THANK YOU to DG barefooters - making progres

[ely511]

i cannot thank all of you supportive barefoot DGers enough. I had the best christmas present when my Ep saw henry and prnounced him now a '3'. Over the next month we can work up to riding him in walk and trot in the school for up to an hour and will ride him or handwalk in boots for 15 minutes outside as well. hopefully, I can upload the pics successfully so you can see how far we have come though he is clearly still a work in progress. he now gets turned out barefoot - mainly because he kept trashing his boots - but is coping well with it. i feel that I am finally getting the horse I bought back in terms of temperament. All that box rest didn't do anything for his character. I have also been lucky enough to have Julia Fisher RA come out and do ground work with us - Henry learns quickly - I'm somewhat slower!

Anyway, I expect I shall be moving on to the Perfect Confidence section soon because i am much more nervous about riding him now. he needs quite a bit of getting used to 'normal' conditions ie. working with other horses around and hacking out. For the past year he has really only been in one indoor school on his own and he wasn't brilliant in company before. Anyway, we'll be taking it one step at a time and I know where i shall be heading for advice when I need it.

But I do want to say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who gave such good advice and were so supportive when I was looking at going barefoot. Without this DG I don't think I would ever have considered barefoot as a possible way forward and it has helped so much to read of other people's experiences when we've faltered. Not to mention the wonderful recommendation of my EP.

left fore april 07


dec 07


right fore april 07


Dec 07


left hind april 07

Dec07


right hind april 07

dec07

[june]

Glad you're making good progress. Welcome to the Julia fan club! She does riding lessons too and is great at helping with confidence.

[ely511]

Thanks June. i've just modified the post because I am so hopeless at uploading photos. Julia is great - I particularly liked it when she told me that I am now 'consciously incompetent' - a step forward from being 'unconsciously incompetent'! I thought I'd quite like it as an epitaph. As in 'Mostly she was consciously incompetent'!

[Amanda Dolby]

My look at all that redness in the before pics - poor pone!
Looks so much better now - enjoy your riding.

[june]

A few more sessions and you'll be consciously competent!

[horsey123]

wow they are lookin` good now

[Susan]

Wow what a massive improvement... and I can only back up Julia was the trainer who turned me around from near giving up riding as lost all confidence and basically could not ride my horse.

So if you can get your horse through this and have Julia help as a RA.. get her to help you as a riding instructor..you "Wont" look back.

Keep up the great work as well with the feet..

are you doing any pad work? as they will improve the structure so much even turn out in them..

[jen1]

what an improvemet well done

[ely511]

I am an idiot. This is what happens when I post after having a glass of wine - he is actually a 3.5 now.

Amanda - I know. I look back at those first pictures and they still upset me. poor boy.

June - not a bad aim for 2008 is it - to be consciously competent?! I was given a desk diary for a christmas present and i thought i'd use it to catalogue what I do with henry and our progress over the year - so hopefully by December I might be able to mark an increase in conscious competence!

Susan - I'd love to have a riding lesson with Julia but the yard I'm on is a school and though they are happy for her to come and do groundwork with me, I don't think they would be happy if I had riding lessons with her and i don't want to upset them as they have been very helpful with all the extra care henry has needed. We do do work with pads. He is currently being walked out for 15 minutes (almost) daily in boots and pads in addition to his barefoot work in the school. We tried turning him out in boots and pads but after having to have two major repairs to his boots we gave up.