South Coast Equine Vets/Natalie McGoldrick Equine

*** Mabel the Police Horse! ***

Today Mabel had her first ever unaccompanied return to base after a hack. I normally have a vehicle es**rt along the 30mph road outside my yard, as the road is completely chockablock with idiots who don’t think they need to slow down for horses. By absolutely insisting that as many vehicles as possible slow down for young horses, they learn that they aren’t scary, and can then cope with the delights that don’t slow down. A young horse first needs to learn that vehicles aren’t going to scare or drive into them, before being ok with them.

After being a bit of a nappy witch for the hour we were out around the quiet lanes, she then hacked back along the nightmare road like a police horse! As predicted, I had at least six cars that didn’t slow down at all from their 30-40mph speed (on a Sunday, so obviously late for Sunday lunch/the pub) and Mabel didnt even flinch. Also a very loud motorbike came up behind her, and again not a single reaction.

I truly didn’t think that Mabel would end up plodding along a busy road!

Photo of when we got back this morning, as you can never have enough photos of Mabel!

Taking five minutes on a stunning summer Saturday evening to appreciate (and admire 🙈) what I’ve built. Owning my own yard always seemed so unrealistic that it wasn’t even a dream! Very grateful that I’ve been able to work like crazy for 13 years to be able to own and build my little piece of paradise. Horses all snoozing in their barn whilst I poo pick!

And extremely grateful for my family, especially my mum and aunt, who help every single day to enable me to work like I do!

And of course I had to share the stills! About 18 months ago, I wasn’t sure that I was going to get either homebred to settle and work; now they are the two easiest horses I’ve sat on.
Alfred certainly looks like a little Eventer; now to hopefully do the job 🤞🤞

Baileys Horse Feeds
Aubiose Horse Bedding
Premier Performance
Nuveq
Farm & Stable Supplies
Equine Dental Clinic Ltd
Pikeur - Eskadron-UK
Shaws Equestrian
ABUS Equestrian
PM Equestrian/Antares Sellier UK & Ireland
Absorbine UK
Equilibrium Products
PolyPads
Comfort Zone Equestrian
Roeckl Equestrian
Flex-on Equestrian Equipment

**** COLIC = CALL THE VET! ****

Having just been alerted to the most terrifying FB post I’ve seen for a while, with someone asking for advice for their poor horse with “mild” colic, I feel the need to share a bit of advice.

If your horse has ANY kind of colic symptoms then DO NOT ASK FB FOR ADVICE; CALL YOUR VET!!!!!

A horse that is going down unless forced to walk does not have “mild” colic; he has extremely obvious colic that may be fatal within hours.

I am still shocked when I hear people state that the horse won’t eat, is pawing the ground, even going down, but because he/she isn’t thrashing about then it isn’t colic.

The most common early symptom of colic, is a horse that doesn’t want to eat. He may just be standing there very quietly, and yes, may also have a “twisted gut” that requires surgery. It is actually very rare for me to see a colic, even a surgical colic, that is thrashing about on the floor. More often, it’s a quiet horse, off food, intermittently going down.

Also please DO NOT GIVE YOUR HORSE ANY DAMN BUTE!!!! This will make it tricky for your vet to assess the severity when he/she arrives 30-60 minutes later, as it will have started to work.

I’ll do some more colic posts soon, but the important message this evening is:

IF YOU HAVE EVEN THE SLIGHTEST SUSPICION THAT YOUR HORSE HAS COLIC, CALL YOUR VET IMMEDIATELY. Leaving a horse in agony with “belly ache” is just as bad as an elite competition horse working 1.65 degrees overbent. Welfare starts in the stable. But that’s another post.

*** Controversial post alert 🫣😂***
For those sick of seeing photos of my toes…..here are some MUCH prettier toes, freshly shod yesterday 🐴 🦶 And look who got their first little stud holes ❤️

Rode this little mini beast this morning; having had two days off, and with 30mph winds and intermittent rain, I wasn’t sure how he’d behave. Alfred was a superstar! ❤️

I heard back from the fracture clinic today as a consultant has now looked at the rads; 4-6 weeks in the boot 🙈🙈 to allow the fragment to reattach. Hmm….i’m hoping a jodphur boot is a good substitute 🫣

Oooo, pink shoes 👠 Well, not quite, but pink dental impression material underneath some pads for Mabel today. With the ground like concrete, and her being so tall, we’ve decided to give her some comfy trainers for the rest of the summer! 👠

With my poor great toe confirmed as fractured (if you’ve fractured a bone before, you tend to just know if you’ve fractured another one!) and the lorry possibly irreparable (due to needing a part they possibly don’t make any more), I have had to forget my plan to take Mabel back to Coombelands tomorrow to jump the BN (this was my grand plan, hence going to the training show yesterday). I had a busy day of 3 calls and the farrier for all of mine, so spent the afternoon bringing six horses in and out for the farrier (and can confirm that the ground is very uneven in the paddocks 😂).
I will wait to hear back from the fracture clinic, but likely conservative management and the fragment that’s fractured off should reattach itself 🤞
I had planned to ride Alf now, but as I feel like I could sleep for a week, I’m going to give myself a rare day off riding!
PS No fracture advice needed, unless you’re a medic (then it’s very welcome!). And thank you to the medics for confirming that I did need to get a great toe xrayed!

Didn’t make it to get it xrayed, due to two emergencies and having to drive back to load Mabel onto alternate transport when the lorry completely died, but it’s looking fairly impressive so far! Will attempt to go to minors early tomorrow to get a quick X-ray (if I was a horse, I would have had my vet out and had my X-ray within an hour of the accident) as it’s not enjoying being walked on. Horses (although absolutely not her fault, and she was then a complete angel waiting in the broken down lorry, loading up into a strange lorry, travelling forward facing for the first time, and eating her dinner straight away when she finally got home!).

Heading home from a reasonably successful afternoon of jumping with Mabel, back at Coombelands, that hasn’t ended very successfully at all!

After Mabel decided to chuck the towel in last week at the same venue, I decided to go back to their brilliant training show today, to jump the 80 and 90, and hopefully shed some light on what happened last week. It turns out Mabel has become a bit nappy (clingy) towards other horses, as today she napped even going into the ring. She jumped the first two fences fine (back towards the horses) and then stopped at the third before she got there! Jumped it perfectly the second time, and then popped round clear! Back in for the 90cm; no napping at all and just tapped one fence, so much improved. She did fight a bit with me, but no stopping or napping in the second round, so mission accomplished!

Mabel was then having a little hand graze next to the lorry after her rounds. Someone started lunging right next to her, so I started to pull her head up to move away, and at the same time the other horse started coming backwards towards Mabel. Mabel panicked, completely lost her back end on the wet grass, and in attempting to save herself, smashed her front foot right down onto my big toe. My big toe is now looking and feeling very sorry for itself (it was rather painful) so I’ll head to A&E when I’ve done eveninh stables, to check it’s not fractured!

Meanwhile…..our lorry is busy breaking down on the way home. Air is coming out of the air brakes as we drive, so we have been stopping every couple of minutes to refill, before the lorry comes to a grinding halt again.

Life is set to try us! At least Mabel jumped well!

Quick five minute pit stop en route home from a 2.5 hour round trip to do a vetting near Newbury this evening!
Can’t quite believe I’ve now been a real life, qualified Vet, for 16 years now 🙈 👵
How lucky am I to drive around all day, looking after horses?! Especially in beautiful Hampshire ❤️

Managed to do some hacking this morning, and two big thank yous today! Firstly to the wonderful Portsmouth Selco lorry driver, who immediately stopped and turned his engine off when he saw me. Not only that, but he cheerfully said hello out of his window, and then waited until I was well clear before starting up again. After a total of 8 phone calls, I managed to track his manager down to say thank you!

Second big thank you to our wonderful local farmer, Speedy. Alfred didn’t fancy passing his tractor and trailer on a narrow lane, so Speedy pulled right over, and then got out to walk with Alf past it! Apparently he’s just like a cow 😂! 🐄

Photos of Alfred watching the straw being loaded onto a trailer, and of him getting his sweetie 🍬 😂

The two homebreds in action today. Alfred, merrily skimming over 1.15m; to be honest, that’s exactly how you want them to jump if you’re going to go Eventing. Mabel thinking she’s skimming over them 🤦‍♀️🙈🫣

*** THREE CHEERS FOR THE OLYMPIC EQUESTRIANS ***

Do I envy those riders out competing in Paris this year? Absolutely not. The pressure and scrutiny they must be under (from the “experts”, not the real experts, I hasten to add) must be immense.

How on earth do you give 100% focus to the competition in front of you, when you know that Sharon from Skegness is recording it all on Discovery + (which she finally discovered was how you watched the equestrian events after posting on FB 500 times to ask) and will play it ALL back in slo-motion later, to find THOSE photos that PROVE that horse’s noseband was too tight, his saddle didn’t fit, he was showing signs of pain in the half pass as he swished his tail twice? She is waiting to reveal to the world that at least half the riders at the Olympics ride in Rollkur, as she’s managed to get at least 8 stills of horses “BTV”; that wasn’t simply a moment of tension, it absolutely PROVES they are worked at home with their noses on their chests. She will post her concrete evidence on SM, for another 10000 Sharons to join in with crying emojis. Some will post angry emojis, to add to the drama.

I could go on, but instead I want to say THREE CHEERS for every single rider out in Paris. Not only have they all ridden beautifully, but they’ve managed to ride at an exceptionally high level, when 110% concentration is needed, knowing that they are being scrutinised by millions of armchair “experts”. I don’t think I could have done it.

Let’s all raise a glass, not only for the incredible results of our GB riders, but for every single rider at the Olympics, for coping with the current (somewhat crazy) situation we are currently experiencing with horse sport.

Photo from many, many years ago, when I won individual gold at the World University Equestrian Championships in Tokyo….and the Irish boys won the rest!

Everyone loves a Georgie bean jump!

I’d say GB were fairly competent at this riding malarky…..

What an incredible medal tally so far, and simply sensational riding. Brilliant Olympics!

Always one that likes to eat behind the vertical 🤦‍♀️😂😂😂 I just can’t stop taking photos of these beautiful bodies! And the final photo is me being watched just now, as I dared to sit down for 5 minutes 😂

Something I occasionally post about, as I have certainly been subjected to social media bullying. It’s always dished out by people who have never even met you, let alone spoken to you. Apart from running this page, I have drastically reduced the time I spend on Facebook, as to be honest, it’s quite often nastiness after nastiness, and normally from people who don’t really have a clue.

Why? Just why do people feel the need to be vile about subjects they have no clue about, and about people they don’t know, and have never met?!

Every person is a real person, with real feelings. You vile, revolting Internet bullies really do need to go and find yourselves a hobby. Bullying other people on social media is not a hobby. Does it give you some kind of high, to know you’ve publicly slated or bullied someone?

Sorry to post something so negative, but Nicky’s post is not dissimilar to what I’ve faced on several occasions.

Some photos from an extremely hot afternoon of work. Can anyone guess what routine work I was doing?! 🥵

A busy morning spent with PM Equestrian/Antares Sellier UK & Ireland sorting out saddles for the two young horses. My wonderful jumping saddle gets a lot of use, as seems to fit both of them, and fortunately confirmed today that it is perfect on both! It is as light as a feather, and has served me well for six years so far!
Unfortunately it wasn’t a “one size fits all” when it came to dressage saddles, so one new one for Mabel, and one for Alf! Now that I’m asking for more collected and lateral work, and working more in sitting trot, I want to make sure both horses are very comfy.

My jumping saddle was made for George, six years ago, but has been slipping a bit recently. Confirmed it’s due to his rather porky figure, so he needs to lose weight to stop the saddle rolling around like a fat pony 🙈🙈🫣

Huge thank you to PM Equestrian/Antares Sellier UK & Ireland for providing us with wonderful saddles for the past 7 years.

Finally, my real summer holiday….5-6.30pm Tuesday 30th July 2024 (managed to stretch to 1.5 hours!). 30 degrees in Costa del Horndean 👌 ☀️ 🏊‍♀️
The best bit? Not a haylage bale in sight 😂

When you really wish that horses could talk….

Horses are the best levellers in the world; just when you thought everything was going perfectly, it doesn’t!

Today we headed very early doors to Coombelands, for Mabel’s first ever BS Cat 2 show. The warm up, despite having at least 15 riders, was an absolute dream, and Mabel warmed up beautifully. This was her first time going straight in at 90 (BS 90, so second half up to 1m). She wasn’t as in front of my leg as I would have liked, but she jumped very nicely to just have one pole down.

I decided to have our first go at a Discovery today (1m first half, 1.05-1.10m second half) as the height doesn’t seem to bother her. Again, she warmed up absolutely beautifully, jumped the first 3 fences perfectly, and then chucked the towel in! She came off the bridle and off my leg as we turned away from the collecting ring to fence 4, and we didn’t even get to fence 4. I have no idea why she decided she wasn’t jumping any further than that! She is in season at the moment, and there was a stallion with it all on display in the collecting ring when we warmed up, so I’m hoping it was that. It wasn’t anything to do with the fence, as she had stopped 3-4 strides before it, and then didn’t stop at anything when I took her back to the collecting ring to jump several fences afterwards. We were finished by 10am so fairly sure it wasn’t the heat.

Unfortunately there aren’t any BS Cat 1 shows (that start at 85cm) for a while, so I’ll take her out and just jump a 90cm next time, and take it from there! I certainly can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do, so all I can do is take her out and try again! Horses!

Photos from her nice BN/90 round!

Selfie of the year award goes to……!!

I think this is the best photo I’ve seen from the Olympics so far! WHAT a day for Team GB today!

Simply exceptional performances from all three riders, but the coolest round of the day award has to go to Michi Jung, who looked like he was out popping round a British Novice this afternoon, when he was in fact riding his round for Olympic gold! He does not move in the saddle, and that’s always been my aim as a rider.
Horse I’d most like to steal just to have a pop around a 4* again? London 52, obviously! ❤️

Incredible result for Team GB, yet again! 🥇