Newsletter

Thank you for coming back to Little Farm to hear about Russell and his twin sister Frances. If you would like to read earlier instalments of this newsletter please click on this link Newsletters. I should say at this point that Russell and Frances are both Shire horses.

As promised, this is what happened when Amy and Tim took Frances to the Gt. Harwood agricultural show. To get ready for that event, they had to learn how to present her in a competition.

New skills included mane and tail plaiting and creating pretty things on sticks to go in with the ribbon. You can probably tell that I do not have the first clue about this and you would be right, they didn’t have much more of an idea but were eager to learn.

To say she was one of a set of twins she turned out to be a lovely looking horse; she was the first born and was by far the strongest. We got a lot of interest in them when they were born. We were told that they were the only live set of Shire horse twins to be born in this country in 15 years.

It was amazing to think that two people who have never had any experience with shire horses did what established breeders don’t. They don’t for good reason, normally one will be born dead, sometimes both of them and if they do live a while, one will die later. Experienced breeders wisely remove the smallest twin while in the womb so that the one left will be healthy, stronger and have a better chance as survival.

On the day of the show, Frances won first prize in her class, which would normally have meant big celebrations. Unfortunately, that day there was a bit of an accident.

Tim and Amy set off before us with the horse and we followed about an hour and a half later. They needed the extra time to dress her up in her ribbons and things and all the other activities needed to show a horse in competition. On our way down the lane to our farm, Tim phoned and said that Amy had hurt her knee and could we bring painkillers. We went back for them and when we arrived at the show Amy was in quite a lot of pain and her knee was badly swollen. It looked far more than painkillers would sort out.

She had been plaiting the horse when something startled it. Being used to this Amy jumped off the trestle she was standing on to get out of the way. Unfortunately the ground was very bumpy with brambles growing in the longish grass and she tripped and fell backwards. Before she could get up, the horse knocked the trestle over, was startled again by that and kicked it, slamming it into her knee.

She figured that because there was no bruising that meant it wasn’t broken but I was not quite as convinced. She wanted to wait until the horse had been shown before going to hospital, which was obviously where she should have been at that moment. A very kind lady called Joanne fixed up the horse ready for showing and Amy insisted on waiting as she wanted to see how it did.

She bravely sat in what looked like the most uncomfortable position, almost bursting into tears when anyone, particularly her little boy, John, went anywhere near her. She can be quite determined when she wants to do something and I knew that she would brave it out if nothing was done to move her so Jim and I went in search of the St John’s ambulance people who are usually on show grounds to get an opinion from them. They said what I thought they would say which was the whole idea of bringing them to see her; Amy agreed to go to hospital. I went and brought the car round and it too three of them to lift her in. There was no way she could walk. You would have thought that would have told her it was time to go!!

We went to the local hospital and it was wonderful, we will go there again. She was in almost straight away. After an x-ray the doctor came, poked and prodded then left. The next thing was a nurse saying she had to be plastered up. I said 'is it broken then' to which she replied 'did he not tell you?'

It is quite a bad break at the top of the tibia and if she is not careful it will snap right through. She has a full leg pot on that will have to be taken off tomorrow and a permanent one put on.

She is very pleased the horse won anyway. They have a huge cup. Tim is feeling guilty because when she was on the floor, after the accident, he didn’t go to help, he just told her to get up! Typical man!!

Now the memory of that day is that our horse won first prize in her first outing. The fact that this was a small rural show has never taken away our pride in her achievement, and Amy? Well she now has a `war wound’ and a story to go with it.

Next month I will tell you the story of how we came to lose both Frances and her lovely mother, Lady. Not everything in life is a picnic, is it? And little farm is full of real farm life.