Bournville is our first horse and started our journey on the slippery slope to poverty and happiness. He came to us as a 4 year old in 2002, a newly broken (To ride and drive) gelding, and has made us smile every day since.
His mother was bought at the Appleby fair, and was a proper traveller's horse. When she was bought the sellers were asked if she was pregnant and the buyers were told "NO". Then in October a pair of hooves appeared and Bournville was born. He was originally called "Rodney Trotter", but I alway thought of "plonker" whenever it was said, so had to change his name.
We want through a whole list of names and finally decided on Bournville- one, because he was a dark chocolate brown (he has gone black as he got older) and two, because I love dark chocolate!
Cirrus came to us via the blacksmith (More on him elsewhere !!) as a 6 year old in 2004. He had heard of an owner who was going to put her horse down due to behavioural problems and bone spavin in her right hock. This meant she could not be used for any high level of riding and was quite unhandlable anyway. She had to be sedated to be shod, would rear, buck, barge, bite & kick to intimidate you. Well, we heard of Cirrus on the Monday and arranged to visit her that night as she was booked to be put to sleep on the Wednesday. We went over and the owner called her from a field full of horses and she trotted over, nice as you like. While being led up to the yard she reared up knocking her owner over and took off back to the field (over her owner).
We took her home the following weekend and spent the next three months taking her in every day, grooming her, working on her feet, making her stand and generally behave.
We had no previous experience, but just worked on a theory that if things were nice when she was good and when she was bad she was ignored she would soon learn. She is now a lovely horse who along with some work from the blacksmith now wears shoes without any need for sedation. We did think about rebreaking her to ride, but after a series of problems with her feet and legs ( abscesses and splints) we have decided she will stay retired and be a companion.
Available for sponsorship.
Bumble came to us from a dealer in fife, no sad story, just a lucky find for Mike. She is Mike's horse, he needed something not too tall but who could carry weight!!!!
She is a noriker (austrian draft horse) and came from holland, her name was Melissa but Mike wasn't going to shout that out in the field. As , the name, Melissa is linked to bees, I suggested Honey. That didn't go down too well either so we decided on Bumble and it suits her down to a tee. She was bought in 2006 as a 6 year old.
Pixie was born in2004 and bought from Thainstone's shetland pony sale. A harrowing experience, lots of 5 month old babies going for 50 guineas- usually colts.
We bought her as a companion but are now thinking of breaking her to drive, she is lunging well just now and we will keep you updated as to whether we get her in the cart!
She does like to bite your bum though, just for fun!
Pippin,
arrived in 2008, as a 13 year old. Les, the blacksmith again had heard of him and asked of we would take him. He was in a terrible condition and was on the ergs of being PTS. His hooves were horrendously long, especially the back ones, they curves up like turkish slippers and he was practically walking on his heels. He was very thin and caused us a lot of concern initially, if fact our vet advised us not to get too attached.
Les has kindly done all the work on his feet for free and in the beginning came weekly. We did some exercises on his joints and lots of handling as he was scared of everything, rugs, brooms, sudden movements, etc.
He is slowly improving everyday and has had blood tests to check out his general condition and x-rays on his feet to see how much damage has been done to his joints. Sadly there is quite a lot of damage and anymore could prove fatal for him, so this will mean very careful management and he will spend the rest of his life living mainly on hay as grass could cause another bout of laminitis which caused all the damage in the first place.
He is now bonded with Pixie (we also need to watch her diet as being a pony, she will also be more susceptable to laminits) and he is totally devoted to her, so for the first time in years we think he is happy and relatively healthy.