Trip to Beaumont

Today we took Seraphina up to Beaumont with us for our driving lesson to see what she would think of the carriages.

She took everything in her stride and was very curious, especially about the donkey!

We followed along behind the carriages absolutely fine.....

...and we even had a peek at the TREC PTV course

We won a TREC!

Well yesterday we did our first official TREC competition, just at club level which is the lowest level......and we won! And no, we weren't the only team in the competition.....

First up in the morning was the PTV, the Parcours en Terrain Varié or obstacle course as we know it. We had to do a slalom, a maniabilité test which was a pretty narrow s shape to negociate between poles, Gandalf had to do turns on the forehand to get round!

Then there was a little log which most people jumped, but we stepped over, then ride up a slope, dismount, lead down a slope, get back on with the horse standing in a circle which it musn't move out of, over a little brush jump (or walk, in Gandalf's case, Ches jumped it though!) get off again, lead over a bridge, then the horse had to stand in a circle and not move for 10 seconds (immobilité) whilst the rider walked away, G & C very good at this due to grass being available to eat! Then we had to get back on, ride through a "passerelle", a corridor of poles, one wide one and one narrow one, then more immobilité but mounted this time.

Some pics (courtesy of Stewart!)

After that was the Maitrise des Allures, or control of paces. You have to canter down a track as slowly as possible and walk back along it as fast as possible. We definitely need more practise!! Gandalf started off OK at the canter but down the end was spooked by a dog and shot off the track in a bid to get back to the other horses, I got him back on track but he dropped to a trot so we lost all our points......and Ches refused to canter at all so didn't get any points either! 

In the afternoon we did the POR, Parcours d'Orientation, the map reading bit. We went wrong a couple of times, one of the tracks was really overgrown so we missed it at first but we got there in the end, and managed to find the "balises", the little clips you have to mark your card with en route. We were in a team with Jo on Socianda and a French girl on a huge grey Selle Francais, so our boys had to do a fair bit of trotting to keep up!!

And of course, a pic of the trophy!

Riding lesson for the girls.....

As it was a Bank Holiday here today, I took the girls up to the carriere (well OK, school marked out in a field) with the pones. And ended up doing a bit of lesson for them.....

We did a warm up at the walk, going over some of our Trec training course which is still there, then did some riding apart and doing things at opposite ends of the school, getting them to keep the same distance apart, not easy as Ches kept slowing down to wait for Fina and she kept speeding up to get to him!! The girls got them sorted in the end though.

Then we had the inevitable question "Can we do a jump?". Well we did it progressively, walked over, trotted over, and Ches was a total star and did the jump from canter a few times! Didn't push Fina to do it as I don't think she's done any jumping yet. Here's an edited  video of the lesson.

Hollie did excellently well, even when Ches did his party piece at the canter......!

Apparently they want to do this more often.......

We went wine tasting.......

Sarah came up today to ride Seraphina, and we all went out for a nice hack.

Seraphina was as good as gold (apart from a little argument about having to go across a ditch!) and we had some nice canters.

Along the way we went past the Cave Coop so we stopped in so Sarah could try some of the local vino......

The horses were great, just stood there dozing off and didn't even leave any "presents" behind.......
Fun day, must do it more often!

Chasing!

Seraphina obviously had some energy to burn today, first she chased poor Choccy out of the field.....

....then rounded up the boys and they all went for a gallop, not great photos as it was raining and I only had the phone with me......

Aliénor gets on with it!

Today Ali rode Seraphina for the first time since she fell off her last year. She was a bit apprehensive to start with but once she realised Missy wasn't going to do anything dreadful, she soon relaxed and started enjoying herself!

She even got a bit adventurous......

So after the hack out on the lead rein, we let her loose in the school, and it went very well.

Going to get her working on just listening to her rider, lots of bending, trying to keep her head low. As soon as she goes up a gear she tends to get her head up and stop listening so we'll stick to walking for now.
Here's some video. I love the way Ali sings to her in the woods!