Starlight's Journey

Day 60

24 August 2016

Sorry for no updates, instead of filling you in on an everyday basis, I thought now it'd be better to do it every week or every two weeks as there isn't much to report each day.

But there is a lot to fill you in on since you have last read.

As you can see we are now day 60! Stars belly has gone from looking gammy and a little bit scabby, to now being pretty much completely closed up. He's allowed to go out on the 4th September, so no longer has to be in his stable (thank goodness!)

His coat has really got its shine back too.

Cheeky monkey ripped the Hayledge bag and then gave me the look when I caught him! "I wasn't doing anything Mum!"

The day me and Johnny came back from camp Star found Johnny's Hayledge. Hayledge is like hay, but it has been fermented slightly so it tastes really nice to horses, it's like a sugary treat, it's really good for horses doing a lot of exercise due to the high salt and sugar content so it restores any salts lost from hard work and sweat. He does get it when he has big competitions over a few days but not at the moment as he is constantly in!

We have been taking his band off while we are up the stables with him as it is making his muscle tone on his back drop. Here's a pic of him waiting for his dinner one evening! :) and then one form when he finally got it and had his bandages changed :)

We were also talking to the lady who does the horses physiotherapy as she came to sort out Johnny's shoulders (he has very upright feet so can get tight through his shoulders when he's in hard work) and she was telling us about equine tapping as she had just been on a course about it. Basically when he comes back into work we can apply tape to his back and along his muscles to help them come back nice and strong!

She also said as she's only just learnt this technique, and we are so down to earth she would like to use him in her case study for the next stage of her course, meaning she won't charge us for it at all! It's a massive relief.

That's something very annoying about the horse world, they tear chunks out of you if you don't have enough money or are trying to keep costs down 'you shouldn't have a horse' etc. It's not everyday your horse is going to have life saving surgery??

It started getting a bit colder at night so we rugged up star as he has a very fine coat. You can't even see his belly band! But this was only for two nights as it suddenly started getting hotter again. It was 31 degrees C today!

Star got way too hot today as well. First off it wasn't his fault for getting hot a stressed as when we were taking the horses to the vets for annual vaccines (flu and tet) and teeth, as we were driving around the side ramp fell down, got caught and ripped half the side of the horse box out. The worst bit was the fact it was only centimetres from Star's face.

We then had to unload them by reversing them down the back ramp (we also had Johnny on the box) which they had never had to do ever. Johnny was trembling and Star was sweating profusely. It wasn't a fun ride for them and I do wonder if they'll load up in the horse box again..

Star had his boots taken off and was washed off with cold water, Johnny was put back out in the main field with Oscar (picture below) Oscar struggles in the heat as he has a pink nose and it burns very very easily, in the picture it is covered in Sudo Crem as his nose got burnt in the sun (this was at 10 am as we hadn't had chance to put sun screen on him yet!) but Oscar is very very cute, and only 11 hands high (for comparison star is 15.1 hands a whole 20 inches taller!)

Afterwards Star was put in his magnetic boots to help reduce any swelling and was allowed to have a walk around and a roll. Star is really on the mend now and is becoming his happy go lucky self once more! And I hope you enjoyed his update, I promise I won't leave it as long next time!
Ps found this picture from when I first got Star :)