Christmas holidays......

Fially got a bit of time to catch up with the blogging, all been a bit busy recently....

To start off, my Christmas present from the other half - a trip to Olympia! Have never actually been before and it was great. Some hightlights were (in no particular order)getting driven past Harrods in a Roller,

 meeting Tim Stockdale,

having a pint of London Pride in a proper pub,

the extreme driving competition,

 seeing the GB medallists,

the Barcelona Mounted Police (gorgeous Iberians)

and of course getting to finally see the Hobbit (Richard Armitage, ding dong......)

And here are the video highlights, Nick Skelton jumping (for Ali), Boyd Exell in the extreme driving competition (he won), Jean-Francois Pignon, Shetland Pony Grand National, Royal Barcelona Mounted Police, Team GB medallists and the Christmas Finale.

Didn't get a lot of sleep over the two days we were there, but it was worth it.....!

Back home, the man priority has been getting Kinna out on the road. We did an in hand Interdressage class on the one sunny day of the week and she was very good about having rustling boxes strapped to her back and thought the tinsel looked very tasty......

We went out round the village to do the video (it was a family horse or pony class), gave the locals something to stare at anyway....

On Christmas Day, we made a wreath for the horses, plaited hay, carrots, sprouts and mints, it went down very well, apart from the sprouts, only Gandalf was prepared to eat them!

Then yesterday we tried Fina's saddle on Kinna and it's a reasonably good fit, Kinns is quite wide for a spindly horse! So we went for a little amble round the village and she wasn't too bad, apart from the shenanigans when she wanted to eat grass and wasn't allowed to! Luckily Ali found it all rather amusing......

Off up to Bordeaux later to see the Hobbit again, well I promised Ali I'd take her to see it, shouldn't be too much of a hardship to sit through a second time ;-)

Merry Christmas......

Kinna's first proper hack....

...well, sort of. No saddle, but definitely a rider, and she wasn't bothered at all.

She was pretty good, really, couple of little spooks at a dog and some silly showing off when we went past a pony in a field but that was about it.

The major annoyance was that she wouldn't stop biting poor Gandalf. He actually seemed to find this a lot less annoying than I did, which makes me wonder if she was doing it through anxiety and he sensed that, as he didn't reprimand her at all.....

Good start anyway, need the weather to stay nice so we can do lots more......

All change.....

Had a busy day today moving horses around. They all need to be off the land at Tanya's for a bit because due to the huge amount of rain we've had, it looks like this:

 

So most of them have gone up to the stables where the girls have their lessons, I think they're quite happy with the new digs!

But as I can barely afford for Fina to go into livery, big G has come home to be with Sky and Kinna. He immediately went for the hay and made it clear he is NOT SHARING! So I've had to do seperate nets for the girlies tonight....

 

G seems happy enough to be here, he was looking very serene in the sun earlier

 

Now we can start the ride and lead work with Kinna in earnest :-)

Christmas TREC

This year's Beaumont Christmas TREC competition at the weekend didn't quite go according to plan......we had entered as a team of four, but the day before we got the bad news that one of the tow vehicles wouldn't be ready in time so we had to decide which two could go. One of them had to be me, because, let's face it, I'm the only one who can actually read a map.......

So in the end, we loaded up Gandalf and Polo for the trip and everyone else came along to watch. I had managed to secure the services of a Shetland for the SNO, which she thought was rather marvellous, especially when her father, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her, let her off the leadrein......

...unfortunaltely, as there was a record number of teams this year, they didn't have a spare horse for Ali to ride, even the mules had been pressed into service, so she went round in the car with Tanya.

It rained all morning, until it was time to go, which was better than I was expecting. We set off down the slippery path into the woods, and very quickly caught up with the Shetland group shepherded by some disgruntled looking adults in big waterproof macs - and Mike, who had already relinquished control of Éowyn's pony. Which meant that as we passed the ponies (the one at the back tried to kick poor Gandalf, no wonder he's not keen on small ponies), hers was at the front and tried to trot off after us. She of course though this was great fun, so we had to wait until one of the unhappy helpers caught hold of her before we could carry on.

At the first checkpoint, predictably, Hollie forgot about unclipping her airjacket and had to do some undignified hopping with one foot still in the stirrup until she'd detatched herself, fortunately it didn't go off. The boys were happy to have a munch on some hay - until the Shetlands turned up and Gandalf thought it would be prudent to get out of there sharpish.....

On we went (still no rain) until the second checkpoint which consisted of a gazebo in a field. Gandalf, safe in the knowledge that gazebos are not, in fact, horse eating monsters, walked right on under it and attempted to help himself to the bread on the table......he nearly got away with it too, as I was momentarily distracted by one of the mules attempting to roll with its rider still aboard. The boys were both quite interested in the mules, actually......

Then we set off on the third leg of the course which took us back towards the town of Beaumont. At one point I saw from the map that we had to cross a main road, so I'd got Tanya to take Choccy away in the car. Turns out I needn't have worried, as we had to go UNDER the road in a not very inviting looking, low, narrow tunnel!

So I got off, and the boy breathed in, and calmly followed me through. Love him. Polo followed us and Hollie didn't even need to get off, just as well as if the air jacket had gone off in the tunnel, we might have had a problem getting her out......

Next, on up into the town itself and we rounded a corner to see.......some steps

I double checked the maps, but it was indeed the right way, so after a moment's hesitition (I think he was figuring out just where to put his feet), Gandalf went on up, and as soon as Polo saw him put a foot on the first step, he scrambled up ahead of us. Nice to see that all the strange stuff I do with him pays off :-)

We arrived at the last checkpoint after the usual wiggle through the little cobbled streets in Beaumont and we even managed to arrive by the right one. Stopped off for some wine and excellent pepper sausage, then headed back to the stables.

After the TREC was the traditional slap up 5 course meal with extra chocolates, mostly hoovered up by the SNO. Lots of people sitting in an indoor sand school wearing Santa outfits.

And finally the prize giving.....and we came 5th out of 12 teams, happy with that :-)

Pony jumping again

Went to another jumping competition last weekend and had an interersting day, as ever at these things. First problem was the guys marshalling the car park couldn't work out where to put the trailer as it was so long, we got the usual stares from the locals.......then we unloaded Chester, and attracted more stares and "what is that?" comments

Got him and Fina tacked up, took them to the collecting ring, sent Ali in on Fina who immediately started playing up as she didn't want to leave him, then didn't want to do any work and kept trying to head out the gate......this is what happens if she doesn't get her usual amount of work I suppose. Anyway, Ali got her back on track and concentrating on going over some jumps and once she'd let off a bit of steam she soon settled.

Meanwhile I narrowly avoided being mown down by a child on a small Shetland who had no control whatsoever when said Shetland decided to tank off out of the arena and scoff some grass......

Eventually, after the usual Obligatory French Faffing About Time (OFAT), as Mike calls it, it was Fina's turn to jump. I was wondering how she would react as it was in an indoor school for the first time, but she was fine about it and just ran out at one jump because, as Ali said herself, she got her line wrong.

 

Then Ali went and warmed Chester up. I stayed with Fina and thus didn't hear some of the comments the locals were making about Ches, according to Ali and Hollie it was along the lines of "look at the size of those legs, he'll never get off the ground" (if I had I would have had something to say to them, I can assure you). Anyway, Ches cleared the practise jumps beautifully so hopefully that shut them up!

We were all hoping he'd go clear in his round to prove them wrong but unfortunately as soon as he went in he was looking around a bit concerned and I guess he'd never been in an indoor school before. He had a refusal, then jumped it and carried on round but having a really good look at them all, and after a couple more runouts, got eliminated. But the ones he did jump, he didn't touch......

 

 

Still, we were pretty pleased with him first time out and I think a few jumping lessons up at the club and he'll be good to go for future comps.

We watched a load more classes, there was far too much in the way of strapping mouths shut/gags/martingales etc for my liking and a lot of uncomfortable looking horses, as well as far too many kids wearing spurs and clearly not knowing how to use them properly......

And the inevitable breaking loose of horses from trailers followed by running shouting owners. Every single time, that happens.......

The Sunday Hooley Gang.....

Sunday mornings seem to be the time for those of us that like a fast ride to go out for a hack. We did 11kms yesterday in ridiculously mild weather for mid November, came back with some very warm horses, even the Thoroughbred worked up a sweat!

Mr Gandalf was keen to run as usual, after the previous day's amble when he was also keen to run, but my companion wasn't, so he contented himself with some piaffe-like trotting when told he couldn't go charging off......

So yesterday we had Gary the Fearless (typical bloke, only been riding about a year, no idea what could actually go wrong so he charges about the countryside regardless of terrain or conditions underfoot). He's very laid back, which is perfect for Le Sorcier who is a typical sensitive, big girl's blouse, OMG my rider's worried, what shall I be scared of? TB (sorry to any TB owners out there who have big brave ones).

Then my (over)confident daughter, riding Chester, who due to lack of exercise and excess energy has been doing entirely too much bucking and charging off recently - fine in the field but not so good when you've got a 10 year old on your back. Or not, as turned out to be the case by the time he'd finished........

And finally, there is the aforementioned 10 year old, Hollie, now fully equipped with air jacket, on Polo, who is a great little pony but also has his moments..

So off we went, the other three hooleyed up the stony hill in the woods (Mr Gandalf doesn't do hooleying on stones), then hooleyed on through some vines, the others seemingly oblivious to the muddy, slippery bits, Mr Gandalf doesn't like cantering on slippery ground either so we took it somewhat more steadily....

So, dodgy incidents included Sorcier nearly failing to see a ditch and swerving away from it at the last minute (Gary stayed on!), Polo spooking at a pheasant (Hollie stayed on!) and Ches doing his head down bucking bronco party piece (Ali stayed on!), and Chester bit the dog (she yelped!)

No one hit the deck at all, in fact.....until we got back and Hollie jumped off Polo - totally forgetting she hadn't unclipped her air jacket, and the force of it inflating knocked her off her feet!

Wonder how many times that's going to happen......?

Some thoughts on jumping

Not a big deal to a lot of people. Me, I never really liked it. Probably because the horse I learned to ride on was a fat old cob called Fothergill. Now my regular readers will know that I have no problems with fat old cobs, as Gandalf is one of those and he's the horse of a lifetime. But Fothers, as he was (un)affectionately known, was totally different. He seemed  to me, as I was at the age of 10 or 11, to spend his entire life thinking up ways to make my life unpleasant.

He was stiff and wooden and when the other horses did a nice circle he would spend most of the time pulling on the bit to go in a straight line. He would stop dead when asked to trot. He really made me work for any kind of response in fact. At the time I called him a stupid horse. I didn't know any better. And he was really, really good at getting his rider to go over a jump without him......

He was hogged and trimmed in fine old British cob showing style, so I didn't even have a mane to grab on to. He would lumber up to the jump, exhibiting enough energy to fool me into thinking that he'd actually go over it this time, then stop dead and stand there as I somersaulted over his head and landed in the sand.

I never did develop enough of a good seat at the time to stay with him. I realise now, having seen another cob doing the same thing just today, that he'd simply drop his shoulder and as I was totally unbalanced, off I'd go.

Sadly I have no photographs of this equine paragon as my parents used to drop me off at the stables' gate and beat a hasty retreat. Not something my daughters can ever accuse me of!

Although Fothergill is long gone, his legacy lives on. Which means that I have spent a lot of time not jumping stuff because of those unpleasant memories. And to be fair, Gandalf doesn't exactly seem keen either. But as we need to pop the odd log for TREC competitions, we do have to occasionally make the effort.

Recently, a tree came down on the campsite. It's not huge, really, but it's very solid, in the way that only tree trunks can be. Needless to say, Alienor was merrily flinging  ponies over it without a second thought straight away.

I looked at it the other day and thought......nah, bit too big.

Today the girls were again flinging ponies over it and I decided to go for it. Hadn't even had a drink at lunchtime.........and we did it!

Terrible position, as my daughter was quick to point out. I tend to adopt the hunting type "stay on at all costs" seat, rather than the elegant showjumping style the kids are taught. But WE DID IT!!!

There's even a video

Who says Percherons and fat birds can't jump? ;-)

Still up for running about...

First hack out since our holiday on Sunday and the boy was on form, we only did an average of 8km/h but I wasn't on my own. Had some great hooleys though, really pleased with Ali in this one as she managed to stop Fina chasing off after Sorcier for the first time :-)

Second bit of film, up the gallop track, G got a bit excited. There was a poor cyclist at the top of the hill who looked like he was sneaking into the vines to answer a call of nature and suddenly had 4 horses galloping towards him.....

Thenn I got out last night for a quick 7kms with Ali. Only one sticky moment, when some cattle were very interested in Choccy, and were running arouund near the fence Missy Hissy Yellow Pony threw her toys out of the pram big time, and it took ages to ger her past them.....

Then just past the cows there was a piece of electric tape across the path, not wishing to find out the hard way if it was live, we had to turn round and go back past them. Even with all that faffing about we still managed 8km/h.

Lovely evening for it......

A somewhat soggy holiday.....

Haven't been around for a couple of weeks as we've been on our annual holiday to the UK. This time we went to Anglesey where wifi apparently hasn't yet been invented......

Stayed in a great holiday cottage near Beaumaris, discovered a great little ruined castle just up the road and a moody windswept beach down the road, yomped the kids around both!

We did the usual tourist stuff, including yomping small children up Snowdon (they were unimpressed)

....although we had to give up and turn back 2kms from the summit due to rather a lot of weather arriving, horizontal sleet, fog etc......Mike had already run up to the top though - and said you couldn't see a damn thing up there when we met him on his was back down!

Rather stunning countryside up there - the bits we could see, anyway.......

Of course we also went riding, a fun ride to the beach where we did some great canters, I managed to get a few shots before the rain arrived and forced me to put the camera away

Map and more photos of that ride here.

Great scenery in Wales, horses everywhere on Anglesey, could be a cool place to live if you were waterproof ;-) The sun did put in an appearance occasionally though, like the day we arrived and the day we left......