When Honey came her back legs were covered in mud fever and the coat was matted thick with dirt, dung and goodness knows what else. She's very warey about you touching her legs or brushing or moving her tail. She's good with me picking her feet now, but I always do it in the same order and I rub her fetlock to ask her to pick her foot up. She's still not comfortable with me running my hands down her legs. Her body is ok, but not her legs she's much more nervous of her back legs being touched and also her tail. I've been gradually trying to gently brush the worst of the hair off using just my hands. Over the last week because it has been so hot she has been sweating and rubbing. The hair has all came out between her back legs and there is just patches of raw skin. It looks really sore. I wanted to wash her legs down and apply some cream. She doesn't like the hose, but she will now stand next to me whilst it is running on the ground or if I am moving it filling up water buckets. I decided to see if I could hose her legs down, so I could try and clean her up and make her more comfortable. I held her rope and stood for 5 minutes with the hose running (it was hardly on and barely trickling). I gradually moved the end of the hose closer to her, so the water was touching her foot, she instantly started trembling and shaking all over. I've never seen a fear reaction quite like it. Within seconds she was shaking so much I thought her legs were going to buckle. I turned the hose off as quickly as I could and led her away to let her have a nibble of grass and calm down. She didn't try and move or get away, she was frozen to the spot shaking. I felt (still feel) so guilty. I did need to try and clean her legs, so I gently tried sponging her down. She was better with this, still not comfortable with you being near her back legs and she would panic if any drips of water ran down her legs, but I managed to get them fairly clean and she was fine when I applied the cream. I've introduced many horses to water being hosed, but I have never seen a reaction like Honeys. I don't want to imagine what has happened to her in the past, but I think that she has either been caught up in fencing or something or forcefully restrained. I've finally found some of her summer coat and it's a lovely deep red colour.

There's normally a bit of squabbling over who gets to look out the door, but they've compromised so they can both see.

Two of the boys have moved into the field next to the ponies for a while. The ponies were very interested in saying hello.