myself. Anyway, once Debbie had finished with the rug she put these huge leg warmer type things on me (Geri Halliwell eat your heart out?). God only knows what the point is of them, except to make a good looking horse like me look ridiculous. Then this lorry pulled up at the gates scaring the life out of me - it's so rude to wake a boy when he's in full nap. I remembered this lorry turning up before when my friend Millie went on an adventure. I couldn't remember what Millie thought of the lorry but I decided that since everyone seemed to want me to go inside it, I'd pretend that I'd go in and then at the last minute change my mind. What a laugh. I did this a few times before Debbie pulled out her trump card and went into the lorry with a bowl of the good stuff. As I've said, I'm a growing boy and after all it would have been rude to have turned down the invitation to join her in the lorry.
Once inside Debbie snoged me (why do women keep doing that to me?) and left. The driver and me then set off on our adventure. It was certainly a very long one and by the end of it I was nearly freaking out with having been banged up Prisoner Cell Block H style for so long. You can imagine my relief when the lorry stopped, the doors opened and the carrot woman greeted me. Then it was off with the rug (she seemed to have mastered removing the thing quicker than she put it on), away with the leg warmers and out into a field for a breather and some green munching - very civilised I thought. After a while the carrot woman arrived again and beckoned to me. Thinking she had something nice I went over only to find she had nothing and that the fencing makes you jump if you go too near it. The carrot woman then took me inside to a stable complete with 4* bedding fluffed up just the way I could easily get used to. She then produced several of my favourite 'c' things, some rather nice hay and I yawned myself to sleep.
As far as adventures go, this one appears to be a bowl of cherries so far.
Caron:
Hair colour : brown but greying (slowly)
Weight : not saying but steady (damn it!)
Calories consumed : none - but do finger nail bits and parts of the bottom lip have calories?
No sleep last night, kept thinking about the various disasters that could befall the huge hunk of a horse that was going to make his way from Devon to Epping today - horse box pile up on the M4; horse box blows a tyre and plunges over a cliff (not sure if there are cliffs between Devon and Epping but that's the workings of a wild imagination for you); horse box driver turns out to be an evil knackerman who instead of delivering Dougal to Epping takes him to local meat market instead etc.
Spent the morning (I'm working on this being 5am onwards) wondering what was happening at Heather's yard. Got an email from Heather at 9am telling me that the lorry man would be at her place at 10.30am. Debbie (Dougal's current human love interest) rang at 11am to tell me that he was on his way and should arrive at about 6pm. Nerves entered into nail biting phase.
3.30pm, should have had a call by now from lorry driver telling me how far he'd got as this was his break time. 4pm still no call, middle finger nails now gone. 4.30pm still no call decide to go to yard and prepare Dougal's bed - assuming that none of previously thought of disasters had occurred. 3 ˝ bales of straw and an allergic reaction to dust later the bed was done. Still no call and it was nearly 5pm. Yard manager asking me every 5 minutes if I'd heard when he was arriving increases nervous tension - all nails slowly disintegrating and bottom lip is now being eaten.
5.20pm mobile rings, driver just turned off the M25 and following the internet map I'd supplied he was lost (well done that map company!). Tried to give directions which was fairly useless as I didn't know the way, hence the Internet map.
6pm lorry arrives (yippeeeeee). Driver offers me opportunity to come and take Dougal off the lorry. Lawyer's head suddenly springs back onto my shoulders and I suggest that he does it - ensuring any problems are his liability and not mine! Dougal, naturally because it's the driver and not me bringing him off, steps off the lorry like a little lamb. Once off he's handed to me and begins a rather excited dance (must have been those huge leg warmers encouraging his Flash Dance tendencies). Then it's off to a nearby paddock so he can kick his heels up a bit. Dougal, who is nothing if not an impressive show off, does a beautiful trot/canter transition before realising that he's running all over some rather tasty green stuff and then quickly gets his head down to munch.
I leave him alone and the yard owner kindly hands me a camera to take some pictures of him as I'd managed to forget mine in the huge amount of time that I'd had on my fingernailless hands. Went back to photograph Dougal, beckoned him over and was pleasantly surprised that he came, began to pat him when he stuck his head too close to the electric fencing and….. Guilt ridden that I'd nearly managed to electrocute Dougal within an hour of him arriving, I gave him an extra portion of carrots in his stable.
Ah well, day one over. Time to get some sleep.
Recently I was lucky enough to buy Dougal, one of Heather's horses. This is my first real voyage into horse ownership and I thought some of you might be interested in the trials and tribulations of new horse ownership from my pov and Dougal's too! Let me know if you want me to keep posting? Sorry this one is a bit long!
CT
Dougal:
Day 1 Monday 6th August 2001
Colour - bay
Weight - unknown, but gloriously heavy.
Carrots consumed - none (am) too many to count (pm)
Woke up bright and early, busy munching my favourite area of the field when Debbie(who looks after us horses here at Heather's place) mercilessly dragged me into the yard - doesn't she know that I'm a growing boy and I need at least 23 ľ hours of munching each day if I'm to carry on and reach my full potential? Debbie then set about pulling the hair out from my mane (ouch!), and putting a smart new rug on me that the woman with the carrots spent 45 minutes trying to get on me last week; laugh, I could have thrown a shoe it was so ridiculous - "put it on at the front and work backwards….no, put it on in the middle and spread it out all over". If I had hands I'd have sorted it out myself. Anyway, once Debbie had finished with the rug she put these huge leg warmer type things on me (Geri Halliwell eat your heart out?). God only knows what the point is of them, except to make a good looking horse like me look ridiculous. Then this lorry pulled up at the gates scaring the life out of me - it's so rude to wake a boy when he's in full nap. I remembered this lorry turning up before when my friend Millie went on an adventure. I couldn't remember what Millie thought of the lorry but I decided that since everyone seemed to want me to go inside it, I'd pretend that I'd go in and then at the last minute change my mind. What a laugh. I did this a few times before Debbie pulled out her trump card and went into the lorry with a bowl of the good stuff. As I've said, I'm a growing boy and after all it would have been rude to have turned down the invitation to join her in the lorry.
Once inside Debbie snoged me (why do women keep doing that to me?) and left. The driver and me then set off on our adventure. It was certainly a very long one and by the end of it I was nearly freaking out with having been banged up Prisoner Cell Block H style for so long. You can imagine my relief when the lorry stopped, the doors opened and the carrot woman greeted me. Then it was off with the rug (she seemed to have mastered removing the thing quicker than she put it on), away with the leg warmers and out into a field for a breather and some green munching - very civilised I thought. After a while the carrot woman arrived again and beckoned to me. Thinking she had something nice I went over only to find she had nothing and that the fencing makes you jump if you go too near it. The carrot woman then took me inside to a stable complete with 4* bedding fluffed up just the way I could easily get used to. She then produced several of my favourite 'c' things, some rather nice hay and I yawned myself to sleep.
As far as adventures go, this one appears to be a bowl of cherries so far.
Caron:
Hair colour : brown but greying (slowly)
Weight : not saying but steady (damn it!)
Calories consumed : none - but do finger nail bits and parts of the bottom lip have calories?
No sleep last night, kept thinking about the various disasters that could befall the huge hunk of a horse that was going to make his way from Devon to Epping today - horse box pile up on the M4; horse box blows a tyre and plunges over a cliff (not sure if there are cliffs between Devon and Epping but that's the workings of a wild imagination for you); horse box driver turns out to be an evil knackerman who instead of delivering Dougal to Epping takes him to local meat market instead etc.
Spent the morning (I'm working on this being 5am onwards) wondering what was happening at Heather's yard. Got an email from Heather at 9am telling me that the lorry man would be at her place at 10.30am. Debbie (Dougal's current human love interest) rang at 11am to tell me that he was on his way and should arrive at about 6pm. Nerves entered into nail biting phase.
3.30pm, should have had a call by now from lorry driver telling me how far he'd got as this was his break time. 4pm still no call, middle finger nails now gone. 4.30pm still no call decide to go to yard and prepare Dougal's bed - assuming that none of previously thought of disasters had occurred. 3 ˝ bales of straw and an allergic reaction to dust later the bed was done. Still no call and it was nearly 5pm. Yard manager asking me every 5 minutes if I'd heard when he was arriving increases nervous tension - all nails slowly disintegrating and bottom lip is now being eaten.
5.20pm mobile rings, driver just turned off the M25 and following the internet map I'd supplied he was lost (well done that map company!). Tried to give directions which was fairly useless as I didn't know the way, hence the Internet map.
6pm lorry arrives (yippeeeeee). Driver offers me opportunity to come and take Dougal off the lorry. Lawyer's head suddenly springs back onto my shoulders and I suggest that he does it - ensuring any problems are his liability and not mine! Dougal, naturally because it's the driver and not me bringing him off, steps off the lorry like a little lamb. Once off he's handed to me and begins a rather excited dance (must have been those huge leg warmers encouraging his Flash Dance tendencies). Then it's off to a nearby paddock so he can kick his heels up a bit. Dougal, who is nothing if not an impressive show off, does a beautiful trot/canter transition before realising that he's running all over some rather tasty green stuff and then quickly gets his head down to munch.
I leave him alone and the yard owner kindly hands me a camera to take some pictures of him as I'd managed to forget mine in the huge amount of time that I'd had on my fingernailless hands. Went back to photograph Dougal, beckoned him over and was pleasantly surprised that he came, began to pat him when he stuck his head too close to the electric fencing and….. Guilt ridden that I'd nearly managed to electrocute Dougal within an hour of him arriving, I gave him an extra portion of carrots in his stable.
Ah well, day one over. Time to get some sleep.