Darcy and his roller

[mjffey]

Hi Elaine,

I posted this also on IH board but thought it would be nice for this board too. Any tips on how to work our boys are welcome.
Would love to have Sean over for a day to give us some hands on lessons, but guess that it would be to expensive.


I'll start with a picture of Darcy and his roller:



I know, it shouldn't sit there and that's not where we put it. It was the first time that we put a roller and girth on Darcy. We had tried with throwing things over his back and he was ok with that. We had tried with two lines walking behind him. (as far as he wants to walk once the head collar is on anyway), so we thought we would take it a step further.
We had measured Darcy and finally got a roller and girth big enough. (205cm circumference)
We just had it strapped and thought how well he coped with it when it all began.. Darcy exploded!
I got knocked over and got a kick against my shin and Frans got kicked against his knee. So all the safety harnesses, shoes and helmets were of no use.
Next time I'll were shin protectors instead of body protection.

We waited outside the field till he had calmed down. I tell you. Seeing it on TV in Monty's shows is something different then seeing it in reality with a 600kg 17.2 hand giant. His feet were everywhere, the electric fence went, he kicked the paddock. We were glad we didn't try this IN the paddock. He would completely have demolished it and might got hurt.



After Darcy had calmed down Frans got the roller of by hanging over the paddock railing out of reach of Darcy's feet. We left him for a while and gave him a few treats. Then Frans clicked on the lead and had a good session with him. At least he ended on a good note, but boy, boy. It was quite an afternoon.

[drifter6]

Hi, hope ye have recovered from your experience and Darcy as well, I would like to suggest that the next time ye are putting on the roller that ye put a restraint around Darcy's neck and then attach it to the roller to prevent the recurrence of the roller moving back ,this as you now know is very dangerous , hope this helps .
A Friend and I were once discussing the expense of acquiring knowledge,and I expressed the fact that I thought that it was very costly, my friend looked at me and asked if I had ever tried the lack of knowledge and its cost.

[Elaine]

Oh no, I hope you are all ok...

[mjffey]

Hi Drifter6,

If you have a husband in the Dole, then every euro can be to much. We have just been discussing that, if he doesn't have a job when winter kicks in, we will have to sell the boys as we won't be able to afford them anymore. All the extra feed will be to costly.
Selling will probably be a problem anyway as I think that Darcy has a sarcoid. Who wants a horse who has sarcoids? All in all I'm very desperate. I have the idea that we're not getting anywhere with the boys. Maybe it was just a very bad idea to get horses that are not handled, altough when we bought them we didn't know that they weren't. We try to get all the info out of books as we don't know anybody here in the west who could help us with the training.
Sorry for the rant. Just having a bas day.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

[cooper69]

hi mjffey we to are in a simuler situation money is very tight at the mo so lessons are out of the question for us to but saying that the 7 games are a good place to start and are posted on the forum this is a very good place to start. and if you get stuk post the problem and im shur you will get more advice than you can wish for and its free .ps darcy will thank you

[Elaine]

PM-ed you.