Tuesday, April 15, 2008
FFI Second Chances: Jimmy
12:04 PM | 
Posted by
Amy
As of tomorrow night, Jimmy, a 9 year old 16.3h bay TB gelding will be under my care. His registered name is Mynard Road. He raced and was also used as a pony horse. He has recovered from a bowed tendon which happened last fall. He was rescued because his owner was either going to euthanize him or leave him to starve because there wasn't room on the trailer to take him home to Arkansas. Thankfully, Friends of Ferdinand intervened and Jimmy was saved. FFI will be covering all expenses for Jimmy while he is in my care for retraining.
I went to visit Jimmy last night as his current foster home where he's been as part of the rehab process. His foster family is very nice. They take great care of their horses. Both Jimmy and Cheers (also an OTTB) were in very good weight - especially for coming out of winter.
Paul, the foster "dad," got Jimmy out so I could take a look at him. The bow is nasty looking, but appears to be cool and doesn't seem to bother him too much. He occasionally rested the left front (the bowed leg) but it seemed to be more out of habit than soreness. After had a good look at him, Paul lunged him for me. Jimmy looks to be a bit stiff in the hind end. The to the left, he carries his left hind underneath him and steps a little short on the right hind. I'm not too worried about it since the diagonal pair to the RH is the LF, which has the bowed tendon. Plus, he hasn't really been asked to work at all in the last 6 months due to the recovery process. When going to the right, he carried himself much more evenly. He has a lot of thrust and a nice, springy trot
His canter is a bit funky. The rhythm is pure, but the tempo isn't consistent. I think it will improve has he as the chance to be outside regularly and rebuild some of the carrying muscles. He's a little full of himself when asked to move out on the lunge, but that is to be expected given the rehab time he's incurred.
His ground manners were very nice, although he did have a chain under his chin during our meeting. I plan to fit my rope halter to him and see how he works in that. I don't like to use chains unless they're warranted for safety measures. Jimmy doesn't seem to be rude or obnoxious when being handled, so a rope halter may be all he needs. We'll see.
His current foster family will be delivering him to the barn tomorrow night. I'm very much looking forward to working with Jimmy and helping him through the retraining process.
I went to visit Jimmy last night as his current foster home where he's been as part of the rehab process. His foster family is very nice. They take great care of their horses. Both Jimmy and Cheers (also an OTTB) were in very good weight - especially for coming out of winter.
Paul, the foster "dad," got Jimmy out so I could take a look at him. The bow is nasty looking, but appears to be cool and doesn't seem to bother him too much. He occasionally rested the left front (the bowed leg) but it seemed to be more out of habit than soreness. After had a good look at him, Paul lunged him for me. Jimmy looks to be a bit stiff in the hind end. The to the left, he carries his left hind underneath him and steps a little short on the right hind. I'm not too worried about it since the diagonal pair to the RH is the LF, which has the bowed tendon. Plus, he hasn't really been asked to work at all in the last 6 months due to the recovery process. When going to the right, he carried himself much more evenly. He has a lot of thrust and a nice, springy trot
His canter is a bit funky. The rhythm is pure, but the tempo isn't consistent. I think it will improve has he as the chance to be outside regularly and rebuild some of the carrying muscles. He's a little full of himself when asked to move out on the lunge, but that is to be expected given the rehab time he's incurred.
His ground manners were very nice, although he did have a chain under his chin during our meeting. I plan to fit my rope halter to him and see how he works in that. I don't like to use chains unless they're warranted for safety measures. Jimmy doesn't seem to be rude or obnoxious when being handled, so a rope halter may be all he needs. We'll see.
His current foster family will be delivering him to the barn tomorrow night. I'm very much looking forward to working with Jimmy and helping him through the retraining process.
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1 comments:
Too cool! This will be a great experience for both you and Jimmy. Keep me posted on his progress and I will check in on your blog every now and then!
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