Ballesteros

He has been body sore. We have trimmed his hooves. He was visibly lame in the walk for a few days. Once moving in trot or canter he glides. Our animal welfare officer has found him easy to handle despite reports of being a dangerous horse – he was to be put down because of this. The Save Equus Animal Welfare Officer indicated “I have found him very easy to handle. I trimmed his hooves on my own, whilst sitting on a seat. He was not tied-up. He has also desensitised to my dog chasing him. His kicks are warnings only. He has never threatened me, or any visitors to my property”. His teeth are worn to the gums and we are arranging Dr Stone to attend to them when she is next available. Our Animal Welfare officer doubts they have been done in years; he drops a lot of food. He can’t bite having barely any upper incisors. His canines are like tusks. He windsucks and had a collar on, we have removed that. His windsucking increases with stress. This horse will take considerable rehabilitation. We believe he has had an untreated back or hip injury (probably related to a fall) that has caused him pain when he was ridden. We understand he can recover, even now, from this injury. Ballesteros has been handled hard and roughly – probably as pain has made him reluctant to direction when being ridden, sucessive owners have become harsher with that direction. This horse has low self esteem.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Our Horses.