Plan B

I have had Sofie back home for a few weeks now, and I love it. Yes it is entirely illogical, terribly expensive and very short sighted but having my Sofie back makes me so happy. Sofie has settled back in and is sharing a field with another horse. The grazing is almost non-existent due to a recent drought but this does not do Sofie any harm. The sweat itch is getting better now she has rugs and we have been using ‘stinky stuff’ which seems to be working well. Sofie has come back to work brilliantly. A friend has been riding her and absolutely loves her. Super Sofie was trotting around in a collected outline almost as soon as she got on, amazing given she is had no schooling and hasn’t been ridden . What a lovely pony I have.

Still given this whole pregnancy thing I still need to be realistic. Worst case scenario dad will pay the livery, but I desperately don’t want to have to ask him to do this and also it is no good for Sofie having 6 months of no visits if I can’t take baby to the yard during the winter.

So it is time for a plan B. I advertised her on some low impact FB groups – the yard group and the haffies for loan group. My adds wouldn’t reach that many people but given all the upset of only a few weeks ago I couldn’t face going global just yet. I have also been monitoring the internet for cheap livery options as a plan C.

My adverts were for either a share or a full loan.

Almost immediately I had interest for a full loan to stay at current yard. Fantastic. The mum seemed lovely and the daughter rode beautifully and it sounded like Sofie would be perfect for them. Unfortunately they were a little worried about her ligaments and so decided no on the full loan plan, but we agreed that they could do a pay-as-you-go share whilst they were looking for the perfect horse. Secretly I am hoping that they will fall in love with Sofie and realise she can do everything they want, but I shouldn’t count on that. So it’s a short term win but I still need to find something more permanent.

I have had a couple of lovely people contact me for full loan, but they are all about an hour away and I think I am coming to accept that I am not ready for her to be on full loan just yet, especially if she is out of visiting range. I have said I would get back to them if nothing more local comes up. I do feel bad for wasting people’s time.

I also talked to a lady about a cheaper livery arrangement sharing a field with her convalescing horse. Again the lady and the field were lovely, but realistically I won’t be able to look after Sofie over the winter months so actually a share is a better plan.

I also talked about Sofie in my works ‘pet of the week’ using this as a sneaky advert. Amazingly something came of it. A colleague has a daughter looking for a pony to share. My colleague is an experience horsewoman and the daughter sounds terrible sweat. She also has a friend who could also share Sofie (thus covering most of her costs). However, I am too kind for my own good and suggested finding another pony for share at the yard so the girls could ride together. It doesn’t fix my woes entirely but I think they would be much happier with two horses. The trial is next Sunday so I am desperately hoping it goes well.

If it does go well then I just need to find one more person for share, or hope that the current girl sticks with us. Still, even if it is just one sharer that is still tlc for Sofie and reduce costs for Dad. Better than nothing.

Fingers crossed for Sunday.

The rescue

The week after my monumental fuck-up was a week of panic phone calls, trying to find a yard to move Sofie to and a way of getting her there and finding a way of paying for it.

The whole thing is far more complicated when you are pregnant. I am not meant to lift anything, I cannot risk loading Sofie myself, and I am also generally meant to be avoiding stress. Also my system is full of hormones so trying to be rational and make sensible decisions and communicate clearly is almost impossible. I am also in trouble with my husband, he is very disappointed that Sofie has returned, the term ‘millstone round your neck’ was used.

Never-the-less I have lovely friends and family. Dad promised to cover livery if I couldn’t, which made livery options possible. Our old yard would accept us back with open arms at short notice. Gem offered to collect Sofie in her lorry and her lovely bf offered to be on hand to provide some muscle. My neighbour Scott offered to help me move her stuff using his van and basically do all the lifting for me. I hate being so useless!

It was a Friday evening pick up, Katie had moved Sofie to a field nearer home and popped her rug on. Sofies sweet itch was already looking better which made me feel even more foolish about how I handled the whole thing. Still too late now, nothing left to do but collect.

Scott and I arrived on time and loaded up. Sofie was pleased to see me and gave me a little whinny on arrival. This made me feel worlds better. Gem got stuck in traffic so arrived late, and then had difficulty getting her lorry through the tight gate. This meant we started loading Sofie much later than planned. Poor Sofie was a bit startled by the who situation and refused to load. She dragged Gem off her feet so I took over. I stopped her from tanking, but was persuaded by everyone that this wasn’t something I should be doing. Gems boyfriend had a go instead. He didn’t have much more luck. We tired lundge lines and a whip – but that just made it worse. It was getting dark and I hated stressing Sofie out and keeping everyone waiting.

Then Katie arrived to move in some hay. I felt very awkward, having not seen her since our fall out. Katie was actually very sweet and offered to get a bucket of feed to help. This gave me the idea to put treats in a feed bucket and wave it from the jockey door. Instantly this did the trick – sof not only had the draw of food but could also see that the box was not a dead end and so felt comfortable enough to entre. I quickly tied her up, got my arm a bit squished in the process, but at least bump was out of harms way. Soon we were off back home.

By this point it was getting very dark – nearly 10pm. I rushed Sofie down the field with Sam – again I couldn’t lead her which was annoying. It was so dark we couldn’t see the horses in the field we were trying to lead though. On sues a horse tornado as Sofie is attacked by three horses and poor Sam is at the centre of the whirlwind. I definalty should not be in a horse tornado whilst pregnant. Thankfully another livery came to our rescue and between the 3 of us after 30mins of scrabbling around in the dark and we manage to finally rescue Sofie from her persecutors and put her in a field on her own.

Poor poor Sofie, what I horrid welcome home! It is also very clear that I am in no position to care for her. What a mess!

I spoke too soon

I spoke too soon!

The brood mare plan didn’t quite work out, and I am largely to blame.

Initially everything was great, Katie’s fields are lovely, Sofie seemed happy in the fields. She wasn’t particularly impressed with the stallion, who bless him is only a baby, she chased him off every time he tried to say hello. Katie was giving me regular updates and her boyfriend was enjoying the quiet rides they were going on. Awesome.

I missed Sofie terribly. Giving her up was really hard. I tried to unsubscribe to all my horsey facebook groups as every horse that appeared just reminded me what I had lost. Unfortunately a lot of my friends are horsey friends so this made it almost impossible to remove horses altogether. I tried occupying my time with gardening and baby prep, but my heart wasn’t in it. In fact, horrid it is to admit, I have started to resent baby for costing me Sofie. Turns out I can give up my body, my career, my social life, alcohol, food, privacy without batting an eye… but giving up Sofie is more difficult than all those things together. Still needs must, and baring a weekly visit I was slowly getting used to life sans horses.

But then her feet started cracking, Katie got them checked by her farrier who said they are shockingly short and she is walking entirely on her soles. This is pretty upsetting to hear, especially when I thought her feet were doing pretty well when I dropped her off. Problem is, despite reading several books on farriery and hoof care and subscribing to the foot dissection blog channels – yup I am that odd, I didn’t really feel like I knew enough to doubt the farrier. There is clearly a difference in opinion between the farrier and my trimmer, but I didn’t feel qualified to say who was right either way. Katie did offer for me to talk to the farrier about this, but given I didn’t feel like I had suffient knowledge and knowing it would stress me out I declined. I am meant to be doing my outmost to not be stressed right now after all. I tried to be rational, Sofie will be the best judge of who is right. If she seems better with the farrier great, if she seems worse I will ask to get the trimmer back. That’s sensible right? Still, niggling anxiety persisted, especially given her previous lameness.

On top of this her sweet itch seemed to be starting.

I then went on holiday, tried to relax and forget about my Sofie worries, tried not to think about Sofie – failed miserably on both accounts. I was very excited to see her when I got back. Alas when I went to see her after my two week break she had sweet itch sores on her face, neck, tail and stomark. Her lovely mane had gone. She had put on weight and the feet had cracked further.

I tried not to panic. I went home and tried to think of other things, but I couldn’t stop fretting. I tried to right a list of possibly solutions with pros and cons to encourage myself to be rational. I promised myself not to have a knee jerk reaction to the situation. I tried talking to friends but still couldn’t quash my anxiety.

I didn’t want to bug Katie about it. We had already discussed the sweetitch, Katie was already treating it daily and explained that rugs were a bad idea when out with a stallion and I was already way overstepping as an owner of a horse on full loan. Also I knew there wasn’t much more she could do about it, other than removing Sofie from the stallion so she could wear her rugs… but that somewhat defeats the purpose of a broodmare home.

I then did a very silly thing. By Sunday evening I still couldn’t stop fretting so I thought – why not consult the internet? NEVER CONSULT THE INTERNET! I am part of a really friendly close fb group called haffy addicts and I naïvely thought an independent view who didn’t know me or Katie might help me find a sensible solution to the situation. I thought it would be reasonably anonymous and would not come up on my fb feed as it is a closed group. NOTHING ON FB IS PRIVATE. So guess what, I posted my concerns, Katie saw the post and understandably was very upset and asked me to collect Sofie by the end of the week.

So I was a nob and utterly blew a lovely home for Sofie, screwed myself and nick financially and endangered my babys health (via my stress levels – haven’t slept since) and upset Katie, all because I could not let go. Fan-bloody-tastic.