How Frustrating Is It....

Watching the whole of Queensland getting rain…. And we hardly get a drop??

Well we did get some rain, but not the bucket loads that is currently effecting most of Brisbane and the North of Queensland. Still, I sit in wonder at Mother Nature and know that some time soon (?) it will be our turn to get a few inches of the good stuff.

I have had a very nice break from traipsing up to Toowoomba with only 2 work days this week.

Monday it was out 1st year wedding anniversary and we decided to go out and throw all caution to the wind and have some lunch in Warwick. Getting back just in time for some friends from Northern NSW to come and visit and spend some good time with.

Tuesday it was back to the norm and both Evan and I are most pleased with the little colt, Jake who has made a lot of progress with his sore leg since we have brought him and his mother, Libby, up to one of the small yards. He is no longer limping; however, we will keep them both up here for a little while longer just to keep a close eye on him. It was also time for us to go and spend some quality time with the babies down the back who are growing up at a rate of knots.

Lily (by Private Agenda out of our Luskin Star girl, Splendid Feeling) is coming along very nicely and will make an early goer by the looks of her. Evan keeps asking we are keeping her aren’t we? And I keep saying yes, we are….

Lenny (by Kinjite out of our Air de France girl, Sweet Air) has really come on since coming home and he is quite a stunning boy, he is going to be a big, lean boy which doesn’t surprise me as most Kinjite’s are more 3 – 4 year olds, not 2yos.

Shortie (by Irish Royal out of Turkish Trousers) is really quite a precocious little girl, however, very sweet and friendly. She races around like a mad thing and bucks and jumps and really is most hyperactive. She is starting to lose her foal hair and will be a stunner when she grows up.

Caramel (by Moon Rocket out of Havachat) has lost all of her baby hair and is a beautiful girl. A really deep red chestnut that just offsets her baldy face. She has a very different shaped head to all the babies here at Massie Lodge and will be a most striking filly when she grows up.

Ozzie (by Dodge out of Zandrea). What can I say about this boy? He is the spit of Dodge, with a long body and neck that he will need to grow into. He is very friendly and just adores Evan.

Last but not least is April. (By Canadian Silver out of Ophira). Quite a stunning filly with 3 white socks and a baldy face, and very confident and outgoing. She will be a tall girl. She is quite happy with her mum keeping the grass down around the house.

What beautiful babies they are. However, come February/March it will be time to wean them off their mothers. Iam thinking that Lily and Lenny will be the first cabs off the rank.It certainly tugs your heart strings to hear both mother and child calling out for each other. Very sad indeed. Iam not looking forward to that time. Not at all, still its just one of those things.

Today (Wednesday) both Evan and I made an effort to relax and just enjoy the day... which was very strange not to be running around at 100mph.

On a totally different note, Susie, (Star Ferry) will be back at Caloundra (if the meeting isn’t abandoned due to inclement weather!!???) on Sunday running in a 1600m race. I couldn’t believe the noms, there were 31! AAAArgh! And not another 1600m race in site for maidens.Keep your fingers crossed that she doesn’t find another insect in the sand roll!!

On that note I will leave tonight’s blog and promise to write some more SOOON!

Remember: Send all rain to Warwick!!!

Helen :-)

(Note to Helen: work out how to post photos!!)

Thursday.... One More Working Day Left This Week.....

Hah, yeah well... for me at Telstra, yes. But at Massie Lodge, its 7 days a week. (Perhaps if we could persuade the horses not to eat on Saturday or Sunday and also organise their own water! No?)

Another busy day at Massie Lodge has just passed us by. While I have been sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of an office in Toowoomba, poor Evan has had to do it alone in the heat. Talk about a weird sort of summer, but then, that is something that we have become used to here.

While I have been coooooool in the office, Evan has had the vet out to give poor old Trousers another “woman’s” examination. Yes, she is definitely having another set of shorts (by Irish Royal), however there seems to be a little cyst-y type thing there as well. Chris the vet didn’t seem very concerned and has said that he will come back and see her on Day 45.

While he was at Massie Lodge he had a look at Libby’s colt, Jakey who seems to have come off a little worse for wear after being kicked by one of the other mares or foals. Poor wee baby! Both Libby and Jakey are now up with us in the Hospital Paddock so that we can keep him restricted and attend to the wound. (Not to mention, to go over and have secret cuddles).

But what is it with vets and doctors who always turn to the much beloved Penicillin when there seems to be even the slightest threat of bacterial or viral infection? Sorry, but it seems to be the standard response when my….

“Horse has a bad leg” “Give it a jab with Penicillin”
“Horse is not well in the stomach” “Give it a jab with Penicillin, call me tomorrow”
“Horse is off colour” “Give it a jab, twice a day, with Penicillin”
“Horse is looking at me sideways” “Give it a jab with Penicillin, does he need glasses?”
“Horse is standing on his head” “Give it a jab 3 times a day with Penicillin”

Hmmm

When I was growing up I had very bad sinus and had a tissue at my nose constantly (thank goodness for the advent of Aloe Vera tissues!). In fact, these days I still have sinus and both Evan and I suffer badly when the winds are blowing. In saying that, I think that we have been very lucky to escape bad colds since moving up to Warwick, as we are isolated from the masses. However, we do get into town on occasion and into the areas where the masses congregate – The Shopping Mall, but we have been lucky to fight off any viruses that we have caught from in there.

Back in those days, because I am classed as asthmatic, as soon as there was a slight wheeze on my chest, out came the prescription pad for a dose of some sort of pill or capsule (I wont mention what else that meant!!!!). These days, however, I tend to think a bit differently about colds and the treatment of such. Out comes the Echinacea with Zinc tablets, out comes the hot lemon drinks and so on and so on.

Iam surprised really how narrow minded some of the vets are when it comes to treating horses and dogs. In saying that, Iam not really having a go at them (I would never do that!), but Iam saying that they do not look outside the “ g “ of normal western commercial medicine for treatment. I must also say at this time we have been blessed with some very, very good vets since moving up here and they are all available at the end of a phone call. You cant argue with that sort of service.

Incidentally, just a side thought…… I bet those blokes who actually MAKE the antibiotics are laughing all the way to the bank!

When Chops came home from the trainers with a huge hoof abcess that was just not healing and a bowed tendon to boot I thought, “RIGHT, there must be a way to treat this other than…. um, er Penicillin. And it’s with that in mind that I got in contact with Robert McDowell, the Herbalist in NSW (author of the book, “Herbal Horsekeeping” which is in fact a great online resource, rather than hard copy book).

This bloke really does make a lot of sense to me, in fact, here is a link to his website:- www.herbal-treatments.com.au and you can see for yourself.

So as usual I will cut this very long story short and say that I have gone back to Robert McDowell for some help with Jakey and his leg. Buggar this Penicillin stuff!

I know what you are thinking dear reader…its the marvel of the 20/21st Century is Penicillin but surely we are using it too much?

And when a strong bacterial infection comes along (be it human, horse or canine) that needs a good strong dose of antibiotic what are we going to use then?

Not any of the known antibiotics because we have built an immunity to them due to over use.

I rest my case :-)

STAR FERRY...........

FINALLY GETS TO STEP UP TO A BETTER DISTANCE........

in what would seem a weak maiden at Toowoomba.

Iam sure that Susie must have had a huge L on her forehead when she awoke on Saturday morning (15th January, 2005). No, not L = Learner, but L = Loser. How many horses do you know of personally who are jumping out of their skin, and ready to race and then get stung by something in the sandroll???

If you work around horses, you will know that normally, the saying goes something like this, “If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong…”, or perhaps something a little more directed, “an accident waiting to happen?”

Does this seem familiar to anyone who might have a thoroughbred? Hmmmm.

All was fine with young Susie after her role until Matty Morris (her Jock for that night and her looker-after-her person) brought her out to give her a bath for her trip out to Toowoomba that afternoon.

And there it was. A huge welt behind her ear, growing by the minute! AAAAArgh. Greg, not one to dillydally around with something like that called the vet who gave her antihistamine shot.

Let me rewind time and go through the events of Saturday morning.

I awake very early Saturday, excited about seeing my girl run in a mile race, which is still way too short for her.

7.00am Greg the trainer rings. Have I seen the odds in the local paper? No I haven’t at that
stage, but would call him back once I had become human enough to get up.

7.30am Another call… I see it’s from Greg and I think to myself, “What the????” Greg’s first
word’s to me are, “You are not going to be happy about this”.

Oooh……


AAAArgh!!!!!!!

My first thought is AAAARGH!!!!…. She has broken her leg getting into the float and it then escalates to “After eating her breakfast, she has developed serious colic.” My hopes of having a happy Saturday morning, quickly running down the drain. And then Greg tells me about the insect in the sandroll.… and believe it or not, I was relieved because there are at least one million things that can go wrong with a horse that is due to race.

Can you picture this? A huge sand roll, full of the best sand that horses just love to roll in and play in. Can you imagine how many grains of sand that it would have taken to actually fill the sand roll for thoroughbreds to play and roll in. My mind cant come to terms with the amount of sand that it would of taken to fill up Greg’s sandroll. Yet, Susie managed to find the one area of the sandroll and the exact grain of sand that had an insect in it.

Go Figure.



Believe it or not there are hundreds of thousands of millions of things that can go wrong with a horse standing in a paddock, quietly eating the grass, minding its own business. You think they are safe….. but HAH!!! ARE YOU WRONG OR WHAT??

Anyway, I digress. So poor old Susie girl had a huge lumpy thing behind her ear that was very sore to the touch and was growing steadily. Iam glad that my Susie girl, however, remembered that she still had her trusty feedbin and hay to keep her energy levels up in times of sickness.

By Monday all was well with the girl, and now we face the problem of finding a 1600m maiden for her within the 21st Century. No, Iam being facetious now. We need to find a race for her within the next week or so as we still need to keep her up to the mark where she was with her fitness and still be able to step up her distance and, ideally, we want to do that by the end of this preparation. I guess we need to know where her line is….. 1600m, 1800m, 2000m, 2400m or even 3200m.


It’s taken me nearly an hour to get all this down. Not because I can’t type, but because I keep getting interrupted and have to remember where I was going with this diatribe. Lancey and Bessie Merle are asleep on my feet here in the study. Evan is out in the lounge room doing the form for tomorrow and Iam starting to…………..

**yawn**

Let me write down a few things that I will have to speak about next time:-

1. Chops goes back into work
2. Vicky finds happiness with Peter and Ange
3. Weaning time approaches at Massie Lodge.

No, I don’t really think that Susie is a loser. She’s my girl. :-)


Helen.

T’was the season to be……

Exhausted, cranky, tired etc etc… Don’t you just love Christmas? Actually, I can’t really complain about the festive season this year, which is a real surprise. Our Christmas went a little like this:-

Friday Night

Drinks over with the neighbours. Isn’t it funny how one drink turns into 21? But in all honesty it was a good night and especially the fact that all we had to do is traipse across the paddock, past Trousers and Shorts and climb under the bottom rail. Then, to negotiate the steel poles that were left on the ground, be greeted by our Neighbour’s dogs Lochie and Prince, walk past the shed and the absolutely gorgeous Carbon Fibre colt, then to be greeted by little Johnnie. FINALLY we made it!

We finally made the return journey cross-paddock after midnight only to be greeted by Bessie Merle, Lancey, Millsie and Matilda. Who then demanded their dinner?

Saturday

Lets just say that we greeting the holiday with a hangover!

Ah Christmas Day. After the traditional cutting of the ham for toast on Christmas Day and the opening of Pressies, we made our way up to Brisbane to have lunch at my Uncle’s place.

I must say that Lunch was enjoyable even though it was quite strange sitting there with my “long lost” brother, I thought to myself how the years had been very hard on him and his partner. However, I know that drugs be it a narcotic or alcohol, will do that to you.

While it was nice to see everyone, it was even nicer to be coming home again.

Sunday

Off again this time into Carindale, a suburb of Brisbane to have a BBQ with some of our friends. Lunch was had (yes more food to contend with), and then we were off again home to feed the 4 paws and 4 hooved ones that were waiting for us once again.

By this time, both Evan and I are just plain exhausted and don’t want to have to drive for quite some time.

All is peaceful once again at Massie Lodge. Then Thursday comes around.

You know, it just never ceases to amaze me how many people in this world walk around with blinkers on with matching earmuffs and their brains shoved up their.......... hmmmm. I digress... slightly

Where was I before I rudely interrupted my train of thought?

Ah yes, the festive season………………….

New Years Eve

My brother Neil, his friend Jan and my nephew Adam came up for a couple of days and a good time was had by all! It was great to see Neil, Adam and Jan. It’s a pity that the New Year doesn’t come in any earlier in the night, as we all struggled to keep our eyes open!

Jan fell in love with Vera (my Prego Mare) and her filly, April who are now the established Victor mowers around our property and loving every minute of it. Its nice sitting on the verandah and looking up to see a big Chestnut face eating the grass near where you are sitting!

Speaking of the “kids”……….

Vera is doing much better now and we are very happy with her recovery , whatever infection she had seems to have disappeared and she certainly is doing much better in the coat and condition wise. April seems to be benefiting from Vera feeling much better as her foal hair is just about all gone. Just quietly I think that they both love the attention. Actually, right now if I look out my right hand side window (Iam sitting in the study), I can see Vera’s beautiful chestnut face right up at the window looking in and thinking “what the hell is going on in there?”….

Oriana is still with us and will be agisting with us till the end of the month when her new owner will send her to be broken in.

Missymoo, our 3yo Kinjite filly has come home for a freshen up from the breakers and will go back in 3 weeks time.

Trousers and Shorts have come home from Lyndhurst hopefully with Trousers in foal to Irish Royal. Perhaps a little light for my liking, but nothing a stint down the back paddock wont cure.

Nanna, Sweetie and Libby, our 3 girls in foal (Nanna is in foal and Sweetie and Libby are to be 45day tested next week) are doing well together down the back in our 30 acre paddock. Their babies, Lily (Nanna), Jake (Libby) and Lenny (Sweetie) have formed a little herd of their own and the boys are doing much better since coming home. Lily is an amazing filly and has now turned black (from brown). Odds on I think she will be a grey! She is a cracker of a filly and there is no way that she is being sold…. Well… I’am hoping that she won’t be sold…….. AAAAArgh!

Kay (Kwilas Ambition), my beautiful black mare, is in foal to Irish Royal and she is thriving since coming home.

And Chops….

Is still king of the girls and all the horses and still a right pain in the butt.

Susie (Star Ferry) hopefully will get a run on Sunday at the Sunshine Coast in a 1400m maiden. She did some fast work today and they were pretty pleased with her. Greg has changed tack with her training and has started giving her different work, rather than track work and is certainly thriving on the change, with the evidence in her fast work. Yes! She has got herself a start and Matty Morris will be riding her on Sunday (he does most of her work) and all going well, will continue to ride her if she pulls up well after tomorrow. Next stop is a step up to 1600m at Toowoomba next Saturday. GO THE GIRL.

Not that I have anything against the senior jocks, however, I do believe that there is some advantage with keeping the rider who does the track work. They know their horse. They know all their idiosyncrasies, the good bits and the bad bits… I actually like that. Matty is a good horseman and knows his horses – I like that as well.

Charlie (our Immovable Option yearling) has started his preparation for the sales next year. He is certainly proving a handful on one side… but on the other side a pleasure…. Sunny (our Kbenjar filly out of Libby), will be next up. Evan is great with the horses, especially the youngsters, very respectful yet firm if you know what I mean.

Dopey, Summer, Mariko and Eric the Horse continue to munch away happily down in the retirement paddocks, they are all looking very healthy indeed with grass bellies and a nice shiny coat.

Vicky (Vetiole) is having a visitor this afternoon all the way from Taree in NSW. I hate this part of the business and I just hope that if this guy buys her, he is kind to her and loves her as much as I do.

Ok I think that I have bent your ear for enough this time…………

Its now 2005… a whole new year… full of exciting opportunities, chances, dreams and horses. Perhaps it’s also a year for Lancelot and Bessie Merle to have puppies?

In fact, looking back to 2004…. Apart from a few hiccups and bumps in the road, it was a year full of good experiences and new friends that we have met through Massie Lodge. You cant ask for more than that.

Bring it all on 2005!