Love, bubs and life on our little farm

With Spech slowly recovering from losing the wall of his hoof (we now have strong healthy hoof almost grown down!), I have been spending a bit of time on training Sam and I thought it was time for an update.

First the story..
Sam is a rescue horse who we bought from a couple of ladies who had rescued him from the meatworks. He is an ex racehorse who once finished racing had been locked in a grassless yard and left to starve. At some point, the horrible people had then decided to ship him off to be killed - this is where he was discovered. I had rang to speak to the ladies about buying a horse who was already sold. Hearing my horse history (we basically keep our horses as pets until they die of old age) and my plans for my new horse, they decided that Sam who had just been saved would be a good match. He is 17hh and with bold paces which suits my eventing/dressage style. I LOVE big horses and was very excited to look at him.

I was so impressed with these amazing ladies - they had a paddock full of saved horses all of which they were trying to rehabilitate with limited funds. They were not sure how they were going to afford to feed up Sam, being so huge and so starved, with all their bills so they were pleased to see me! Sam and I hit it off and in the short ride I gave him, I managed to coax him to do all the things that the ladies hadnt been able to do ie canter on the left leg etc

So to cut a long story short, we floated him home that evening and he has been here ever since. It has been expensive feeding him up - being such a big horse he needs a lot of food! But he is now strong and healthy. Of course being an off the track racehorse, he has no education. He is pretty gentle but developed a bad habit of pulling from his mouth, as he is so strong, he discovered he could unseat riders this way. I have been giving him a lot of slow flat work - concentrating on teaching him to listen to my seat and legs rather than needing the riders hands. By driving him forward into a steady contact he has learnt to soften to the hands and is rounding nicely. He has learnt to halt from a strong half halt of mainly seat. Even better - in the last few lessons, he has shown some lightness at the trot and held his own soft contact. That was wonderful to feel! He also has a gorgeous free walk at the long rein - he really swings his back. I used this as a "reward" from hard work so he enjoys his free walks which makes all the difference I find - stops them getting stiff and "running".

Of course he is still unbalanced - particularly to the right, but it is improving. And his head still fights whenever he is asked a bit much or when he gets a little confused about a direction. He has started lateral work and leg yields quite well - although better to the right then to the left.. Canter work is yet to come. His idea of jumping is to generally demolish jumps so there is a long way to go there yet. but ideally I think he would make a nice eventer. Although he has been to the riding grounds twice and both times he was very stressed - remembering race meets still unfortunately. I am hoping to get him out to the grounds a few more times this year but Spech is still my main focus and god knows with a little baby, there is not a lot of time left for juggling two competition horses!

My goals with Sam for the next few months are to improve the balance and collection and start some canter work. :)

Sam when he first arrived on the property - about 6 hours after I had first seen him. Poor boy - weak and skinny.


Sam in October last year - 1.5 yrs of living with us. Lots of feed and TLC later!


Sam now - after a couple of months of light dressage training - developing some nice muscle particularly through his neck. Note how his shoulder and rump have filled out.