Charlie Pickman

Being an Event Rider can be a dangerous job!!

It will not be long now before the new eventing season begins.  New hopes, new excitements and lots of planning.  I hope you had a good Christmas and are looking forward to the coming year too.

Unfortunately 2007 didn't end well for me, as I was kicked in the face.  I was fly bucked off a young TB mare whilst jumping, and then to make it worse she kicked me on the way down catching my lower jaw.  My jaw bone broke in several places, 2 teeth went flying out and others were just about hanging in there.  I was concussed, and I am told I made a bit of a mess of the school and the fence posts which had to be washed down!

Despite finding the teeth in the school (and putting them in milk) the surgeons couldn't replace them because there was no bone to hold them in so I am a bit gappy at the moment.  I was amazed my teeth came out whole as I know how hard it can be to extract them from a horse!  I have 2 plates and 20 screws holding my jaw together, which will not be removed, so airport security could be interesting next time I travel abroad.  I will make all the metal detectors go off!

In actual fact I was very lucky as it could have been a lot worse.  When I got to the hospital I had bad concussion and had lost all my memory back to May 2007.  As my eyes were not responding to light changes they gave me a brain scan to check for internal bleeding in the skull.  My short term memory was about 30 seconds and I am told I was constantly repeating things and asking the same questions.  But I can't remember any of that!

Now after 6 weeks I am well on the mend.  I will have to wait until March to have some new teeth, but other than that am almost back to normal.  My memory is fine now bar the day of the accident, which I may never remember, and I am back riding and working.  I did manage to eat my Christmas dinner through which was good!

Also, Meg has been in the wars to.  She had to have an operation on her hock to remove a foreign body.  This turned out to be half an inch long and very sharp.  We don't know how it got there and are waiting for the test results to come back to see what it actually is.   She is making a good recovery and although this is a setback for her she will hopefully be back in work in 2 weeks so Bramham may still be a possibility for her.

Viking, Billie, Josh and Minnie are all now in light work and will start competing in the next week or two.  They should be ready for the beginning of the season in March.

Dazzler is still in foal and is very calm - bit like a donkey in fact!  She was the third casualty for 2007 as she was kicked below her hock by her stablemate who had just returned from an exciting day hunting on Boxing Day.  All is well, but we have a large vets bill to show for his exhuberance!  The building of her foaling box has been delayed because of the very wet weather - and the paddock is a complete mess after the JCB - but hopefully it will be ready for the new foal...!

Charlie