More TREC

Took Team Horsetales Junior and the pones to Naulet for a day of TREC training today. Realised our mistake almost immediately when Aude announced that as they were all under 16 we'd have to accompany them on the POR....on foot. Note to self, next time, bring horse.

Lovely day for it though......

Some of it was a bit hilly......they had to wait for us to catch up!!

Map thingy here

After that, it was back to the ranch for a spot of lunch and then some PTV practise.

Bit of video here:

Organza was a bit of a handful at times, but she got there in the end.....

Messing about bareback.....

The girls had a little play with Chester and Seraphina this afternoon, I rarely watch anyone else ride Ches, I think he's carrying himself a bit better than he used to, the nose isn't in the air all the time any more.......

A little video:

A little outing.....

Well the holidays are here which means more time to do stuff with Ali.....today we took her and Fina up to Beaumont to do a 2 day stage for her Galop de Pleine Nature, which is like the usual Galop exams but with less boring schooling stuff and more TREC like things, it's all about the everyday out and about leisure rider.

Seraphina had a nice new set of travel gear (early Xmas present for Ali)

She was a bit reluctant to get in the trailer and leave the others but it didn't take us long to load her and she travelled well. We left her in a box at Isabelle's whilst Ali and the others went for lunch, Tanya and I had to go off to Bergerac for a bit, then I went back later in the afternoon to see what they were up to.

As I arrived, I saw Ali and Fina all tacked up and ready to go.......waiting for the French to finish faffing........

Eventually a load of small ponies emerged from the stables and Ali tagged along behind them.

They all did the PTV course which Isabelle had set up in the school, a bit soggy but never mind....

Seraphina looked a bit out of place with the Shetlands......! But then the little ones went back in and Ali tagged along with the horses and did the course again, here's the video:

She was pretty well behaved overall, occasionally trying to drag Ali over to other horses, there were the usual loose ones wandering about to add to the confusion in the school, she was very interested in one of them!

After they'd finished, we settled her in for the night in her stable, she seemed happy enough......

All good experience for her!

The farrier came

Farrier came this morning (eventually, over an hour late). Got the ponies in from the field, it's a wild wet and windy day here so they were a bit skittish but settled down with a haynet by the stables.

Took some pics of Ebony's feet before the trim

Bit of a mess.......

She was a good girl for him mostly

only tried to rear a couple of times......!

Her feet are a lot better now, he said she's had laminitis, you can see where the laminae have come unravelled at the toe from this pic of a bit he cut off.....

Ruby wasn't too bad either, she only tried to bite him the once

.

 A couple of times when the wind really got up she didn't want to stay still so he had to let go of her and she flinched away, clearly expecting to get walloped for moving :-(

So now they have nice trimmed feet

Pretty good girls considering how awful the weather is!

Getting to know the girls

Spent a bit of time with the pones today. They weren't too sure about my dog at first, but then she was running round like a loony growling for no readily apparent reason......once they realised she was actually more scared of them than they were of her they stopped worrying!

Ebony is starting to trust us already, Ali spent ages grooming and scratching her and generally being nice to her. We picked up her feet, no problems, hope it'll be the same for the farrier on Friday...

Got some more ticks off her too, and bot eggs......and tried Kinna's old rug on for size, although she doesn't need it yet, very mild here again.

So mild in fact as I was amazed to discover there were about 20 mouches plates under poor old Ruby!! Rubes reminds me of Chester when he arrived, she makes the ears back "I'm cross back off or I'll bite you" face, but within half an hour she'd stopped doing it as nothing bad had happened to her. She stood with her top lip wobbling whilst I removed all the mouches and a fair few ticks.....

When we picked her feet up she wasn't so keen but she did it without too much protest. She was giving everything a good looking at, even people walking along on the far side of the river, I guess they didn't have a lot going on in the last place, their field was down a private lane so there wan't a lot passing by! They haven't met the SNO yet, that should be interesting ;-)

Ruby and Ebony.....

....are two Equine Rescue France ponies who are coming to stay for a bit! Tanya and I went to do their annual home check a couple of weeks ago, only to discover that their guardian has moved to Spain and left a friend to check on them "every couple of days"!!!

They are too fat, their feet, particularly Ebony's are overgrown they are behind on worming and vaccinations and one of them hasn't been registered with the SIRE, all of which should have been done. So we collected them to bring them to Tanya's so we can get everything sorted and start the search for new guardians. Went to get them this morning, they were pleased to see us, came pelting across the field when they saw the car. Ebony was a bit silly prancing around and didn't want to be caught at first but we got her after a few minutes. Ruby went straight into the trailer, we didn't even have to break out the emergency bucket of feed (Low calorie balancer, naturally). Ebony wasn't so sure, she stood at the bottom of the ramp for a while, eventually I picked one of her feet up and put it on there, that seemed to reassure her so I encouraged her forwards again. She got stuck with both forefeet on so I did the same with a hind and then she was in. They were good as gold during the journey, when we arrived, Ruby backed down the ramp like a pro, but Ebony decided she just couldn't go backwards so we opened the front ramp for her.

They said hello to the residents....

...and were very calm really. No silly mareish squealing for a start! Took a load of big fat ticks off Ebony, going to have to give them a thorough going over I think.

What Sundays are for......

Got loads done today, went out for a hack this morning with the Speed Twins, Gary and Hollie, here's the  map and photos, we did a bit of ditch jumping practise, Gandalf and Polo, no problem, but Sorcier had to be persuaded over most of them!! Gandalf wore himself out again trying (and failing)to keep up with Sorcier.....

Then this afternoon I went out with my girls, Skyfaxa was very good about Fina cantering away....

...in fact nothing bothers her as long as she can eat grass!

Discovered on the way back that she'll do some nice lateral moves if she thinks it'll get her to the grass on the verge!

And we discovered some pretty spotties, one of them looks a lot like Sky's sire, must find out who they belong to.

Kinna's turn

Haven't had time to do much with Kinna recently so I spent a bit of time with her in the round pen today. She was a good girl.....

......so good, in fact, that we tried this:

Not bovvered at all :-)

A not so quick walk.....

Went for a walk this morning, a quick tour round the village turned into nearly 2 hours as people kept stopping to talk to me. Some workmen with a digger were very interested in Sky, she didn't worry about the digger at all as there was a nice green verge to eat......

We practised jumping ditches.....

...and climbing up banks (the grass at the top was obviously better!)

She's such a mud monster...... but you can still see a few of her spots!

When we got back her feet were nice and clean from walking through the grass so I used the rider's rasp to smooth the edges, very easy to use!

Polo pony

Did a lesson for Hollie and Polo today. He's a strange little chap, he really doesn't like big people. He'll let Éowyn march straight up to him.....

.....but he'll run away from me. Spent a good couple of hours on Monday getting him to trust me enough to let me touch him. Then today we were back to square one. Hollie and Éowyn could go straight up to him and put his headcollar on no problem though.

Tried his new bit out today, he hasn't been happy with any of the ones he's had before, he pulls a lot and always snatches the reins out of Hollie's hands just like Chester used to do when he first arrived, the result of too much heavy handedness in the past probably.

So today we did some stuff with no contact at all (the opposite of how she has to ride at Poney Club) and he seemed much happier.

I just wish he'd stop looking at me like I'm about to eat him! Guess it'll take time......

It's that time of year again.....

Time for the Beaumont Christmas TREC! Got up at stupid o' clock to load the boys in the dark and the rain, Gandalf won't load unless we put all the lights on in the car and open the doors at the front of the trailer. Ches doesn't care because he knows there's hay in there!

Drove to Beaumont in the rain. Unloaded and tacked up in the rain, you get the idea. Lots of other nice dry clean horses emerged from various trailers all rugged and booted, ours were muddy and hairy, never mind. Went down to the map room, there were various letters to add to the map, not sure about the significance of them, never mind, got on and got going. In the rain.....

Ali's pony wasn't too chuffed about leaving his mates and going out with strange horses, lots of ears back and at one point tried to kick Gandalf Never mind, still loads better than the pony from hell we ended up with last year......

Arrived at checkpoint one in the rain, nice bit of hot soup to keep us going, the team behind arrived and Ali's pony, recognizing some of his mates, got a bit unneccessary and started rearing, had to read him the riot act, he soon settled down. We carried on, in the rain, mostly went the right way, got to checkpoint 2.

Glass of wine and some charcuterie this time, and we were handed a piece of paper explaining that the letters on the map are for the clips you have to punch your card with, but you must only clip the card if the clip is where the letters are, there may be some letters without clips or some clips in the wrong place, so don't clip the card with those..... 

It's not usually so complicated!

On we went, still raining, the tracks were getting nice and muddy by now, at one point we cantered up a hill, well the other three did and Ches set off after them but couldn't work out why he was running and not moving, he'd found a huge patch of mud and was just wheel spinning in place, the others looked back to see me laughing and laughing....he eventually got some grip and we charged up the hill.......

Last checkpoint and more wine and nibbles, Ches managed to knock a tray of them out of the guy's hand sadly for him it was all meat so even he didn't try to eat any off the ground. He did try to eat the plastic bin bag though......

Back to the stables, still raining, put the boys in a box with some hay, and hung around waiting for the rest of the teams to come in. The littlies on the Shetlands arrived back, the SNO had a brilliant time, Mike possibly less so trudging through the mud for 9kms.

Then it was food time, slap up lunch by a local traiteur with more wine of course and chocolates, we had to keep an eye on the SNO who kept trying to sneak off and steal the chocolates from the other tables.

Then the prizes, we were't last in the club section (!) but came fourth out of 7, and got an extra prize for the best fancy dress.We got a bag containing some enormous dried sausages, jars of paté and walnuts. And Mike got a bottle of bubbly for trudging round in the mud.