Solo’s knee took quite a few days for the swelling to go down. He is back on turnout again but not yet back to work. He had it iced for 48 hours – 20 minutes icing every few hours. After that it was kept wrapped and some aloe ointment was gently massaged onto the scraped […]

When we went to tack up Solo today he had a nasty scrape on his leg. It’s on the inside of his knee and it looks as though he may have put his leg through the fence and then drawn it back quickly scraping it in the process (probably trying to climb out as dinner […]

With the snow gone for a few days (Solo still has aluminum shoes on) we were able to take Solo back down to the indoor arena and put him back to work. As always, he was happy to have our attention. We didn’t have a spare horse to lead him from so Selena led him […]

Today the shavings arrived, 1250 bags to be unloaded. I put Solo and his friend inside the stalls about an hour before the shavings arrived. When the shavings truck pulled in, Solo and Waldo were given some hay to occupy them. The truck outside the window didn’t bother either of them, nor did the noise […]

The little sprinkling of snow has put a temporary stop to Solo’s work. We had put a set of aluminum shoes on him for the Royal Winter Fair, they have no stud holes and no grip on the snow. As I mentioned before, it’s all downhill to the indoor arena and right now it would […]

Solo really has grown up a lot in the past two or three weeks. Just being prepared for his trip to the Royal was educational. He is indeed a changed horse. Although he still stops sometimes when you are leading him, it has more to do with where he wants/doesn’t want to go, than any […]

We left Solo on his own at the RWF at around 12.30 pm on Wednesday night. We had stayed to watch the show and then we walked him one last time, fluffed up his bed and tucked him in. He was NOT sleepy. The General Governor’s Cup, the line class for three year old Canadian […]

He loaded as calmly and quietly as he had the day before. No excitement and no anxiety. He was given a treat and a small hay net, at 11am we set off to Toronto. He traveled beautifully, despite the journey taking an extra half an hour due to the intense rain and loud thunderstorms along […]

Today was meant to be a last lunge, a final practice trot up in the arena and a practice loading in the trailer. Oh well, we got the practice loading done… We turned Solo out this morning and he promptly lost his brand new aluminum shoe, put on yesterday, especially for the RWF. So….he had […]

Despite all the stopping and starting throughout October, Solo was relaxed and confident when we introduced one more new step today. His ‘under saddle’ progression has been: Walking whilst being led in hand. Walking and trotting on the lunge line, inside a roundpen Walking and trotting (with the occasional unplanned canter) loose in the roundpen […]