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Email: christinehardaker@supanet.com
It’s been officially declared the wettest winter since records began, but we are certainly not surprised about that going by the state of our fields.
There won’t be many yards where there are more than a few horses with mud fever and owners with back ache having to treat it! It can be tricky if you have a 500 kilo horse that’s handy with its hooves as generally that’s near where the scabs and sores form, and it must be painful and irritating for them when you’re having to pick and poke them. I’ve found with my gelding, the more I told him off for dancing around, the more he dreaded me coming near his legs so I had to change my approach and I stopped telling him off but praised him when he kept still, which at first wasn’t for very long! But in time the process got less and less stressful and I also learnt to treat the opposite leg to the one I was next to so if he was waiving it around, I wasn’t likely to get kicked, but of course that meant bending down under his belly. Nowadays he is better at tolerating me doing it.
It was nineteen years in January since I got my horse so he is about twenty six and has been diagnosed with Cushings. One of the problems with this condition is their immune system is low and cannot fight infections very well. He has always been prone to mud fever but not too badly in recent winters but this winter he has suffered badly, and as a result he got in infection called cellulitis. This caused swelling to one of his back legs which was getting worse, even though I firstly got antibiotic cream from the vet to apply and after there was no improvement, the vet came and prescribed antibiotics to put in his feeds. Unfortunately he has always been fussy about medicines in his feeds and wouldn’t eat it so I’d been having to mix the powder with some liquid in a syringe and squirt it into his mouth! This then put him off eating altogether and another vets visit later found he had a small ulcer on his tongue which must have been causing some pain too.
So he has ended up in hospital at the vets for a few days so they can monitor him 24/7. I visited him this morning after he’d only been in 24 hours and there is some improvement already. My main worry was any further swelling can lead to a condition called lymphangitis. I had seen a horse with this condition years ago and I certainly would not have wanted to put my old boy through all that so I was so relieved to see the swelling had gone down quite a bit.
News on the bridleways front has been very busy of late. There has been news of three stables that are under threat of closure due to developers putting in plans to build vast numbers of houses. We had already heard about and put our objections in on the Councils planning web site regarding the loss of most of the fields from Cote Farm on Leeds Road. I think it was 270 dwellings planned on that site and as a result of losing the grazing land, the proprietors are not going to be able to support as many horses on their land, which is threatening their livelihood.
The next news was that Throstles Nest Farm at Fagley is under threat of closure and the whole farm would be demolished to make way for approximately 600 dwellings! There has been a link to a petition circulating on Facebook and on Wednesday 26th February, ten of their horses were ridden from the farm into the centre of Bradford to the Town Hall where they handed in hundreds of letters objecting to the plans. Up to press the petition has attracted 1,157 signatures in only eighteen days since it began. If you haven’t already signed the online petition here’s the link to it https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/future-of-fagley-riding-school.
Another site under threat I believe is off Westfield Lane in the All Alone area where there are horses being kept on the land.
This is going to cause a shortage of places at livery yards and this will all add to the crisis the rescue centres are having to cope with due to abandoned equines, when some irresponsible people just dump their horses and ponies on private and council land when they find they can’t afford to keep them. Last year we had a Shetland pony turn up loose on our yard and no one came to enquire about it. We did find out from another yard that someone had brought the pony to them asking if someone wanted to buy it as they had to get rid of it within the next few days!
Some good news on the bridleways front is that the development planned for the Simpson Green area may provide a safer off road route. One of the main dangers of riding out in this area is the heavy traffic on Leeds Road and many of the circular routes you can take only require crossing the busy road. But if you want to go further afield towards Esholt or Woodlands, it will entail either riding up or down Leeds Road and Apperley Road so if a track can be negotiated through or around the edge of the new development there, it would make that journey much safer. This is a route I have proposed for some years now and the Rights of Way officer has been in touch to alert me of the planning application and is on the case! Everyone keep your fingers crossed.
I haven’t heard any more about the “new” routes that were being thought about by Jeanette Sunderland along with other groups in Thackley (I wasn’t invited to the walk around the proposed tracks, I wonder why??) but as soon as I do I will be writing about it here so watch this space. I think a reminder e-mail to our local councillor might bring some news for next month.
The track that was very kindly provided for us in the Wrose parish council over the land between Wrose Brow Road and Carr Lane has inevitably suffered quite badly due to the wettest winter ever, and whilst it has been a great help having the horse stiles installed to allow riders access the land but not the motor bikes, it has had the undesirable effect of concentrating all hoof falls onto one line which has caused much churning up! Unfortunately this has not gone unnoticed by opponents of horse riders and has caused some complaints – we just can’t win can we?! I had been trying to negotiate a track through Wrose rec, which riders used to use before the knee high barriers were erected some years ago. I used to ride across to the lane by the chicken farm called Childs Lane but the damage on the Carr Lane route has scuppered that( – maybe – I’ll have one last attempt at persuading them on another track). In the meantime the good news is that they have found funding to improve the surface at either end so be prepared to find workmen digging there at some point.
I went to this years first WHOA meeting this week and they reported on their work since the last meet. They have been very busy and are doing a fantastic job in finding all the bridleways that need to be registered on the official map before the deadline comes, or they will be lost for ever. Please go onto the web site and at least print off a (free) membership form and join the group (for free). It will at least be a support to them when they are fighting on your behalf, especially when they meet with important people like MP’s so they can at least say they are representing so many hundreds of riders in the Bradford area – please show your support by just joining!
Here’s the site address again: http://www.rombalds-riding.org.uk/ and click on Wharfedale and Airedale Horse Org or go onto their Facebook page and “like” it to get updates etc., as 268 others have done already.
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