Blue Smarties!

Owing to the horribly dry summer, our grass has not been growing well, and has for a few weeks now been nothing but brown and crispy. So I decided that rather than use up our precious hay resources, which are going to be badly needed this winter, I would start giving the neds some sugar beet to bulk up their feeds. I also decided that breakfast and lunch would be added to the daily routine.

In theory this was a good plan as sugar beet is a vastly underestimated source of fibre and calcium, and would stop them feeling hungry without making them fat. However, when I went to purchase the sugar beet, I had not counted on the appearance of pregna-vision. Now pregna-vision, like its sister issue pregna-memory, is a phenomenon that commonly affects ladies who are ‘in the family way’. During my first pregnancy, pregna-memory saw me trying for half an hour to get the school photocopier to accept my bank card PIN number, rather than the photocopier code. This time pregna-vision ensured that I bought entirely the wrong type of sugar beet, which happens to have been liberally dosed with molasses. Consequently, for the past week, the neds have been receiving three very large meals a day, comprising mainly of heavily molassed sugar beet. Essentially the equine equivalent of feeding them a cartload of blue Smarties!

The results could be clearly seen this morning as the neds were doing laps of the PP track at a flat out gallop. Well Faith was going flat out, and Tilly and Tommy were doing there (rather inadequate) best to keep up with her. Disturbingly, when Faith hits top-gear, you can’t actually hear her hoofbeats. The only warning I have of their impending speedy approach is the sound of Tommy huffing and puffing, and his feet clumping along at speed.

Fortunately the sugar beet is now finished and is being replaced by a much more suitable product called ‘fast fibre’. ‘Fast’ referring to the speed at which it swells when soaked, not, I hasten to add, to the effect it has on the horses!